Hiya people, UK here again, and have been a fissure sufferer for 5 months, (see my previous posts).
I joined this forum, simply because it was nice to chat to people in a similar situation and a problem shared is always a problem halved if you ask me.
I initially ignored my fissure, not realising what it was, and left it about a month before I went to the docs. She started me on steriod suppositories and they helped for only a few days. I have been back to the Docs time and time again, and always the same treatment, she now has me booked in awaiting the 'Stretch' job.
I am beginning to feel that the docs in the UK here havent got a clue, and refused to use anymore suppositories as my poor little bum was so sore, it was agony to even use them, and the cream simply made the pain and stinging worse.
I have a very good diet, and only one BM a day, regular as clockwork, and never constipated, so the cause of the fissure left me wondering, until about a week ago when i changed my treatment, purely by listening to what my body was telling me.
I ignored all doctors steroids, slung them in the bin and began to sit in a warm bath immediately after a BM and again before bedtime, along with a small brandy and 2 x nurofens, as this helped me to sleep through the night and relax the muscle spasms.
After a couple of days, the pain became a lot more bearable, although I still felt the fissure tear every morning, and the only relief was to sit in a warm bath .
The burning and stinging, was now also accompanied by an incredible itch, driving me wild, although at the same time reminding me of a similar itch I had experienced before, although in a different place .
I used to suffer extremely badly with vaginal thrush, and my Doc had me on a 3 month course of canesten pessaries, using one every other day, morning and night which she stated would clear the problem up totally, she also gave me some canesten cream. In this instance she was correct, I havent had the thrush for a long time now, but there was now this nagging feeling in my head , with my body telling me that maybe the thrush, having been chased out of my vagina, had decided to take lodgings elsewhere.
So, on the way home from work that day, i called into the chemist and picked up a tube of canesten, what did I have to lose? Everything else has been applied to my bum, one more attempt at something isnt going to hurt.
This was on Thursday, I used the cream after my bedtime bath, and settled down to see what would happen. The itch became a lot better within 5 minutes of using the cream, although I will be honest in saying that to apply the cream initially tingled a bit. My husband is a nurse, and said that canesten wasnt suitable for anal fissures, this I ignored, my body was telling me to use it, so what have I got to lose.
The following morning wasnt a lot different, I felt the fissure tear again, with the usual toe curling pain, but followed with my routine of a warm bath afterwards, applied more canesten cream and set off for work.
This day was the best day of my life, I was able to sit at my desk all day without fidgeting, or itching and I couldnt believe it, so repeated the procedure again at bedtime.
Saturday morning, I awoke, went into the bathroom, started to run my bath, sat on the loo and prepared myself for the normal sharp pain (Thank god it was first thing in the morning, over and done with, and out of the way ).
Oddly enough, there was no pain, no razor blade cutting, no feeling as if bits of glass were shooting out of my bottom, and merely a slight tingle afterwards.....................WHAT???
I honestly didnt believe it, how could it have gone overnight just like that ?
The same happenned yesterday and this morning, no more cutting feeling, no more itch, and only a small tinglly burning feeling, which I am hoping will eventually go away .
I am still carrying on with the warm baths, and the canesten cream for another week, to be honest, it feels wonderful to be able to poo normally again, and thought maybe this advice would be useful to any of you people out there who have suffered with thrush before, maybe thats what caused my fissure in the first place?
Any ideas on that one?

I have often wondered about the presence of candida albicans (yeast) as a potential culprit in preventing healing in the rectum particularly with women. I take a probiotic supplement to keep the balance right as it can be affected by so many things-illness, stress, diet, baths, hormones, etc.
Can you tell me what canesten cream is? What is in it? Is it Miconazole Nitrate? I think it definitely would be worth checking out and I am so glad that it is working for you.
I know once I thought I had a yeast infection and I treated it as such when it wasn't and I ended up getting a bacterial infection because I killed off too much yeast and the bacteria overgrew. But that was vaginal. I know the rectal environment would be different though.
If you have a hard time keeping things in balance I would definitely look into probiotics or if you can eat yogurt everyday with live active cultures like L.bacillus.
Thanks so much for you contribution!

I tried Caesten too after reading about someone curing theirs with tinactin(which I don't think we get here in the UK) I assumed that athletes foot cream ,which I presume tinactin is?? would have the same active ingredients in as canesten as they are both yeast infections, but I preffered to use cream that was meant for nearer my butt than my feet!
It stung like hell for me and I ended up in a bath in a lot of pain, but seeing as tinactin has worked for a lot of people, it probably would be worth a try.
Its probably got a completely different name for it in the US just like the advil which I tried to get everywhere ,not realizing it was ibruprofen!

Hello Lecia and Val, so sorry to hear that you have both suffered.
The cream contains 1% of the active ingredient clotrimazole.
Canesten Cream also contains benzyl alcohol, polysorbate 60, sorbitan stearate, cetyl palmitate, cetostearyl alcohol, octyldodecanol and purified water.
Clotrimazole is one of a group of medicines called imidazole antifungals. which are used to treat fungal skin infections.
I wouldnt susggest that this is the ideal treatment for everybody, but it certainly was for me, am now on my 4th day of no pain or itching.
Best of luck

wow, good for you that's wonderful news, it's funny how different things work for different people when we're all suffering from the same complaint, isn't it?Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a miracle cure to help us all?
I think we should all design some kind of heated knickers so that we don't have to carry hot water bottles everywhere!!Hahaha!!

Thanks for the info Stinger!
Your idea sounds great Val. I would love to invent a pantyliner that has coolant in it! Maybe we should design our own specialty line of products for people with butt problems! Think of all the stuff you could buy at the Lush store with the money we make!!!!

That's a great idea, we could probably own our own Lush store!I love your outfit by the way! How do you put photos on here?I'm not very computer minded, but my son is!

If you go to your profile you select avatar and if you have a picture on the computer you want you can hit browse to get to the picture file.
There are also some pre-selected avatars you can pick from to if you don't want to do a personal photo.

Stinger,
I'm so happy to hear this. However, be aware that I too experienced a few days with no pain when I had my BM. Then I had very tollerable pain level for about 3 weeks, and then the unbearable level of pain returned two days ago. I had to drink scotch to put myself to sleep as it was just killing me.......I hope your problem has gone away permenantly. I just want you to know that this darn thing tends to come and go..........
The very best to you and I hope you are done with it for good.

Yes, I'd like to reiterate fissurama's concerns. Fissures seem to have a mind of their own and generally don't heal on anyone's schedule. You really need to go a couple weeks without any real pain before you can be assured that healing has set it. The possibility for a big psychological letdown exists, though it has probably happened to all of us at one point or another, I know it did with me more than once.