For those of you that had surgery, are your bowel movements as easy to pass as they were in your pre-fissure days?
My fissure is almost healed through diet and medication, but I don't think my bowel movements will ever be the same again after all of this. I know that I will always have to have a high fiber diet, and that does not bother me in the least. Right now, I feel like my whole life revolves around what I eat and drink. I don't want to life like this. I don't mind living a healthy life style - but this is crazy.
Do all of you surgery folks feel like you are back to "normal"?

I am back to normal ...

I wouldn't say that I am back to normal. I certainly have to think about eating and drinking what I need everyday, and in this way I completely sympathize with you. Who wants to constantly obsess with how much fiber and water they eat every day? Not I... but alas its something that we fissure people have to deal with.
I'd say that, given my diet and water intake are steady, my bowel movements are back to normal. But again, it all depends on how I am doing on my diet and water. If I am doing great, then I feel great, and if not... well you know.
My bowl movements actually seem easier to pass now that I am post surgery (over a year!). Possibly thats because there isn't nearly the amount of pain that I was experiencing before.
The best thing I would say is to try and find some foods that are staples in your new diet. High fiber things that you don't mind eating on a regular basis that don't taste like sand. I eat the fiber one granola bars, they have 9 grams of fiber in each and they taste great. I also have a bowl of cereal every morning with at least 5 grams of fiber. I eat raisin nut bran and quaker oatmeal squares, and they both taste fine. When you start getting into all bran buds and things like that, I just can't make myself like them.
I also eat Thomas' english muffins, they are the whole grain "light" ones with 100 calories, and they really don't taste much different if you put some butter or jelly on them. Those have 8 grams of fiber a pop. Basically... try too look for tasty foods that will give you the most bang for your buck!
Good luck, I hope this helps.
Kate

i wouldn't say that i am back to normal either.
mind you i didn't have the LIS but i am just rather cautious about going.
there is a big difference - the days pre-fissure, you just sat on the toilet, forced it out some days and others it just slipped out without a care in the world......now after post-fissure days, you take your time, and you are just more aware of how it is coming out and it's kinda like you have all these senses registering feedback for your mind to either proceed as necessary or simply somehow change sitting position or angle it a bit different or whatever just to make sure you don't retear or hurt yourself.
long gone are the days of a carefree crap!

I am definitely back to normal, and was in about 6 weeks poste surgery. My stools were pencil thin for a while as my sphincter readjusted but now they are usually a nice #4 on the Bristol Stool scale.

I agree with kate 100% and also eat all those yummy foods b/c as much as I love fruits and veggies I'd rather eat bread and granola bars.

PS I love the bristol stool scale! We needed sthg like this. As if we weren't weird enough talking about poo all day now we have an actual classification system?haha, LOVE IT!

I think the BSS is neat; no I am not a poop lover! But the first time I saw it, in the midst of my fissure, I thought, hey I never know from day to day which scale I'll be classified as. It gave me a goal!
Funny how after the surgery, I wasn't all over the board anymore.

i'm not back to normal and it's been almost a year since my 1st LIS, 5 months since my 2nd. i don't foresee ever being "normal" in regards to BMs. For now i'm totally dependent on MOM, this enables me to eat "normal people" food and still have a painfree BM most of the time.
after 2 unsuccesful surgeries, i don't see an end to this. My pain has lessened over the last 18 months, but the setbacks still happen pretty often. I may try botox this summer.
Sorry to be negative, but that's just my own experience.

i just checked out the stool scale. It's all about consistency and not much about size. I'm usually a 4-5, but the thicker ones still hurt.