First off, I’d like to thank all of those here for posting their experience with this life controlling problem. Nobody can come close to understanding what we’ve gone and are going thru until having “pooper” problem themselves. I always felt embarrassed as most of you know and when I’d mention the problems to my general doctor they would excuse it as nothing big. Well trust me, if you have an anal fissure or thrombosed hemorrhoid; it is a very big deal. So it took me 17 years and a 9/10 on the pain meter to see an actual rectal doctor. Luckily I live in a big city and have one of the best doctors around who did my work.
My “pooper” problems have been going on for 17 years; most of this is my fault for not going to the doctor and getting it fixed the right way. For the past 17 years it has always been a struggle to poop. Eventually I starting seeing a very small (1-2 drops) amount of blood while going and the pain was 1-2/10 as well. This is how it remained for the next 14 or so years.
Two years ago I developed a small external hemorrhoid that was 4-5/10 and would relax after a day or so. Again I was only seeing 1-2 drops of blood while pooping. One day after going poop this hemorrhoid tripled in size and became completely unbearable to sit, stand, or walk. This prompted me to make an immediate appointment with my pooper doc. To make a long story short he removed the hemorrhoid in his office and 3 weeks of recover later I was all better.
No lets flash forward to today’s events; I’m currently 1 week post op of a sphincterotomy. My 17 years of anal fissures and rectal muscle spasms were enough. I was now seeing quite a bit more blood and 8-9/10 pain with every bowel movement. I can absolutely tell you if I knew how easy this was going to be to repair, the surgery would have happened 17 years ago. I hope that if anyone else is going thru what I did for the past 17 years they make a choice to get it fixed as opposed to my experience.
My recovery for the sphincterotomy was amazing and there is no way I could have imaginged how easy this would have been. I had the dreaded first bowel movement on day two and it was the first time in 17 years I had absolutely no pain or bleeding. Here I am 7 days later and many poops later enjoying life again. In fact I just finished a 4 mile walk and have been doing 1-2 miles a day for the past 4 days.
I’m a very active person and in excellent shape. In the next couple days I plan on starting up with all normal exercise again. I typically run 20-25 miles a week and do cross-fit 3-4 days a week. I also have a very physically demanding job which I went back to on day 6.
Good luck to everyone in their pooper endeavors and thanks again for helping me get my life back :D .