The advice that NewMummy gives is good - because of her I changed my diet, I was eating too much insoluble fibre and not enough soluble, and things were a bit hard. Making the change helped, but if you do reduce some of your insoluble fibre make sure you gradually cut it down so that you don't all of a sudden get bunged up again.
I had LIS surgery 8 weeks ago because I was in so much pain that I couldn't go on like that any more, my quality of life was so compromised. The surgeon I saw said that surgery would fix the problem, and it wouldn't take long to recover. I was terrified but felt that I had no other choice since I couldn't sit down all day everyday and was basically housebound, and lying down to breastfeed. I was sore for a week afterwards but then I could sit down again, and within two weeks I was out walking again.
Now the surgeon made me think that I'd be fine straight away, but at 5weeks post-op I had a bit of a setback and started feeling the fissure pain again along with blood. This was linked to me being very nervous when I had a BM one day - I sort of got stuck halfway and it was hard to get it out. I think this caused me to undo my healing. Then after that happened, the vicious cycle began and I worried about the next BM and the same thing happened, and so on. It really freaked me out after the surgeon having said that the problem would be fixed.
Of course my surgeon is away on holiday for six weeks so I can't contact him. I am seeing a physiotherapist because I had a separation of the abdominal muscles during pregnancy, so I asked her about me 'freezing' during a BM and what I could do to help,since women's health is her area of expertise and she is also really really lovely. She gave me a few exercises I can do to try and relax myself before I go, and that along with trying to work on my stress levels and improving my diet, and some Rectogesic cream is slowly starting to make things better but it really is one step forward two steps back. i think that in my case, stress is really the key thing holding me back in my recovery and if I can get my head in the right place it will help a great deal. And after looking around this site, there are a number of people that had setbacks post-LIS as well, which makes me feel better to know it can be 'normal'.
BUT that said if it does get to the point where you ladies are considering surgery, don't let this put you off. If i had to make the choice again I would still 100% go for it as even with this setback I am so so so so much better and more able to get on with my life than I was before, and I have gone from pain for 9-10hours a day and unable to sit, to minor transient pain during a BM, and mild discomfort when i think about it too much.
My physiotherapist also thinks that we all hold our stress in different areas - some people get tense shoulders when they stress out, well, after all of this I get tense in my pelvic floor! I often find myself unconsciously tensing up all my muscles, and she says this is a habit I will have developed when I was in all that pain, of 'guarding' the area with tense muscles. This of course doesn't help with the healing. I think this is due to the fact that I am quite a tiny build and carrying my baby really wrecked all of my core muscles and I don't have much strength, so I am using all the wrong muscles to do the work and this is putting pressure on my pelvic floor.
NewMummy,my doc says that he doesn't think breastfeeding will affect my recovery at all. But then he hasn't had the best advice throughout this ordeal so I'm not sure I should listen to him! But it's one of the lovely things I had through all of this and I've got this far so I think I'll hang in there. I'd be interested to know though if you do go down that road. NZ health professionals are all so strongly pro-breastfeeding that you'd practically have to be on your death bed before they recommended giving it up I reckon!!
here's hoping for a good day for you both
and it's lovely to have you to talk to! 
