Hi NG: Thanks for laying out the road map for what lies ahead post-LIS. Could you provide some more details on your eating habits after LIS? How long did it take to return to a "normal" diet? Do you eat out a lot? Do you eat red meat (I used to really love a nice, big, juicy steak and lots of barbequed chicken). Do ever get constipated? Are you on a high fibre diet, that s do you select whole grain stuff when shopping?
The reason why I am curious about dietary changes after LIS is that I believe that in my case AF was caused by poor food choices (lots of refined carbohydrates, lot of scotch whiskey and Guinness stout) rather than any underlying medical condition.

Elphie: Thank you so much for the kind words! It's definitely hard to keep a sense of humor when one has a fissure. In the beginning I definitely had absolutely zero humor about my situation -- it was really annoying when someone would try to make light of it, even if they meant well. But then I realized that so many people have it so much worse that I shouldn't really complain. In the grand scheme of things, there are a million people out there who would gladly trade places with me, and probably with many of us here :) All through my 20's I had an immortal ass too. Abused it all kinds of foods and beverages. And water ... what's that when there's beer and soda and coffee to drink? Haha.
MBPaul: I think you and I must be long lost brothers or something :)
BEFORE my fissure, my diet was largely sodas, beer (and lots of it I might add), and coffee, all day every day. Food wise it was lots of fried foods and fast foods (I was VIP at McDonald's). I ate out a lot at sit-down restaurants too back in those days. I've always been a really skinny guy (5'8" and 140 lbs at my heaviest back in college) but honestly you couldn't tell by what I ate...
DURING my fissure, I basically went for broke on veggie soup. That's nearly all I ate every day for an entire year, no exaggeration. I'd start the morning with a Fiber One bar, munch on some Fiber One cereal for snacks, and eat veggie soup for lunch plus dinner. The only variety I got was occasional sushi, baked fish, and boiled chicken breast as those didn't seem to cause me many butt problems. Red meat was a definite no-no. Luckily for me, I was never a big red meat guy (I'm more of a seafood lover) so dropping red meat from my diet was easy. I dropped it entirely, meaning not a single iota of hamburger, steak, etc., ever went into my mouth during that entire time. Eating every day was mind numbingly boring, but I got used to it (hey guys in the military do the same) and it really helped keep my fissure under control, albeit it never healed the stupid thing.
AFTER my fissure, and after LIS, I still eat a lot of veggie soup. In fact I eat veggie soup every weekday for lunch. And I really do mean every single weekday. I cook it once a week and then just scoop my lunch serving every morning. For dinner, I can eat basically anything I want. And on weekends, I allow myself to eat whatever I fancy. Sometimes it's McDonald's, sometimes it's pizza, etc., no restrictions really. This is as close to a normal diet as I've had since my fissure days, and I'm okay with it. Eventually I'd like to try stopping Miralax and also not eating veggie soup every single day, but I'm not willing to take those chances just yet. One thing the fissure has really done to me is leave an indelible mental imprint that I'm not sure will ever truly vanish, truthfully.
As for whether I seek out high fiber stuff when shopping, the answer is definitely yes. I eat more fruits now than I used to, which isn't difficult since I used to eat basically next to no fruits I do select whole grain stuff like pastas, breads, and crackers whenever possible. I also still start every morning with a Fiber One bar since that contains 9 grams of fiber. So really, I'd say I'm on a modified fissure diet these days ... the core tenets of eating lots of veggies and fiber are still important, but I now have a lot more flexibility when I want it.
As for constipation, nope, I never get that these days. But that's probably because of the daily Miralax use, which I always follow up with tons of water consumption.
Long story short:
* Boiled veggies are your #1 friend IMO when dealing with a fissure. Red meats are your #1 enemy. Individual responses to different foods will vary from person to person, but I think these two rules are as close to universal law when it comes to fissure as you'll ever find.
* Even after LIS and fissure healing, ideally you would still be careful and try to keep up your fiber intake. But I would say you'll eventually be able to return to all the foods you once loved. I personally can't quite turn the spiciness on my curries up as high as I used to, but that's about the only real 100% hands-off limitation I can think of for me.
* If you do crave meats while battling your fissure, the safest for me were fish, chicken, and other seafoods like crab/lobster.
* I think a bad diet and heavy alcohol consumption had a lot to do with my fissure too. I think the antibiotics and diarrhea/constipation thing was just the straw that broke the anus' back, but it was probably something that was teetering on the brink for a while from enjoying life way too much :)

Hi NG!
Glad to see us old timers helping the newbies. Nice summary of your experience and glad we have all helped each other out (and continue to do so)..and have come out the other side with basically normal butt-lives!
I sure remember the days when all I could think about was the pain, my lord, the pain!

Yo yo yo Sidra! Been a while :) Yeah it's pretty amazing how relatively normal things are on the "behind front" compared to a mere two years ago. The really really really bad days seem like a bad dream from a past life or something.
Saw that you made it to Machu Picchu btw. How was it? Did they have nice restrooms there

Yo yo yo back homey! lol
Actually there are NO bathrooms one you enter Machu Picchu! They kept warning people about it. As an IBS sufferer, I freaked but got lucky that I had no attacks. There are no garbage cans either, they want to keep it just as it was 550 years ago. I will say, the pics cannot do it justice, it was way more beautiful than I even anticipated!
An interesting note, NOWHERE in Peru (even 5 star hotels) can you flush toilet paper..again, as someone with IBS and who is very careful when wiping (as we all are), it was kind of a hassle to be trying to get it into the wastebaskets! Other than that though, the trip was unbelievable! Check out the link I posted and see how amazing the scenery and culture/people were.
I skipped my Miralax on purpose the night before and I was scared the next day. I do think it "traumatized" my butt to NOT have it as I was a little sore the following days. Never again will I skip it, not worth the worry of the beast coming back, even after LIS I worry a bit.

Hey NG! I was thinking about posting something about my overall experience as well. Kind of a "lessons learned". Soon...

NG...Thanks for the update.
You, Cheryl and Dawn (happy and alpine too) were especially helpful to me during fissure hell and I appreciate it. I have been trying to "pay it forward."
I am 1 month post op now and it is so true what you said about recovery time. I also had a skin tag removed and that slowed my healing considerably. I am just starting to have pain free BMs and feel like it'll be at least another month before I start to feel somewhat normal. The first 2 weeks were brutal, but it was more skin tag incision pain then fissure pain ( I think).
Thanks again and good luck to you!

great to see your post NG!
hope all is well and that you will continue to make improvements with the ass!
happy healing.

Hey NG!
Great to hear that you're doing well! Sorry to hear that that life has thrown those curve balls. I've had a few of those hit me too of late. Consequently, I’ve not been around the forum much either recently.
Your story does give me hope that things will eventually sort themselves out for me too. I’m about 3.5 months post LIS, and while I’ve had one or two short periods of relative quiet on the butt front during that time, in the main, things are still very difficult.
Eat something yummy for me eh! Preferably a burrito … And I want a description of it in all its glorious deliciousness … Mmmmmm.
Sphinctersaurus salutes you … and your 99.99% continent bottom!! (May it always be so!)
:D

sphinctersaurus, your posting is so cute!
i hope u r doing well too!