I guess we will all know if/when we stop taking it...LOL
I'm just giving the information I've been told.
My husbands grandma takes it every day and her crs told her too.
I'm sure it's safe to take but my concern is will we all be able to go on our own after long term use and stopping it?

I think no matter how you do it, whether by dietary fiber or something like colace or miralax your body adjusts and pretty much gets dependent on whatever you are doing. Once you stop that routine, it is going to have to adjust to whatever you throw at it next so you should replace one for the other and not slip back into eating crap again. Make sure you replace the miralax with lots of fruits and veggies and water....
For me, pre-AF, I have always had a diet with a lot of dietary fiber but only in things like whole grain cereals, oat bran and I make my own whole grain bread (grind my own flour from the wheat berry and everything). I was pretty short though in fruits and veggies. Still that kept me pretty regular but when I wasn't able to keep up my diet, like when I traveled, I would plug up pretty easily. Things would return to normal once I was back home on my regular diet again.
Now things are a little different. On top of my whole grain foods I eat mostly a vegetarian diet plus I take colace and metamucil. And my butt still hurts!
Hopefully someday I can add some other foods back into my diet. Probably down the road a few months post-op. My wife just came into our office apologizing because she is eating some leftover pizza. Now my family is feeling guilty that I have this thing. God - what next?

I hope your right SC :) I don't want to be on stool softeners for life. I'm hoping after I have my surgery and after my fissure heals that I can stop the softeners and just eat a really good high fiber diet, like you said with more fruits and vegetables. I always ate high fiber healthy cereals because I like them but fruits and vegetables were lacking until my fissure.
I read some older posts and one girl said the stool softeners messed her up and that really scares me... But I have read another and once they had the surgery, they quit them at six weeks I believe and were fine...

I think its right that our body gets used to watever we r taking.So its best to stop it slowly and c how your body reacts.whenever ive cut down movicol,my stools are a bit hard initially but soft again after a few days.
Right now its important to heal then u can think of cutting down watever u take.
Do understand how your family feel.My hubby had pain after moving bowels coz of hard stools and i would feel guilty to eat low fibre foods.