I was diagnosed about 4 months ago with anal fissures. Since then the pain has ebbed and flowed but has not gone away. Some days are better than others. Today is a bad day with the pain near its worst and my associated groin pain (does anyone else have this????) and over the top frequent urination at its worst.

One of the complications....indeed, a likely cause of this, is that I take a medication for IBS-C called Linzess. it has completely changed my life for the better, but one side effect is that it has led to diarrhea at least 1-2 times daily. I believe that this has aggravated if not caused the condition.

The doctors and I agree that we want to keep taking the meds because the benefits vastly outweigh the downside. But we also agree that the anal fissures have got to be resolved.

I really don't want surgery, so we tried everything but the kitchen sink to avoid it. Nitredpine (sp)....a suppository called Calmol...multiple times daily for each. But still, nothing.

Now it is looking like I am going to have to suck it up and face surgery.

Can anyone tell me, at the very least, what surgery entails? What is the recovery like? And does it WORK?

Thanks.

Hi, it's very common to have pain in the surrounding area because your pelvic floor muscles are so close together. For me it made me feel like I had to constantly urinate all the time. As for surgery the first one they usually do is LIS. It's a simple procedure where they cut the muscle just a bit. This allows the sphincter muscle to relax and the spasms to stop, giving the fissure time to heal. It's usually very successful and the sooner you do it the better. When you get into scar tissue other issue can arise. Everyone heals at their own rate but the doctors say you should heal in a few weeks. That doesn't mean you're laid up for a few weeks though. If you keep the area clean and your bms soft you shouldn't have a problem. You said you have fissures so I'm assuming you have more than one. Try a little lubrication before you have a bm. It helps a bunch. Sitting on a warm heating pad helps too. Good luck. Here's wishing you a speedy recovery. Suzy