my gastro is dead set againt surgery for the fissure,swears by creams and stuff.surgery as the last resort only! i go in like a few weeks,im gonna ask about my fistula thing HE caused by roughhousing me last time..hey,if surgery fixes my problems..im all for it,unless theyre are serious drawbacks from it.i understand the go into the fistula from the fissure area? and somehow caulderrize it from the inside? with some type of wire thing? i swear i read this somewhere,could have dreamed it though...

I've never heard of that. Maybe they do. Usually they just lay open the fistula--not a fun thing to deal with after having had a fissure. That's why I would ask for a plug.

well to me the plug route would seem much more cleaner and healthier rather than just leaving that whole tract open if it is long and deep.
but i just don't know how they get to stitch the end if the end is on the inside!!!!! i don't know how they reach in there. baffles my mind.
oh well.

I don't know I went to a gastro way back, for my abdominal pain and he must have a problem with doing these kind of exams-even when I mentioned I was bleeding a lot-I mean isn't that a red flag for any gastro!! He was no help gave me the miralax but as far as a fissure he wouldn't even take a look..

so he gave you miralax and sent you home! what a clown! dont you hate it when they just "dismiss" your problems like that...did you get another gastro that checked it out? i cant believe that a gastro.wouldnt look at the fissure....thats actually pretty sad....

I was not a good candidate for a Fistula plug or Fibrin glue. Evidently the sucess rate on those is lower than advertised <50% for short tracts. I had a Fistulotomy (sp?) on Monday afternoon, was off pain meds Tuesday morning (not even over the counter). Have yet to have a BM because I did not eat Monday (hated the drugs they gave me). I guess I'll see how it goes. This was thousands of times better than my fissue (so far)!

Glad to hear it's going well for you. I would be interested to hear how it continues to go.

BTW, the studies I have read reported the plug to be effective in about 80%+ of cases, even for people with Crohn's. The procedure is relatively new, though, and not everyone is doing it. My surgeon hadn't even heard of it. The glue is less effective, ordinarily about 50%, so your Dr was right about that one.

Looks like the 80% is what the company that produces the product says. My CRS said he was at 50% and stopped using it. Evidently the Cleveland Clinic was at 20%. When I dug into other message boards like this - under 50% looks to be more real these days. Certainly worth a shot for anything complex.

I read the journal articles on pub med and they all gave about 80% as the rate for the plugs.

Still, I have always wondered why there is so much variation in reported success rates. Botox is usually marked anywhere between 50% and 90%--a big difference if you ask me.

But I agree, though, it seems worth a shot if available--I particularly like the sewing up the fissure end of the tract aspect, a little healing nudge with an antibiotic sponge to top it off.

Well no..I finally went to my gp a couple times-they didnt look but told me to see a surgeon-I did and had the surgery. But after the surgery I went to a Urgent Care because I didnt go for two weeks. She strongly suggested I see a gastro again. I really don't want to bother. He really treated me like everything was all in my head-he wrote me this letter-ibs is a frustrating entity to treat-tell me about. I don't have the abdominal pain really but the constipation is so annoying! I have learned though if I do have any type of unrelenting pain to go to the ER! Just for piece of mind. Dano you are sooooo cute!