Hi Paul!
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll have to give it a try, and see what my body thinks of it! I buy some high fat yogurt for my son, maybe I'll give that a try too!
Hey Dawn!
yup, I have also been steering clear of all dairy, but I have never really tried it to see what the results will be, so I'm happy to try a bit and see how it goes! :)
Haha, same here, I can think of tons of high calorie things that will help me keep some weight on, but are they good for me? Or my fissure? ... Probably not :( lol
I added some juice today, and had a few small fiber filled snacks, hopefully I don't end up with giant, hard, over-done with-the-fiber bms! Haha, that would just be my luck!

Good Luck FF. I was so scared to eat. I'm sure there's many foods I could have ate that wouldn't have made a difference but I was a chicken,LOL.
I basically ate enough to stay alive and that's it. I remember feeling tired and weak a lot.
I didn't think of this until now but I ate a nutrigrain bar about every day. It didn't seem to cause me any problems and since I barely ever ate sweets, it was so good to me.
One thing that I thought would be fine but didn't do well with was the fiber pop tarts. I've tried one with my recovery and still noticed harder-rougher bm's. It seems they just don't break down or soften in my digestion?
Hopefully you will do fine with some of the new snacks. Some of the juices have a lot of calories too. I started drinking grape.
Take care :)

Hey FF.
If you have no problems with soy products they might be worth a try. I'm a vegan and I'm able to eat soy based 'meats', yogurts, ice creams, milks etc without any problems. They can have a lot of calories and haven't ever constipated me, but each person is different, so if you do try some, I'd stick to small amounts first. Also, at the suggestion of another member, I eat a lot of soft fruits. Pureed baby food is especially good. That's one thing that definitely isn’t coming out hard, and fruit is pretty calorie dense too. For me, fruit, especially pureed, has a mostly softening, as opposed to bulking effect.
Also, about a year ago I started to record everything I ate on a website called myfitnesspal.com. It's pretty easy to set up a profile and allows you to monitor calorie intake, plus most other major nutrients and vitamins (including Fibre). It's very useful if you're trying to lose weight, but equally so for gaining or maintaining it.
Might be useful, and most importantly, it's FREE! I've found that it takes a little of the 'guess work' out of things.
Hope this helps
:)

Hey guys! :)
Thanks soo much for the great tips! :) I'm going to slowly start trying one thing at a time to see what happens! I'm interested in trying Miralax/Movicol, but can't find it anywhere here! :S I'm going to ask the surgeon about it tomorrow and see what she suggests, and if she can help me locate it, or something similar! And I am praying it makes a difference, because the past few days I think I can feel at least one more spot that is feeling an awful lot like another fissure!!! :( one I can barely manage, but 2?? And maybe 3?? I can't handle that. :(

Jenn,
If they have Miralax/Movicol in the UK, I'm sure you can find it in Canada!!

Hey Jenn, FWIW the active ingredient in Miralax is polyethylene glycol 3350. It's available in a bunch of generic versions here in the States, e.g., Laxaclear, Purelax, Smoothlax, etc. I'm not sure what drug stores you have up near you, but maybe if you post the names someone will be able to tell you what Miralax is called at that store. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Also, it's considered fine for breastfeeding, as there is no systemic absorption (it stays entirely in the gut). I looked it up in the book "Medications and Mother's Milk" just to be sure because my wife had hemorrhoids after her pregnancy and took it as well :)

Thanks so much NG! :) I'll look around for it tomorrow after my appointment! Thanks too for adding that info about compatibility with nursing! :) I'm always so nervous to take anything at all. With any luck I can get some relief after I find this new stuff, and get out of this painful rut I'm stuck in! Oh, one more thing! Have you ever found anything, that when applied topically, actually helps with the pain at all? I have tried lots -from fresh aloe, to Polysporin with pain relief in it- and nothing ever helps ease the burning, searing pain on really bad days. I have read tons of crazy ideas from Vics Vaporub to Tinactin, but am so afraid to try anything like that! :S I haven't even been applying my Diltiazem because its far too painful! Just thought I'd ask, you seem to be a wealth of knowledge, and a veteran at this fissure thing Thanks again :) it means a lot.

Haha yup my wife had a C-section, gestational diabetes, hemorrhoids, and post-partum preeclampsia (rare for post-partum but it happens) so she was on a bunch of drugs around and after delivery. So I decided to invest in a copy of Thomas Hales' "Medications And Mother's Milk" book and still have it handy :) At one point I was just looking up drugs for fun in it.
For topical analgesics, I can't say I'm too experienced there, I'm afraid. I don't think Tinactin would do much though since it's just an antifungal, I've always kind of wondered how that one came to be thought of as a fissure treatment. I did try 5% lidocaine and also another one called dibucaine (sold under the brand name Nupercainal here in the US) early on in my fissure days. They did provide a small measure of relief, but I'd be lying if I said it were very remarkable or long-lived. Not sure about Canada but in the US, dibucaine is available over the counter and normal drug stores only carry up to 2% lidocaine (usually in topical burn ointments) but the 5% stuff is available online (even Amazon carries it) or by prescription. Also, you could probably ask your doctor to prescribe you a compound that mixes up diltiazem and an analgesic like lidocaine all into one.
I didn't like applying my topical ointments when my fissure was raging hard, either. It sucked, especially when I used my finger. Ultimately I ended up using a little baby oral syringe, which required less contact and actually got my ointment up the ol' anal canal. I'm not sure how you're using the ointment currently but maybe a change in modus operandi would help more than anything else...
Other non-topical things I personally tried:
Valium, which relaxes the sphincter and also reduces anxiety. Pretty good stuff for fissures. I did develop a dependency on it, which sucked real bad, but this is an individual thing and unlikely to happen for most people with short term use. Probably best thought of as a "last resort when the spasms are killing you" type of thing, assuming your physician is willing to prescribe it. These produce active metabolites that can pass into breast milk, though, so theoretically they can sedate infants too.
Opiates. I know what you're thinking -- those are constipating! -- but it wasn't anything that Miralax couldn't handle. I was taking oxycodone at one point for the pain and spasms. I think you guys get the weaker Tylenol #2's over the counter up north. It's not the greatest thing to be taking when you have butt problems, but when my pain was real bad I didn't care in the least. These also can pass small levels of both unmetabolized and metabolized drug into breast milk, though, so you probably won't want to use any unless absolutely necessary.
Hope that helps, there are probably other "caine" drugs that can be used too, but I'd say to temper your expectations. They might help you get the ointment where it needs to go, but a few minutes later you probably won't notice much actual relief, unfortunately.

P.S. It's not really a topical drug, but heat pads have helped a lot of people here. I never used one myself but there's an abundance of love for sitting on them amongst board members if I recall correctly :)

Hey NG!
Thanks for all the info! (again ) I really appreciate it! I met with my surgeon again today, and she confirmed I now have at least 2 fissures, but couldn't do a complete exam because I was in far too much pain. She still doesn't want to do surgery, and suggested I continue using the Diltiazem (even when it hurts), and to keep that up, along with Milk of Magnesia, for the next 4 weeks. She would like to sedate me, take a really good look, and administer Botox injections, but said my son should really be weaned before we do that, so perhaps in January we can do that. I go back to work at the end of January, so I hate to wait that long (she wanted to do it ASAP) but, what can ya do? I'm ok with that course of action, mostly because I lost all hope for any "quick fix" long ago, and am happy she prefers not to just cut right away like the last surgeon I saw! Phew.. Sorry, I'm kind of unloading! LoL Anywho.. That's where I'm at now! :) Hope you are doing alright! Thanks again for the info, and for reading! :)