Hi all,
Sorry to sound clueless here but I've read a lot of posts where people experience spasms. I can honestly say I don't know if I've had one. Or maybe I have and just haven't attributed it to a spasm. I usually (not always) have a considerable amount of burning sensation immediately after a BM but that subsides within minutes. My main grief comes a couple hours later after sitting at my desk. That's when the more severe burning starts and continues for hours. I really just have this burning and general soreness but by late afternoon I'm back to normal again until my next morning BM. I have never had pain while sleeping and If I have had days (rare) where, if I don't have a BM, I wouldn't even know I had this thing. I have always just thought that the pressure of sitting on my behind caused all of the problems. Is that hours long burning caused by spasms? What do they feel like?

Hey SC,
My spasms have been like a clenching tight feeling and a feeling of pressure. I have heard other people describe them as like a stabbing feeling in the rectum. I have had that feeling a few times. At first I did't know what people were talking about because once I had a BM besides the scraping or shards of glass at my worst, I felt better.
But I know when it spasms , it clentches tight and wont let gas or a Bm pass until it relaxes. In the beginning and when I recently tore bad again, it would get so tight that even when I needed to have a bm I couldn't get it to realax enough where I could completely go.
Everyones descriptions are a little different. I've read of a few people who didn't think they were having them either and when the doctors did the exam they could feel them? I'm not sure about the burning though. Usually when mine burns, I'll clean it again with cotton, a bath or whatever and the burning will stop. Sometimes sweat or leftover debri can cause irritation for me.
Hope this helps.

Thanks Dawn.
Yeah I try to keep it pretty clean with a shower and I also soak in the tub on occasion during the day. Plus I do the squatting thing. I've seen a few mentions of that on here but I read about it on another AF self-help forum. I built a little platform and have been using that for a couple weeks. Not sure if it's helping my fissure but there is almost no cleanup with that method (sorry to be so gross). That amazed me when I started using that position. Also, I don't have to hardly push to go. I know the goal is to not push at all but I have always had to push to start things moving, even pre-AF, unless I had urgent diarrhea. Anyway, the squatting thing is helping in some aspects even though my AF won't cooperate in other areas.
I think the pressure on my butt from sitting at my desk all day is what really causes my burning. If I get up and go out in my yard for a while, it subsides but will return a little while after I sit back down. If I have a day where I don't sit at my desk or hardly at all, I have minimal issues.
Do you find that your discomfort goes away at the end of the day or do you have it 24/7 when it's flaring up? That frustrated the hell out of me at first. I kept thinking it was getting better only to return after my next BM.
Oh well, the saga continues.
Take care.

Hey SC,
When my fissure was at it's worst, I couldn't set or stand or barely get comfortable enough to lay down. It burnt so bad that I put a fan on my butt. I actually took so many baths that I would fall asleep in the tub. The spasms mad me feel like I always needed to go to the bathroom and I would go and barely anything would come out...Gross I know too but everything's gross about this.... It was 24/7
until I got it to calm down with the baths.
I actually have only had the stabbing spasms and burning when I've had the shards of glass kind of feeling and that happened when I ate some sharp foods. Like an idiot I thought I was healed because I had 4 weeks with no pain. I didn't realize that it takes so much time to really heal a fissure.
Lately I mostly have a dull achy feeling and some tightness in the bum. But I have had the awful burning before. I couldn't imagine having to set on a chair all day with that. I had to get my daughter to stop the car every so often and let me walk when I had her drive me to one of my doctors appointment.
One thing that helped me a lot is fresh aloe. We had a plant in our back yard and I would peel the thorns off and the skin and apply a piece of the flesh of the plant directly to the butt. I still apply it often even though I haven't had the burn lately. I also put some baking soda in my bath and the aveeno oatmeal baths once in awhile too.
I know what you mean about the frustration with the set backs. I was so depressed with this recent one I had.
It's so hard because you try to be optimistic and give it all you got with the food and ointments and softeners and it still doesn't work out.
I was so depressed last week when I realized I can't do this without surgery.

In the beginning, my spasms were unmistakable. They were a painful pressure-filled, unrelenting, throbbing sensation. It felt like my butthole was puckering out all the time. Even urinating was painful because men have to push out in the anal area when urinating.
At times, after a bad BM, they also included sharp stabbing pains in the rectum. That was more rare for me but did happen. But the primary symptom was the constant painful throbbing.
Later on though, after my fissure had been around for maybe half a year and I'd gotten it in a "holding pattern" via ointments and stool softeners, the actual spasms were no longer as noticeable. I could still feel them (and so could the doctor) by pushing with a finger, but they didn't cause me insane pain any more.
My pattern of pain was like this...
ACUTE PHASE:
Excruciating tearing/pooping glass pain during BMs. Intense pain for 30-60 minutes afterward. Throbbing spasms for several hours after that. Then no pain at all the rest of the time.
CHRONIC PHASE (~6 months and later):
Mild-moderate pain during BMs. No symptomatic spasms. Dull aching/burning/irritation throughout the day, especially when driving.
It's going to be different for everyone but that's how it went for me and quite a few other folks IIRC. So you can certainly have spasms without classical spasm symptoms, but I can't say if the burning can be attribute to spasms. If I had to guess, I'd say it's more likely due to irritation of the open fissure.

It's pretty much the same for me, during the acute phase the pain at times was unbearable, searing burning and throbbing which lasted for most of the day and beyond, then once my fissure got to the chronic phase the pain kind of diminished, not fully but was more manageable, was more of a dull ache in the rectum with a slight burn after BM.

NG, you are right on the money with the puckering up thing.
In the beginning I had that same thing. It felt like it was trying to turn inside out. I am so happy that phase ended.

Thanks all.
Wow, I haven't had any of that level of pain or discomfort. Well let me take that back. I have had the tearing/pooping glass pain followed by the aching and burning throughout the day but only really if I sit for long periods of time. If I hardly sit then the pain and burning is a little more tolerable if present at all. Always by mid to late afternoon it would all disappear until the next morning after a BM.
I have never experienced a puckering or any pressure really in that area. Not really a throbbing either. Mostly just what I described above. What is really strange is, like clockwork, it all goes away and I have relief for the rest of the night.
I'm slowly moving back into a no-pain stage again after about 5 days of discomfort so it appears the Diltiazem is working again. I swear to you that every time I make an appointment with the CRS, this thing gets better. I think it has a mind of its own and knows that I'm fed up and coming after it with a knife (well the surgeaon knife that is).
Dawn - I think your visit to the CRS today has really brought out an inner strength in you. I can feel a confidence in your posts today. I'm really happy for you and wish you the best on your upcoming procedure.
Take care all

smallChange wrote:I swear to you that every time I make an appointment with the CRS, this thing gets better. I think it has a mind of its own and knows that I'm fed up and coming after it with a knife (well the surgeaon knife that is).

Ha! I think we can all relate to this one, unfortunately

NeuropathicGuy wrote:In the beginning, my spasms were unmistakable. They were a painful pressure-filled, unrelenting, throbbing sensation. It felt like my butthole was puckering out all the time. Even urinating was painful because men have to push out in the anal area when urinating.

Exactly how my spasms were.Mines would come in waves peaking every 15-20 for 2 hours in the evenings.Ugh those were bad times.