Hi everyone, this is the first time I've posted on here although I am far from new to this forum. I have spent many nights sat here reading posts and trying to find an answer. As so many posts have given me useful advice I though it only right I should come back and let you know what eventually worked for me. Sorry if it's a bit long but I wanted to cover everything. Sorry if there its also a bit tmi.
Ok, 4 years ago I had my first baby by c section. Batter morphine and numerous co codamols I became very constipated and I tore. I didn't realise this and thought I had got hemmorhoids, backed up by the fact I had a lump which came out every time I went to the loo that needed to be manually pushed back up after. On and off for the next few years I would have some pain in the area but nothing to alert me to a fissure until I went on holiday in sept 2012, got constipated again and woke up in the night in the most horrendous pain ever. I spent all night crying and writhing in agony. I could also feel a little lump at the back on the outside which I thought was a hemmorhoid and began treating it as one until I came across this forum and realised I had all the symptoms of a fissure. I became very scared. I have a 2 yr old son and. 3 yr old daughter and I i was finding it hard to care for them. I also sbecame very depressed and preoccupied. I go to the toilet every day and constipation is not a regular thing for me yet every day would see the area getting sore, possibly infected and it would throb.
I saw the gp who prescribed me rectogesic which I used despite the headaches and it would heal somewhat and then retear every three or so days for no real reason. She the referred me to the hospital and I was very lucky to have a consultant who took one look at the outside, saw the tag and without any further probing announced I had a fissure and he would give me Botox. Two weeks later I had it.
After the procedure he told that what I had originally though was a hemmie (popped out when I used the loo) was actually a fibrious polyp at the bottom of the fissure. He said they sometimes occur and he removed it straight away.
What followed was a nightmare two weeks as I now had two open wounds! but I as relieved the lump no longer made an appearance. when I used the loo oh my god it hurt so much. The botox took hold properly after about three weeks but I wanted to come on here to let you know it wasn't the botox alone that worked for me. I still kept tearing every few days. I really had to step up my game.
So, here is what I did.
I realised that the Retearing always came after a day of extreme itching. I did some research and found a site that explained the myths and facts about wounds. One said that it is a myth at wound needs to be dry to heal properly. A wound must not be damp obviously but the cells around the wound need to have moisture to stay alive. When there is a found the cells at the edges o f the wound came become dry and die and this slows healing. The best thing to prevent this is coconut oil. Many of you will use it anyway but it really works. It completely stopped the itching for me. It is also antiseptic and antifungal and is so soothing. I would gently push a good lump of it up there.
The other thing I did was juice fasting. Now, many of you will say fasting is a no no and in the case of a water fast I will agree but a juice fast is very different.
You still get calories, energy and nutrients but the intestines have less to do and healing can take place. The day before starting eat lightly. This is important as it will prevent you becoming constipated. For the next 5 day (you can do longer if you wish) only have homemade juices. I bought a cheap juicer from Argos and I'd did he job. My favourite was two apples, two pears, a carrot, a handful of spinach, a kiwi Nd ten grapes. It's looks vile but just tastes like fruit.
You can have this whenever you are hungry. I was never hungry on this. Less energy was spent on digesting food and my body began to heal. Now for The tmi part. I still went to the loo everyday but there was hardly anything there and what was completely surprised me. Because the only thing going through your intenstines was particles from the juice it makes your stool very soft but sort of fluffy and really dry. I don't mean dry as in painful but as in there was no wetness there if that makes sense? this really helped me. It was so soft I couldn't feel it and because it was dry, there was nothing to irritate my open wounds.
I also did two hot baths a day.
I'm not joking, after months of trying every cream, vitamin I could think of, two weeks of the above and I am virtually healed. I say virtually as I'm loath to tempt fate but I have not felt this good in ages. I am the old me again and my kids are getting the benefits.
I am back seeing my consultant on the 12th. I know these things can come back and I dread that but I will do everything I can to prevent it.
Please try the juice fast and coconut oil if you haven't already. If your anything like me you'll want to try everything!!!
good luck
Xxxxxxx
I realised that

Sorry for mistakes and jumping about a bit. Bloody iPad kept second guessing everything I said!
Xxx

Hello, I hope this can work for me! I am in awful pain. Burning all day, stabbing and like something is crawling on me! I have Botox in 4 wks time. I just hope and pray I can do this. I have IBS though, so not sure how the juicing would work for me. I would cut off my arm to see this terrible affliction gone!
I have become depressed too, and feel like this will never end! I pray it will, you have given me hope. Xx

I know exactly what you mean. I used to wake up every day anxious about going to the loo and then spend the next 4-5 hours after in pain. Its so horrible and the worse thing is people just dont get it. I had people say to me 'its only you bum though' and when I said I was getting botox a work colleague laughed! I was so miserable. I only told people if I needed to because I found it hard to focus.
That crawling sensation - I told a doctor thats what it felt like and he raised an eyebrow at me like I was crazy!
I swear that itching is something to do with drying out though. I will always use the coconut oil now.
I will pray that the botox works for you. It will feel very weird for a while, when I squeeze down there I can feel that the muscle at the back is a bit lifeless. I think Botox may be more successful than we realise though, my consultant seemed very confident in it. I read so many negative posts before I went in that I was convinced that it wouldn't work.
You will get fixed, one way or another. Roll on the next 4 weeks.
xxx

Thanks for the post Painnomore!
It's always good to hear a success story on here!
Long may it continue!
OMB xxx

Is always a delight to read of people getting over this fissure problems with nothing more that a good treatment and proper care.
You are one of the lucky ones

I have a friend who's story echos yours. The juice fast worked for her, but only because she was allergic to wheat the whole time. The juicing gave her system a chance to reset and the fissure just healed. If she goes back on wheat, she gets the fissure again. She did not have a skin tag and this was her first fissure.
For most of us, fasting is a bad idea. My fissure is so advanced because I got two bouts of diarrhea. Those bouts were enough to allow my sphincter to close up tight and its never gotten back to full size. So, for a lot of us, having a period where nothing is "going through the tunnel" is really bad.
I think that one might have to carefully consider weather a food allergy might be playing a part in their condition, and how advanced your fissure is already, before deciding if fasting is best for you.
For myself, I had just decided to go grain free for a week to see if that helped when things got a lot worse. I'm going in for the surgery tomorrow.

Painnomore wrote:That crawling sensation - I told a doctor thats what it felt like and he raised an eyebrow at me like I was crazy!

Oh, you've had the bum bugs too... I hated that along with the razor blade cutting sensation. Thankfully these are long gone and been replaced with a sensation of pressure instead (like a mild cramp in your ass). Whilst annoying and making work very difficult, I can live with it if its not forever.
Diet wise I've done something very similar to you, only I've lived totally on vegetable based soup for lunches and fish with vegetables for tea, almost every day. I make sure the veg is really soft and I chew it until it might as well be blended. My BM are often soft and a bit loose, but they do not sting or mix with the water so isn't an issue.
My problem is, the second I start to try eating normal things I get pain lasting hours and hours. Have you tried to return to any sort of normal diet? I would be very cautious because I thought I was healed last week, deviated slightly from my diet and suffered two days of pain which has set me back. And we are only talking a slight deviation here, nothing outrageous like eating a pizza or some chips! I had salmon with some potatoes in a restaurant and it was quite salty... the potato created a 'plug' which was hard to pass and I had pain from 8am to 4pm. OUCH!
I think your diet is great but you may need to stick with it for longer than just 2 weeks. I've been on this 5 weeks now, 4 with my veg and fish regime. Week 1 my diet was wrong (still not bad - I'm a healthy eater!) and I made very little progress. I don't think I'd have come this far without my diet, I really don't.

Good luck tomorrow coconut. Xx
Yes diet plays a big role. I am on porridge, Soup with small amount of bread and Fish, veg, sweet potato for eve meal.
I am going to ask CRS about this, as they never give us any advice on diet..

Hi everyone,
I am now eating a normal diet, the only things I don't eat are the very obvious problem things like nuts seeds etc. I now take magnesium every night before I go to bed, I am not healed for long enough to consider my body able to manage it alone.
For my situation I think there were a few things that stopped me from healing. One being the polyp which got dragged along the fissure every time I used the loo. Secondly, my sphincter was in spasm and the Botox has stopped that. It didn't do straight away, as I said it was a few weeks. The coconut oil has helped me so much in keeping everything moisturised enough to heal.
The juice fast, I know is not for everyone. I just had a gut feeling that in my situation that if I could let the area rest a short while it could have a fighting chance. I felt that the fissure had made several attempts at healing but something was getting in the way.
I spent the weekend in Disneyland with my kids, something I ws both excited about and dreading. All I heard about was nothing but junk food everywhere. Well, I survived it, had no choice but to eat some of the food and even got through a small bout of diarrhoea after a dodgy hotdog and touch wood I am still ok.
I know it could return. The consultant said there was always a chance but I live in hope. I will probably always take a magnesium tablet before bed rather than ever risk constipation again.
Xxx