Can anyone tell me if you have stitches with a skin tag removal and Lis?
I'm assuming you would with the skin tag but I forgot to ask the crs.
I was also wondering what is the best way to clean the area after surgery?
Is it hard to touch with cotton and water in the beginning from all the swelling? Did you just use the shower wand and sitz baths until the swelling went down?

Yes, there will be stitches, but they dissolve by themselves. They will also put a small piece of gauze in your butt, which will come out with your first BM. It's gross, but that's about all.
I didn't touch my butt for several days after the surgery. My first few BMs took place while sitting in the sitz bath, and it was strictly sitz baths and the shower wand for me for many days after my surgery. I don't think I used toilet paper until about two weeks after.

The only stitches I had was at the incision site for the LIS. I think the skin tag was just cut off and left to heal. I had a lot of bleeding on and off for several weeks not related to a BM. I had to wear a pad for awhile and would have fresh blood on it through out the day. I think this was from the skin tag. I also think it probably could have been from the Fistula area they layed open. As phil mentioned, the stitches dissolve.
I hate the gauze they pack in your rear. The first night I was in a lot of pain/discomfort and finally passed the gauze. This was instant relief. I think it puts a lot of pressure on the area which is good for bleeding right after surgery but causes a lot of pain afterwards also. For my surgery last week I sat in the tub for almost 40 minutes trying to pull the gauze out slowly which hurt like heck. But once out my pain went way down.
For cleaning - I would use wet (warm) toilet paper to very very gentle clean the area. Then I would jump in the shower and use the wand to clean it further. Then jump into a sitz bath. This seemed to work well. The thing that is hard with the wand in the shower is you need to get a good stream of water up there to get things clean. But I also found if the streams hit my incisions I would get a good jolt of pain. So it was tricky to get the area clean without to much pain using the wand.

Paul, I was wondering how did you know you had a fistula?
Did you have symptoms? I just noticed something this morning and I'm waiting on the crs to call me back.

Dawn-
My main symptom with the fistula is drainage. I have basically had drainage for the last 4 years. For my last episode, I was guessing there might be a fistula since my pain starting going down with the abscess which coincided with some sticky white drainage in the area of the abscess.

I had internal stitches, and like Phil I also had a piece of gauze pad packed inside the rectum which was passed with the first BM, as for cleaning, from day 1 I was using cotton wool balls and warm water and gently dabbing the area until clean, still using them today (6 weeks later) I'll never use TP again.

I had 2 LIS surgeries, fissurectomy both times , 2 tags removed second time , 3 centenial piles cut internally- never had a single stitch...
Never had any packing either.

Hey Fissy,
Thanks :) I'm hoping that I don't have any stitches and no packing would be great. The whole packing thing just makes me nervous(lol).
Your second surgery sounds very painful! I am very concerned about the pain being worse with the skin tag removal, but I know it's just going to cause me problems later if I don't have it removed now. It's already swollen and causes more trouble then the fissure some days.

A bit late here, but I (LIS only) didn't have any stitches or packing either.

I have stitches but no packing. They are kind of irritating because I can feel them rub on my other cheek a little but not too bad at all.