I've tried to stay away from the forum for awhile since my surgery was scheduled back in Feb. and seemed so far away at the time. I think obsessing over the posts began to freak me out. Yet again I have lurked here over the past days and scared #@!(less again over the possibilities of this not working for me. Abscesses...bleeding....no real recovery...infection...just seems too much for a person to take on WILLINGLY. I swear I don't know how any of you have gone through with the LIS after reading all of these horror stories. I think I'm willing to be inconvenienced for many years of my life rather than endure what some of you have been through. I wish there was a place where only success stories were posted, but I haven't found that place yet. I, too, wish these stupid anal fissures never happened to any of us, and find myself once again feeling the urge to back out of surgery and suffer in silence for the rest of my life.

Hi there,
I felt exactly the same as you about LIS, and suffered truly horrific spasms which totally took over and wrecked my life, for 7 long months. Eventually my fissure became an abcess then a fistula, so I had to give in and have the surgery. And I would do it again. And again... ect ect! Most people who have had it will tell you exactly the same too.
Any surgery carries a risk - life itself is one huge risk, but we all still do the things every day that are risky and take the rough with the smooth.
But to put things into perspective how many people go online and report that they have crossed a road safely? It's the same with surgery - the only people who write on forums are the ones who still have problems!! Weigh that up with the ones who dont have problems and it is a VERY small minority who are still suffering.
Please dont back out of the LIS just because you are scared of the consequences. If you need it to heal the fissure and you have spasms, then it should , if not cure them, help a hell of a lot.
We all wish we weren't in Fissure Hell, but there are a lot of people out there that have to deal with far, far worse on a daily basis!

Hi Reidgirl,
I know it can be very scary before LIS when you see so many having trouble. I felt the same way before my surgery. It was very discouraging. You have to focus on the positive and believe that will be you. I am very, very happy with my surgery results. I didn't have a bumpy road.
There are many older post on here where boardies had the same results as I. I believe my results are not uncommon. As others have told me before, you will typically see people who are having trouble or bumpy recoveries to post in these forums. People who heal and do well typically disappear or don't post at all.
Another boardie (SmallChange) kept telling me he thought I'd be pleasantly surprised and I was! Cheryl who started this board had success with this surgery.
I know it can be difficult to see positive when you are afraid, but it really is a successful surgery. You have to ask yourself if living with the fissure is any quality of life.
Mine wasn't and I wanted to get better. I have felt better since day one after my surgery. I am sure there are many others who have had the same results.
Don't be afraid, Reid. It was the best decision I made with my fissure. I could still kick myself in the butt for waiting 8 months to get it over with.

Thank you Val and Dawn. I don't have the pain or bleeding so many say they have. My worst problem is that on some days when I have a BM, or possibly 2, I feel a dull achy feeling and many times I have to clean up several times afterwards. I use wet TP and try to get up in there. It feels better if I'm as clean as possible. I'm just scared to death that I'll be one of the horror stats.

ps...Reid,
Here's what I did before my surgery. I focused on the postive post, I focused on all the ones from the past who were healed and left. I learned from many who did very well what to do and I learned from the mistakes of others what not to do.
Many have gone before us on here and posted good info. that gives us a good idea of what to expect and how to take care of ourselves.
You can do this reid!! Just believe like I did, you will be in the 90 something %.

Reid, some of these folks are in early recovery or had harder procedures to deal with than just LIS. I haven't read of many who regretted having LIS.
I remember reading of a women who had three which I know is very rare!!! And I'm not trying to scare you , but just think, if someone's willing to do it three times to get better, it's not that bad and for me nothing like having a fissure.

Oh no Reidgirl! I feel bad now about posting my adventures! I was hoping I wouldn't scare people.
Surgery is a very personal decision and only you can decide if it's best for you. I will say this about my own experience: even though I developed a complication after the LIS, things are so much better! I had one of the worst surgery experiences, because my surgeon was a sadistic a$$hole, and I developed a small fistula as a complication of the surgery (the incision site healed at the top, and so has to be 'deroofed'). Even with all that, I'm glad I got the surgery. My fissure is healed, and the pain from the fistula is pretty minor comnpared to the fissure. Furthermore, my wonderful new surgeon is going to fix the fistula and after I heal from that, I will have a lovely new anus :D I'm sure I will want to brag about it at parties!
Basically what I'm saying is that even with the complication, I don't regret the surgery at all. It helped me get this far, which is miles ahead of where I was a little more than a month ago.
You must decide if your pain merits surgery, but please don't let the complicated cases scare you too much. There are many uncomplicated cases too.

In the end it comes down to this: are you happy with your life now? If yes, don't do the LIS, if not, do it.
I postponed my OP for years literally, tried every other remedy available. After all that I ended up with no results and a lot of scar tissue in the area of the never-healing fissure, pain every day etc, so I decided I just have to try the OP.

It really does depend on your quality of life. My fissure had gotten to the point where I couldn't go running or even play volleyball or walk long distances without a shredding pain so I knew it was time for surgery. Right now the recovery is no fun but I know as soon as I'm healed it will be totally worth it. Pain is temporary but regaining your life is invaluable.

Like others have said it is something you need to feel good about before moving forward.
I would do my LIS surgery over in a heart beat even though I had a lot done and a long recovery. I dragged my feet for years and kick myself for living like that for so long. I am not 100% since I found out I have an underlying disease. But the LIS made it easier to manage the disease.
I will also echo that the internet represents mostly people that have issues. For every bad story here there might be 100 people that had the operation, recovered, and moved on never even thinking about going on the net to discuss their ass.
This board is wonderful since it gives such a wide range of experiences(good and bad) and people are so supportive. Reading the stories here helped me finally make the decision to have surgery since there are a lot of positive outcomes and I felt it had a good sample of the possible outcomes.
Best of luck.