Welcome! Discuss your experiences, share your stories and get friendly help and advice. This forum provides members experience based informative help for such health issues as anal fissures, hemorrhoids, fistulas, IBS, Crohn's
Fistula support sub forum. Are you having, or have you had surgery for a Fistula? Or are you just looking for information? We will help where we can and are here to offer support, member-to-member. Check out our Fistula Success Stories sub-forum too!!
Diamond I am so happy abt ur healing I am sure it's gng be last for surgery u. I am feeling optimistic... I was worried abt my work to my my boss was so understanding... Our health comes first good for u. Take care n keep healing :-) Kathy
Yep Diamond I think I messaged you a P.m, a few week's ago, yep I'm from Toronto, just living a little North now, use to be near Bath, and Finch. Ya shove the fissure in her face..lol. take care all.
Okay so here's a not so happy update :( I got constipated yesterday ... It was as bad as what I had gone through after my first surgery. What's funny is I've been regular - going every day. I wasn't able to go on Sunday but didn't think it was a big deal .. I guess I should have taken it more seriously as I was in the most debilitating pain yesterday. I woke up wanting to have a BM but the stool had hardened. Now I don't know how that's possible within 48 hours ... so I am going to assume that it was a small piece that had hardened post surgery and finally made it way through my system. I was literally in the washroom for 2 hours .. when I finally managed to go it was as hard as a stone! Everything else that followed was okay so that's why I think that this piece has somehow lodged itself in somewhere for weeks... I'm okay now but spent the whole day in bed yesterday. The whole area felt like it suffered trauma..I was terrified about the packing but managed to get through it. I am just hoping that this hasn't caused an adverse effect to my LIFT surgery - I am thankful that it's over 2 weeks post surgery so hopefully the damage would be minimal at this point in time. I am still on one percocet a day.. hoping to wean myself off by next week. The other thing that may have caused this is that I wasn't super careful with my diet on Fri, Sat, Sun - I tried to actual lead a "normal" life .. had a burger, pizza and birthday cake.. not all in the same day but I guess it all added up to this even though I was drinking loads of water. Anyway, I'm back to being super careful with my diet ..fingers crossed no major damage. My nurse said the wound looks fine .. in fact it looks a lot smaller to her (she hadn't seen me in 3 days). I'll be seeing my doc next week so let's see how that goes. Hope you're all doing well!
Thank g-d your OK, and you will be, it just scares you and eating burgers, pizza and cake is not normal, in time it will be second nature to eat healthier, and not considering it a diet but a way of life, I know I do and a lot of us here too. Believe me....Keep on track, way to go. I hope your next appointment goes OK.
LOL..I agree with that not being "normal" as I usually do eat "right" - pizza, burgers and cake are typically reserved for long weekends and special occasions. It was my friend's one year old's birthday party this weekend so I wanted to indulge along with everyone else. I'm usually a bit of a health freak who used to work out 5 days a week (before all this happened) to make up for my "cheat" days. I've never had any bowel issues so it was really scary for me when this happened! And just to clarify - my burger was an organic lean beef burger made from "real" meat, pizza was thin crust chicken/pesto pizza - so I guess the key is to avoid anything that can potentially constipate you - ie: red meat and cheese! Back to my diet of fish/chicken, salad and whole grains ... blah :p Thank you!! I do hope the next appt is okay as well.
Diamond, It's good to hear that there's no long-lasting damage! Infact, it's amazing how your bottom can become quite resiliant to a certain extent after this stuff. I too have had moments of firmer stools and more tricky BMs but have been lucky to "escape" major trauma again but on saying that I will not strain anything!!! I suspect birthday cake may have been a major culprit - I find anything of stodgy quantity that goes in is more difficult to come out. I can get away with lean red meat now & again but I do avoid white doughs/ unrefined foods. A good cheat tactic I find is to have just a little of something not so good for you and bump it up with extra water/ salads/ vegetables - that seems to ease the blow! Good luck with your next appointment :)
Chronic Fissure diagnosed December 2011 Healed by Diltiazem around Feb 2013 Anal Fistula followed burst abscess in June 2012 2 internal troublesome piles remain & suspected, but undiagnosed, ongoing Levator Ani type symptoms & flare-ups
Thanks ETO! We went grocery shopping last night so I plan to eat at home for the coming week as much as possible. I agree that it was probably the cake - I find that flour/sugar is just bad for you. I tend to do a lot of my own baking for this reason - I even made a quinoa chocolate cake once. I substitute palm sugar for all white sugars - don't know if you've ever tried it, I swear by it now! People tend to think I'm this crazy health nut because over the past few years I've just started to try to make almost everything myself. You never know what's in "bought" food. Actually before my surgery - any time I ate from the food court at work my fistula would almost seize up and I would have awful pain. Maybe it was just in my head but I do think all my painful episodes were correlated to what I was eating! Thanks so much - let's see how the next few days go. I am craving steak so bad but will avoid it for a couple more weeks. I think I'll be fine once I'm off the percocet but need to be super careful as I still take one pill a day prior to my packing change. I may be back to work mid-next week so will probably need to be off the meds by then.
Diamond So sorry to hear abt bad BM day. I know it's hard to be away from the tasty sugary things I luv sugar. I m glad ur doing good now. Good luck with ur next appt.
I wasn't able to log on or reset my last user name so I've created a new account. Also, it looks like part of this thread is now missing Anyway, just wanted to update you all. It's been about 6.5 weeks past my last surgery now. I'm definitely feeling much better. Saw my doctor this past Thursday and she seems to think everything is coming along nicely. She's instructed for no more packing, but instead - silver nitrate applications every 2-3 days. Her nurse applied the first one on Thursday and I have never in my life felt pain like that before. I've been told that I'm a trooper and honestly I do have a high pain threshold but that was just something else! I'm going to have the second application tonight so let's see how that goes. I'll be seeing my doc in a week..I had a little pussy discharge over the past few days so I hope that's just part of the healing process. Fingers crossed.