My mother, grandmother, sisters and myself all have constipation. It's natural for us. However, a lifetime of it has caught up with me and now I have two fissures.
It's difficult to combat with diet (I do eat alot of fiber), so I've been using colace, miralax, and fibercon, and tons of water. If I slack off, I have issues.
I've taken the colace daily, and miralax every other day for about 4 months. How long can I safely take these? Should I be worried about taking too much?
I just started on the diltizem cream and it's slowly working! Yea! I'm wondering how long with the colace and miralax. Thanks for any info. I hope everyone gets better. No one needs this!

All available literature suggests that Colace and/or Miralax can be safely taken long term (or, put differently, there isn't any literature that indicates it's unsafe to do so). I've asked a couple CRS and GI docs the same question and they've all said it's fine.
Now for the disclaimer: there really isn't much literature available on the topic, and I'm not aware of any true long term clinical studies that have been done.
A lot of us here do take Miralax long term, however, so if anything terrible were to happen, you'll be in good company at least :) I've personally been taking Miralax daily for 2+ years, so I'll make ya a deal: if my colon explodes due to too much Miralax, I'll post back, and then you'll just need to stop within the next 1.5 years and you'll be good
Joking aside, I think one missing piece of info is how much of each you're taking per day. If you're taking a half dose of each, that might be a different situation than if you're taking double doses of each, for example.
Also, one other thing: have you tried going it alone with just Miralax sans the Colace? For most folks, Miralax is the more effective stool softener of the two (the chief complaint is that it's sometimes too effective if you catch my drift ), and I kind of wonder whether you can get by with just that, thereby reducing the number of drugs in the mix.

I tried no Colace yesterday. Paid for it huge today. But I only take one dose. Thanks for the info. I don't take a full dose of Miralax - just half. I could try stepping it up and no Colace. I also do a small can of prune juice a few times a week.
Here's hoping your colon doesn't explode! Of course, if it does - be sure and let me know.
Thanks!

Hrm what if extended Miralax use leads to an inability to type -- then I'd have no way to warn you guys lol
Ok so that doesn't sound bad at all (completely non medical opinion obviously) if it's just one pill (not sure if your Colace are 50 mg or 100 mg but either one would still be a low dose) plus ~8.5 grams Miralax daily. Full 17 gram dose of Miralax is what I take daily ... some folks here take less and some take more. I tried Colace early on in my fissure fun and it didn't do much for me, so if I'm being honest, I'm likely unreasonably biased against it. But I think the Golden Rule of the fissure regimen is really to stick to what works for you. So if you've been doing well on one Colace plus a half dose of Miralax, then I'd be inclined to stick with that. No need to mess with perfection, just maybe double check with your doctor as to whether he/she thinks it's okay (I'd guess most will say "yes absolutely"). But if you want a secondary plan to consider, then maybe try upping Miralax to 3/4 or even full dosage and dropping the Colace -- give it a few days if you go this route, though, as of course it takes time for Miralax to reach full effect and it'll take time for your body to adjust to the absence of Colace. Taking Miralax alone long term is something that a few of our CRS have told us is perfectly safe. For some of us, a fear/concern is long term dependence on Miralax to have regular bowel movements (I know this one worries me a bit sometimes), but since you already know that constipation just runs in the family, maybe this one is a non-issue in your case.
BTW do your other family members suffer from fissures too? Maybe your folks or grandparents have experience with long term use of stool softeners or diet regimens that they can share (would be interesting for the rest of us fissure victims too).

I'm the only lucky fissure recipient in my family. Thanks again for the info. I'm almost scared to change, having done so yesterday and suffering horribly today. But, I'm willing to experiment.
Thanks!