I really appreciate the input, Canadabum! I guess I will continue to use the Nifedipine for now and keep track of my progress. I don't know how so many people cope with this. I have been dealing with this for 5 weeks and it's one of the, if not most, mentally and physically challenging thing I've ever gone through. I agree that walking helps a lot! I find it very therapeutic, giving me a few moments of respite. In fact, I'll probably try to go for one now as I work from home today. I really appreciate your kind and calming words as it cheered me up a bit.

Severely...I feel your pain!!! This is truly no fun and I can attest to that. The challenge as you have described is not just physical it is also mental -- this condition is so freakin painful and it is in a place that you cant see and it aggravates an area that you have to use each day...so we all re-traumatize ourselves mentally and physically...all that to say, yes, it truly sucks to have to deal with this.

So we all need to figure out a way to lessen the trauma to that region and help our bodies speed up the recovery...the following list encapsulates what I did to do the aforementioned:

1. Take some form of stool softener...this is THE MOST IMPORTANT piece of advice i have. I use Magnesium Citrate (150mg-250mg per day). I would also look into Miralax/Restoralax....not sure what it is called where you are from. This site has a good translation of terms and medications that you can use.

2. Poop using a stool of some sort to get your knees up....makes the trajectory easier. (check out squatty potty for the idea..you can make your own with step stools, pile of books etc)

3. If you can at all anticipate it...take a couple Ibuprofen a half hour before you go to the loo...get in front of the pain

4. Stick some coconut oil up there just before you poop....provides some lubrication and a small barrier

5. Sit on heat as much as possible during the day to promote blood flow....cold can also be good -- i use a cold pack wrapped in a towel for 10/15 mins at a time

6. If your butt really hurts and you are in the acute stage of pain...DO NOT WIPE. Hop in the shower to clean off after a bowel movement. Once you are more able to tolerate friction down there...still DO NOT WIPE...use a baby wipe or wet toilet paper to dab after a movement. Only once you have passed the acute pain phase you should consider wiping with baby wipes or damp toilet paper

7. Drink a teaspoon to a tablespoon of flax or olive oil with breakfast, lunch and dinner....then cut down to twice a day after a week or so...lubricate inside and out!

8. Use a cream 2-3x a day...like diltiazem nitro, niphedipine. Just smear around anus, not up, the medicine is well absorbed

9. Take as many baths as you can a day...warm/hot for 20 mins at a time...hey sit there f or 30 if you got the spare minutes

10. Eat super healthy...DO NOT bulk up with metamucil (that is b.s. as far as i can tell). Eat a good balance of non-processed foods that include soluble and insoluble fibre. DO DRINK lots of water. Do add probiotic foods to your diet that could include kombucha, kefir, miso soup, sauerkraut, kimchi, unpasteurized cheeses etc etc

11. Talk about it with people who care....this was as helpful to me as everything else....use this outlet too!!

12.....this is the worst and the best. TIME. This situation requires some time to heal....we all go through the period of time when nothing seems to work....but slowly (way toooooo slowly) you should find some relief

13. Try and stay as positive as you can

I really hope some of these strategies help. You will find some more helpful than others...and over time you may drop some or add some of your own. The physical stuff like taking a stool softener, using cream --extremely important....but for me, just as important was talking to my family and friends and this forum -- the mental support was as important and helpful.

Finally...and this may sound hokey but it helped me in my most painful period...when i walked or swam i came up with a mantra that i sort of hummed/sang to myself that was calming and reassuring and it went something like..."I am healing, I am repairing, I am getting better, I am OK". I would repeat quietly to myself and it was actually a source of help...you may want to use or come up with your own...finally finally, I also found a great book called "You are not your Pain" written by two people who have suffered serious and painful accidents. Thh book details their strategies for living with pain...it is a mindfulness based approach.

All best -- and keep us posted,
Canadabum

Canadabum,

For stool softening, I have currently been taking a tablespoon of Citrucel as recommended by my GI along with one Colace a day. But I think I might try Miralax as it seems to work for a lot of you and also because I'm not sure if Citrucel is really softening the stool as opposed to bulking it up even more! Aside from that and the flax oil, I am doing every thing you have mentioned and hoping for the best...

AND it does NOT sound hokey at all!!!! I have actually been doing the same thing, telling my self to "just breathe, everything's going to be okay, i'm going to be just fine, i will get through this, i will get better". It does help, along with some breathing techniques, especially when I feel a panic attack coming on from the anxiety that this has all caused me. Last night was especially hard for me as I realized an internal hemmy had prolapsed due to the stress I think from the past few bowel movements from the fissures. I was in complete panic mode, thinking I was just getting worse. I am back at work today after a week off and I am trying to stay positive. It makes me feel somewhat normal again, being surrounded by everyone and does somewhat of a good job at keeping me distracted. However, it is so uncomfortable as I can't have my usual sitz baths and it requires me to sit for long periods of time. I am on day 4 of Nifedipine and having severe stings and slight spasms after my BM this morning.

Thank you for your kindness, Canadabum. And for giving me an outlet when I feel I am at my wits end. I cannot express it enough.

Hey SD...keep up the good work (and hard work) of following your regimen and you should see results soon. Try not to measure it in days...but in weeks. Something that might help you is keeping a pain / food journal -- track your feeling and your eating and over time you will see patterns emerge as well as get a sense of how things are developing. It is hard to always have a sense of the progress when you are in the fog of it.

So glad that you have also found a way to soothe yourself...i also found it really empowering and helpful to try and stay as positive as i could mentally...not that i didnt have many many moments where all i felt like doing was breaking down. Since you find that helpful I would highly recommend you check out the book You Are Not Your Pain

http://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org. ... hed-in-usa

Please keep coming back and let us all know how you are doing...we all fully understand where you are at and are sending you all our good wishes and good vibes for a speedy recovery and as little pain as possible.
Best - Canadabum

Hi folks,

Have split up your topic here and put it on its own.

Can't say it enough, but y'all are truly the best. Is it weird that I haven't met you guys, but feel so comfortable talking to you and never thought I'd get so much comfort from strangers. Definitely trying to take everything one step at a time!! I will be starting a pain/food journal today. I will keep you all posted. THANK YOU

Canadabum wrote:Severely...I feel your pain!!! This is truly no fun and I can attest to that. The challenge as you have described is not just physical it is also mental -- this condition is so freakin painful and it is in a place that you cant see and it aggravates an area that you have to use each day...so we all re-traumatize ourselves mentally and physically...all that to say, yes, it truly sucks to have to deal with this.

So we all need to figure out a way to lessen the trauma to that region and help our bodies speed up the recovery...the following list encapsulates what I did to do the aforementioned:

1. Take some form of stool softener...this is THE MOST IMPORTANT piece of advice i have. I use Magnesium Citrate (150mg-250mg per day). I would also look into Miralax/Restoralax....not sure what it is called where you are from. This site has a good translation of terms and medications that you can use.

2. Poop using a stool of some sort to get your knees up....makes the trajectory easier. (check out squatty potty for the idea..you can make your own with step stools, pile of books etc)

3. If you can at all anticipate it...take a couple Ibuprofen a half hour before you go to the loo...get in front of the pain

4. Stick some coconut oil up there just before you poop....provides some lubrication and a small barrier

5. Sit on heat as much as possible during the day to promote blood flow....cold can also be good -- i use a cold pack wrapped in a towel for 10/15 mins at a time

6. If your butt really hurts and you are in the acute stage of pain...DO NOT WIPE. Hop in the shower to clean off after a bowel movement. Once you are more able to tolerate friction down there...still DO NOT WIPE...use a baby wipe or wet toilet paper to dab after a movement. Only once you have passed the acute pain phase you should consider wiping with baby wipes or damp toilet paper

7. Drink a teaspoon to a tablespoon of flax or olive oil with breakfast, lunch and dinner....then cut down to twice a day after a week or so...lubricate inside and out!

8. Use a cream 2-3x a day...like diltiazem nitro, niphedipine. Just smear around anus, not up, the medicine is well absorbed

9. Take as many baths as you can a day...warm/hot for 20 mins at a time...hey sit there f or 30 if you got the spare minutes

10. Eat super healthy...DO NOT bulk up with metamucil (that is b.s. as far as i can tell). Eat a good balance of non-processed foods that include soluble and insoluble fibre. DO DRINK lots of water. Do add probiotic foods to your diet that could include kombucha, kefir, miso soup, sauerkraut, kimchi, unpasteurized cheeses etc etc

11. Talk about it with people who care....this was as helpful to me as everything else....use this outlet too!!

12.....this is the worst and the best. TIME. This situation requires some time to heal....we all go through the period of time when nothing seems to work....but slowly (way toooooo slowly) you should find some relief

13. Try and stay as positive as you can

I really hope some of these strategies help. You will find some more helpful than others...and over time you may drop some or add some of your own. The physical stuff like taking a stool softener, using cream --extremely important....but for me, just as important was talking to my family and friends and this forum -- the mental support was as important and helpful.

Finally...and this may sound hokey but it helped me in my most painful period...when i walked or swam i came up with a mantra that i sort of hummed/sang to myself that was calming and reassuring and it went something like..."I am healing, I am repairing, I am getting better, I am OK". I would repeat quietly to myself and it was actually a source of help...you may want to use or come up with your own...finally finally, I also found a great book called "You are not your Pain" written by two people who have suffered serious and painful accidents. Thh book details their strategies for living with pain...it is a mindfulness based approach.

All best -- and keep us posted,
Canadabum

Canadabum- This is such a great post! Feeling quite low and wishing to vent. It feels like my life was normal only a few weeks back I had a zest for life etc working full time etc and now all of a sudden Im dealing with horrendous pain issues and feel that Im going to be like this forever.


I am taking the stool softner/ using suppositories and laxatives as the doc has said and using coconut oil. This is in the last three days. I have also used sitz bath and Epson salts-nothing seems to be changing in my condition except that the coconut oil temporarily soothes.

Am I doing something wrong?

Hi Shania...glad you found the post helpful. Can I recommend that you start your own thread with questions -- because people will come to this thread to see how Severlydepressed is doing.

As for using suppositories...not sure what you are using but I would avoid in the early days if you could...you may be re-traumatizing the area by sliding the suppository across the fissure. The stool softener may be enough and you may not need a laxative..unless you are dealing with serious constipation. As for the slow nature of the healing and feeling better...unfortunately that is the reality of this situation. It takes a lot of time to heal and for the creams to kick in. Measure your progress in weeks and months rather than days.

All best,
Canadabum

Hope you are feeling a little better, SD.

Hi SavaIci,

I really don't want to jinx it, but today was a tiny bit better. My usual level of pain went down a notch during my BM. It's weird because even though it was painful, I was thankful that it was not THAT painful as it has been. I instantly became overjoyed and felt like I could breathe for a second. That moment of happiness, though brief, was overwhelming after the past five weeks. I'm crazy because it was still quite painful (a 5-6 on a scale of 10) but the fact that it wasn't my typical 8-9 was nicer than one can ever imagine. I think I'm quite traumatized by this AF and everything happening overall. I have been praying and I thank God every day.

Of course now I'm scared because I know better than to think I'm out of the woods. Just from reading others' experience and forum topics, I know it may get worse and be a never ending cycle. I am still always thinking of surgery the minute it gets unbearable but have anxiety worrying about the possible risks along with it, such as infection. My mind is wild!!! I wish it would stop. But I'm trying to keep positive. It is hard though as I am still having mental breakdowns usually in the morning and at night. For me, that has been as equally as challenging as the fissure...trying to keep composure when all I wanna do is give up and break apart.

I am so grateful for you guys here and the constant encouragement. I don't know what I'd do without it...really.

Also SavaIci, i hope you are doing well!