Hi all- as my LIS date approaches I find myself thinking of different things to worry about or questions. This one was what was in my head when I woke up this morning. I started freaking out about the fact that the surgeon is going to make his own "cuts" when the cut I have won't heal. What really is it that makes it possible for the surgery "cuts" to heal when the fissure is such a bugger. Is it just the reduction in pressure and better circulation?
I found myself worrying about what if I don't heal from these new things. Part of my increased worrying really has to do with my current pattern of nearly two weeks of good days (with of course the perfect poop going on) and then about 3 days of midlevel pain and bleeding. Given that it is almost a year, this is almost acceptable and the thought of making things worse again is tormenting me. On the other hand, the few people who know of my problem are urging me to go ahead and get it over with because things will just keep coming back again. If I were in the worst of the pain and bleeding I have had over the past year, I would probably just be excited about it, although still scared of course. But I have progressed to a level of mediocrity- one really bad day and I would be feeling much differently. I also have never really experienced what I know many of you have and that is the intense spasms that go on and on. My pain has mainly been associated with the BMs themselves and irritation of the area afterwards. I have developed this pattern of pooping almost every time I eat, which is annoying, and not that much comes out, so maybe this incomplete pooping is a result of some spasms?

Bambi,
I worried about the same thing. It didn't make sense to me that they had to make a cut to heal a cut, but it healed my fissure in 6 weeks.
Your pooping patterns sound very similar to what I did before LIS. I imagine your spasms are really pretty bad.
As soon as I had the surgery, and got rid of the spasms, the complete bm's came.

As someone who's had fissures on/off for five years now, I think you should just get the surgery! Mine weren't too bad for the first four years, there was always a cycle to them like you mention. Sometimes it wouldn't bother me at all for months on end; everything seemed so normal.

But inevitably it would flare up, and to be quite honest, it's become such a nightmare! It's now worse than ever. So if you have the means to deal with this now before you get to the level, like me, where you're such a mess that you're scared to death it isn't even fixable anymore...I'd do it.
And yes, making a cut to heal a cut is really illogical-seeming...but the stats show it works for most people!

It doesn't take long for the LIS incision to heal because it's not hampered by the sphincter, whereas the fissure is hampered by the sphincter's contractions despite being looser after LIS it still has to contract somewhat during BM thus making it much harder to heal but not as hard as pre LIS - obviously, another thing could hamper healing too, if the surgeon didn't cut enough muscle fibres during LIS then this could result in longer healing times and sometimes a second LIS is required.

StevePain wrote:It doesn't take long for the LIS incision to heal because it's not hampered by the sphincter, whereas the fissure is hampered by the sphincter's contractions despite being looser after LIS it still has to contract somewhat during BM thus making it much harder to heal but not as hard as pre LIS - obviously, another thing could hamper healing too, if the surgeon didn't cut enough muscle fibres during LIS then this could result in longer healing times and sometimes a second LIS is required.

Steve, I knew you would know exactly how this all works!

Thanks dawn, but I'm just looking at it logically, if our fissures were never bullied by our sphincters spasming then probably none of us would ever need surgery, that damn muscle has a lot to answer for!

Your welcome! I can see you have researched and did your homework on the butt....It's crazy, I had no idea how complicated our butts were until the fissure. It's all really pretty gross.
ps...
I like your mood! I believe you are going
to beat this too.

This is funny...I was reading through some old posts and one member had written that she visualized taking out the sphincter and tenderizing it with a mallet. That sounds about right. :)

I think that was Fissy...Lol
She cracks me up. I love reading her post.

Hey Bambi,
You're experience with fissure sounds very much like mine. I didn't get much in the way of spasms either. At least not ones that were painful. Like you, most of my pain was reserved for during and after BMs. The incomplete BMs thing was just awful and had me spending many long hours in the bathroom ... Sometimes most of the day! I had LIS on the 10th of Feb, so hopefully all that is soon to be a thing of the past. I've had a few days since the surgery that were not so great, but things seem to be settling down now.
I worried about all the same things as you right before surgery, as I'm sure every person here has. In the end I just decided that taking a small risk was worth the probable gains. I certainly didn't want to keep living the way I was!
Not long for you to wait now, so I hope that everything goes perfectly for you and your recovery is super fast!
Good Luck for Thursday!!