I first got my fissure over 5 years ago but managed to get it to heal within a few weeks. Then after having my second child about 2.5 years ago, it retore and never fully healed. I then ended up having my third child over a year ago, and that one left me in excruciating pain. It did finally make me brave enough to go to the doctor and get some diltiazem cream which seemed to temporarily heal it, but anytime I stopped taking Miralax, it would retear. I went back to see the doctor and she said there's a lot of scar tissue and a skin tag. She said they rarely do the LIS procedure on women, so she wants me to try Botox. Along with the Botox, she plans to trim some of the scar tissue, remove the skin tag, and also cut out a hemmorhoid since my fissure runs right along it.

So... I've read stories about each of these procedures, and they all seem incredibly painful by themselves. Has anyone had any experience with all of these procedures at once? I think I'm doing the right thing here because I honestly don't think it's possible for it to heal with all the scar tissue that has developed, but I am TERRIFIED of getting this done. I'm currently not in much pain because I take Miralax everyday so I'm just scared I'm going to be making everything worse, but I really don't want to depend on Miralax for the rest of my life.

Anyone gone down a similar path or have any recommendations? How do you mentally prepare yourself for this type of surgery?! The doctor told me that it will probably be incredibly painful. I'm also terrified about incontinence type issues... ughhhh, why did my butt have to break?

I haven't had surgery but I think to start with, believe in the body's ability to heal. =) And Botox is helping to create the environment in which the body can do exactly that. In my opinion it is a lot less invasive than LIS and scraping out the scar tissue will help the fissure heal once and for all, right?

Thanks for the response! I really hope I'm taking the right steps. I'm quite certain it's not possible to truly heal my fissure without removing some of the scar tissue. It's just terrifying knowing that I have to make things worse before they will get better. It's also not really an issue that I feel like I can share with most people so I have a lot of anxiety and very few people to share it with (other than my poor husband haha).