*Posted this again as a new topic:)
This may be a first but i'm actually from Bangladesh:) Name's Arafat. Was having BUTT issues recently after having kidney stone surgery a month or so back. Started browsing the net for info and got directed to this forum where someone named (Dan, i think?) talked abt his fistula surgery and FANTASTICALLY helpful people like Dawn , hopetoheal n others encouraging him. You guys dont know this but you've already helped me settle my nerves somewhat....its just that i never had surgery before the age of 28 and now in the last 12 months i've had surgery twice for kidney stones (endoscopic procedure). I was constipated for a couple of days following stone surgery and then inflamed my preexisting anal skin tags. It was very painful for abt 2-3 days. Hydrcortisone cream helped and the inflammation went down. However, in a day a seperate swelling took place adjacent to the skin tag. It wasnt painful. Had it checked out by a CRS who said it was a moderate sized thrombosed external haemmoroid which would go away on its own in a few weeks. Sadly, i started feeling some mucous/pus discharge recently. Rushed off to my CRS who now says i have a small fistula at the 6 o colock position that needs to be surgically removed. Right now, i feel as if my ordeal is just getting longer and longer. Was hoping to get back to work after stone surgery and now THIS!

Sorry, the dude who got the fistula surgery was Adam:)

Hi Arafat! Welcome!
I’m sorry you have to be here, though. It sure sounds like you’ve been through quite a lot! Two surgeries in such a short time – I’m not surprised if you feel like you are stuck in a never-ending surgery cycle!
I’m glad you found this forum helpful. It has helped many, many people, including me. I’m so glad Adam directed you here. He’s a great dude – we were recovering from our surgeries at the same time and he really helped me out. :)
I know it’s difficult, but try not to worry about the surgery. Of course, from a patient’s point of view it’s really scary; but from a surgeon’s point of view, it’s really easy and straight-forward. The doc will just ‘deroof’ the fistula – that is, remove the bit of tissue that forms the roof of the tunnel so that you have a wider wound that will heal from the bottom up. It’s pretty simply and only takes from 15-30 minutes. Some folks (like Adam) had it done with only a local and walked out of the docs office a few minutes after they arrived.
I know that butt surgery is one of the scariest things in the world, but I can tell you from my experience, and from the many posts I’ve read here, that it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. My surgery was a breeze. I was given happy-sleepy meds and I slept through the whole thing (I prefer to sleep through butt surgery, given a choice!). The recovery wasn’t a lot of fun, I’ll admit. I’d recommend being prepared to take it easy and get lots of rest for two weeks. The first few days are the roughest, but by the end of the first week you will likely start feeling like you can do more, so you should be able to ease back into normal life by then. But two weeks of good rest is ideal IMO, if you can manage it, just to help the healing process as much as possible. I definitely understand that you'd want to get back to work and get back to your life asap, but you might want to just see how you feel. After everything you've been through recently, I don't think your body would be asking too much if it wanted two little weeks off!
I got a stockpile of supplies to prepare for my surgery. The items I got included:
1. Over-the-counter (OTC) meds for pain: You’ll likely get some prescription painkillers from your doc. Those are good to use for the first few days, but you may want to transition off them after a few days, since they constipate and they make some of us feel a little wonky.
I used Robaxacet, which is a muscle relaxant, and ibuprofen, which is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) for pain and inflammation. I don’t know if you can get Robaxacet in Bangladesh, but maybe a pharmacist can help you find an alternative (Robaxacet contains acetaminophen [which is an analgesic/pain reliever] and methocarbamol [which is a muscle relaxant])
2. A good stool softener: This is REALLY important. As you probably know, you’ll want to have nice, soft stool to help with the healing. Also, as I mentioned, the prescription painkillers will constipate. Miralax/Movicol is a favourite stool softener here, but if you’ve already found a stool softener that works for you, then you might want to stick with it. If you haven’t you can try the Miralax/Movicol to see how it works for you. Trying it out before the surgery isn’t a bad idea, just so you know how it works. It can take a day or two to kick in as well, so if you start it before the surgery, then you won’t have to wait for it to start working after the op.
3. Milk of Magnesia (MOM): Many of us had a back-up supply of this in case the first post-surgery BM was slow to get going.
4. Soft, easy to digest food: There are lots of really great meal ideas in the Diet Tips/Supplements forum. Some of these meals are surprisingly tasty!
5. Chemical-free baby wipes: These are great for gentle cleaning after BMs.
6. Lots of good movies and/or good books.
I hope you find some of this helpful. There are lots of great people here who can offer excellent advice and wonderful moral support. Ask anything you want, vent, chat, and so on. We are here to help you through this. Try not to worry – soon you will be healed and all this will all be a distant memory. :D

Thanks hopetoheal for the advice. I'll keep myself prepared! I'm actually having MOM for the last few days as i did not want to be constipated once i knew i had a thrombosed haemorroid. My BM's are pretty regular and soft now so thank god for that! I'll be seeing my doctor today, and he'll set up a surgery date. Its the postop pain i'm panicky abt right now plus the leave i may need to take from work. I'm a teacher of Economics and Law. We're on winter vacation here but school opens on January 8th. Maybe, i'll just have to take the 1st week off once school opens! hopetoheal, u mentioned the postop pain not being fun....uhhh HOW bad can it get? Incapacitating? If so, almost every day the 1st week or usually after BM's? And were BM's terribly painful, especially the first couple?

What kind of surgery will they perform for your AF? Is it an LIS or a Anal Dilatation? Regardless, I am sure you will be as good as new in a few months and can resume a normal life. Best regards!
http://anal-fissure.org/t4052-the-strenght-to-carry-on

Hi again Arafat! You teach Economics and Law- wow! that's impressive! :D
The post-op pain for me was only incapacitating for the first three days, and by 'incapacitating' I mean that I was too uncomfortable to concentrate on much, I was quite sore and delicate; but I was certainly not in agony.
It's a bit difficult to say what the pain will be like, because everybody's pain tolerance is different, and for me the pain was relative. I had suffered with a fissure for about a year, and that was truly the worst pain I had ever had or could imagine! That fissure had me screaming during BMs and bawling like a baby for hours afterward. So compared to that pain, the post-surgery pain was much more manageable. It certainly didn't reduce me to tears. Actually, it was a more normal post-surgery recovery kind of pain, easily manageable with the Percocet, and then later with regular OTC meds.
You certainly should not be in agony after the surgery. I'd say maybe for the first two or three days that the worst would be like the pain from the thrombosed hemmie. Also, the pain for me wasn't constant - it would settle down for a while and then flare up. I slept as much as possible - sleep really helps the healing process. :D
The first BM is scary! But for many of us, the anxiety and anticipation were worse than the BM itself. If you take your stool softeners, then the BM should be nice and soft and come out easily, in which case, you will likely be pleasantly surprised. The trick is to relax as much as possible, take deep yoga breaths and don't push. After the first one, things get a lot easier and the post-op BMs were actually more comfortable than before the surgery.
I probably could have gone back to work after the first week, but that would have been pushing things and I would have been very grumpy and miserable. I also really didn't want any complications with my recovery. I developed a fistula after an LIS and I really couldn't face anything else happening, so I was determined to take very good care of myself! :D
I found some old posts that may help you. Adam, Summergal and I had our fistulotomies very close together, so these posts should give you a good idea of how each of us managed the recovery period.
My fistula surgery:
http://anal-fissure.org/t3110-there-is-such-a-thing-as-a-good-surgery-experience
Adam’s fistula surgery:
http://anal-fissure.org/t3141-wow-just-found-out-i-had-an-abcess-and-fistula-and-had-surg
Summergal’s fistula surgery:
http://anal-fissure.org/t3247-good-luck-tomorrow-summergal
I'm so glad you're already creating nice, soft BMs - way to go!
I hope some of this info helps you. How are you doing today (or should I say this evening?) How did your docs appointment go? I hope you're doing well and that you aren't too anxious!

Hey, thanks for the idea of the pain that i can expect. I wish we all had Adam's supernormal pain tolerance level:D
I did go and see my doc who said that the fistula hole was very small and that it was a low fistula which would have a very small wound after the surgery. He recommended a week of rest after which i could go back to work. But i think all of us know that docs notoriously overestimate our healing powers so i'll be thinking 2 weeks as well! He said he wanted 2 weeks to wait for my thrombosed haemmoroid to get even smaller (its significantly smaller now than it was a couple of weeks back and is painless). Doc also said fistulas generally dont harm and dont ever cause cancer but that surgery is usually required as they rarely heal by themselves. But he said since my fistula was very small there was a chance of self healing so he wanted to wait a couple of weeks.
A further aggravation i have is that just 2 months after stone surgery my X Ray shows i might still have ANOTHER stone in the same site. I'm just at a loss for words to understand whats happening:( I did a CT Scan yesterday and will get the report in an hour or so. Dont want more surgery!!!

Got my report for CT Scan. No stones:) Thank God cuz that was one complication did not want! Seems i only had pleboliths which the X Rays were unable to correctly diagnose. So back to only worrying about anal fistula probs...Everyday, i wake up hoping there is not wetness down there, but sure enough there it is. I think i sometimes go hours or rarely a day without any pus discharge at all...but then it comes back:(

Hey Arafat! I'm so glad your CT Scan reported no stones! Phew! That's a relief! You must be really tired of doctors by now.
It's also great news that the fistula is so small. My surgeon said the same thing as yours - fistulas aren't dangerous, but they usually do require surgery to heal. It would be really nice if yours self-healed, but I think it's realistic to expect surgery. The good news in your case is that it's so small and very low, which means a very straight-forward procedure. The discharge really is unpleasant! It's not uncommon for fistulas to fill and drain in a cyclical pattern - while they are filling up, there's little to no discharge; but then they eventual do drain. After the surgery, there may be drainage for quite a while, but it slows down quite a bit, and it stops filling up (because it has been laid open), so there is no pain or discomfort from swelling and accumulation.
I wish we could all have Adam's super-human pain tolerance too! But I think you are quite right to add an extra week to what the doc says. I told myself that I should take an extra week even if I didn't need it rather than regret not taking the time to recover.
I hope everything goes very smoothly for you from now on. Keep us posted about how you are doing - we are counting down the two weeks with you! :)

I AM so tired of doctors. I mean i've not been relaxed since October of this yr when the abdomen pains started due to kidney stones. My hemmy is now even smaller and BM's have been wonderful for the past 4 days or so. The thing that irritates me the most is that i cant see the fistula hole!!! There is still dampness but not as much as before. Its not really DRAINING if u know what i mean. I did the worst thing possible yesterday and actually watched a fistulotomy surgery video. Should NOT have done it:( It was just so scary, looking at the scalpel at work! By the way, can anyone here tell me how big the wound is immediately after surgery?
Apart from all the butt woes, Happy New Year to ALL! I hope ur all doing something great to celebrate!