Hi all,

I had LIS surgery on 20th January for a long standing chronic anal fissure. It went well, although the recovery process has been a lot longer than I expected. During my 2 follow up appointments the surgeon confirmed that the fissure had healed to the point where it looks like there was never anything there.

However, he did go on to say that receptors in the pelvis and brain can still fire information months after the fissure has healed, treating the area as painful and needing protecting, which makes sense. I was tensing through every bowel movement for 4 years, so it's fair enough that the muscles involved need time to calm down again.

From chatting online it sounds like pelvic floor dysfunction could be a cause of this so I've booked in for therapy next week. What I'm finding is I'll have the odd flare up, maybe once every 2-3 weeks, where I have a bowel movement that causes a pinch-like wince at the start, which will then be followed by a day or so of discomfort, especially during the bowel movement.

The most annoying this is, when flares occur I tend to have more frequent bowel movements as a result - maybe 3 or 4 a day. From what I've read the pelvic muscles tighten up, leading to you having incomplete, smaller movements that have to be done in stages.

Has anyone else found this? It's horrible when it does flare as I spend a couple of days each time dreading several visits to the toilet. The pain doesn't last long past the movement itself, although it does feel slightly sore for the rest of the day.

I'd love to know how folk have got on with pelvic floor therapy, especially if the above sounds like anything you've experienced?

Despite the long recovery phase, I'm still very glad I got LIS. If I could just limit by BMs now to 1 or 2 a day, I'd be happy.