Hello Everyone,
I just recently gave birth last May 1, 2012 (Labor day here in the philippines :) ) via c-section. At first, i thought the pain from the incision would be the worst of all the worst i will ever experience BUT along came the AF...
I was getting headaches and feeling weak so my OB advised me to take iron supplements. I was not fully aware that this will cause constipation. It's also my fault for being careless about my diet when in fact i need to slow down on eating solid foods since i just gave birth. Ive been eating fried foods, fast foods and street foods for the 1st week. (sorry TMI).
One day, I was having a hard time passing my tools since im constipated because of the iron pills. I did strain a lot. I see to it that i will push no matter what. After that i felt a "rip" or something then my butt hole starts to ache! But i just ignored it. Then the day after, the road to hell starts! My bowel is sooo painful that i started crying. I told my husband about it and he told me its hemorrhoids. But since im a google addict i search about razor sharp feeling/shard of glass bowel movements and its confirmed. ANAL FISSURES.
I have it checked with my OB and she prescribed me FAKTU ointment. And its no fun when you keep sticking the applicator in your butt. And its a hemorrhoidal cream so i doubt if it will work. Thankfully i came across this website and found LOTS of useful tips and meds. But unfortunately some meds/supplements are not available here in the Philippines. I try to find magnesium tablets and to no luck i cant find any drugstore that sells those. I was in agony for days that i feel so depressed. I then develop a phobia going to the bathroom. It's like a death sentence to me. But i tried my best to take the pain than not poop at all!
Here's what helps my AF:
*Sitz Baths with Betadine
*Prune Juice when I wake up (empty stomach)
*Aloe Vera Juice before sleeping
*Lots of papaya
*Not eating so much (lol)
*Lots and lots of wateeeeer! (I just recently read about a woman who died from consuming a big amount of water and it scares a hell out of me. So i limited myself from drinking 10 glass a day)
*Petroleum Jelly before going to the bathroom
*If im not confident on what i ate, i take Senokot before i sleep
Just started this regime 2 days ago. It does actually help. I'm kind of pain free but the thing is there's blood in my stool. But when i'm in extreme in pain there's no blood. weird.
Thank you so much for having a time reading my RANTS. lol. And please bear with my english, it's not my first language. Have a fissure free day!

UPDATE:
I suddenly felt this sharp stabbing pain while im sitting. Then when i tried to stand up and walk it worsened! Help! Is this what you call spasm? What should I do? It's like my butt is heavy and there's my fissures are hurting everytime i move. :(

Hi,
Sorry to hear about your fissure I have a similar problem after having my first baby in January.
You should try your best to get the right medical treatment as soon as you can - because your fissure is pretty new, you have a good chance of getting it to heal with conservative measures - it's when these nasty fissures stick around and become chronic they get really hard to get rid of.
Unfortunately for me when I first got mine, the docs I saw just kept saying - don't get constipated, it should go away on its own. By the time we all realised it wasn't going away on its own it was too late for conservative measures to work. I found this website too late but IMO there is more useful info here than all my health professionals combined!
You need to find a doctor that will prescribe you some Rectogesic (which is glyceryl trinitrate) or dilatilazem or nifedipine as these have a good chance of healing the fissure if you use them in the first 6 weeks or so. You should do this in conjunction with all of the other things (diet, water, a good balance of soluble and insoluble fibre, sitz baths).
In my own personal experience, the spasm did come on after a BM, and on really bad days lasted up to 9 hours - so what you describe above does sound like spasm to me, though you will find on this site that everyone has a different experience.
Throw everything you have at healing that nasty little gremlin so that you can get back to enjoying your maternity leave pain free! I have to go back to work today for the first time and I really feel like I missed out because of this horrible beastie in my bum!!!
Sorry to meet you like this, but you're in the right place :D

Hello Tori-tore!
Thanks for the advice! But i'm afraid the doctors here wont prescribe me anything except for FAKTU ointment which did not help me at all because it's a hemorrhoidal cream. They just dismiss it as a "simple" wound and like what you've said would eventually heal on it's own.
It's so depressing that instead of focusing and enjoying my newborn son, my world now revolves around my bum. I can't enjoy my food. (I also had a hyperemesis during my 1st trimester...lost 30 to 40 pounds in a month!). I feel like ive been punished or something.
Right now i'm trying this coconut oil+vitamin oil self made suppositories. I hope this would really help my fissures to get heal. cross fingers!

Can you see another doctor, and get a second opinion?

I know that here in NZ the GP didn't recommend the Rectogesic to start with because in his practice it isn't a very common treatment and he doesn't use it very often, but it is considered the 'gold standard' treatment by our specialists. Maybe you need to see a specialist?
I know exactly how you feel about not being able to give your full attention to your son, these things really do take over our lives! I can relate to your comment about feeling punished, it's very easy to say 'why me, it's not fair'. If nothing else at least here you know that other people understand how you feel. I sometimes find it hard to relate to my other friends that have had babies because it seems so much harder with a fissure!
I've got my fingers crossed for you, just try and keep your chin up and stay positive! You can beat this fissure, it's not going to be easy, especially with everything else that is going on in your life right now, but you can do it! Try and find something small in every day to make you smile and enjoy that moment - I bet that when you see your boy smile you forget about your pain for a moment :)

Nice posts Tori-tore, a lot of good advise :D
Hi Super_Boink, I just thought I'd let you know that I'm another new mum that is also struggeling with a fissure (and now a second new one!!), so you're absolutely not alone and as both you and Tori-tore, I have also found it hard to enjoy motherhood.
What's really helping apart from all the diets and creams is to get your head in the right place too. When things get hard for me I keep repeating to myself that this will not last forever, I have a beautiful healthy boy (lots of people don't), and I am otherwise healthy (lots of people are not). So when this fissure goes away I will be perfectly fine. And I really actively try not to get down and think that I'm being punished or the classic "why is it happening to me", because it will not get me anywhere except for having an even more misserable day and I'm sick of having misserable days!
So, hop on the happy train with new mummies Tori-tore and me, and know that you're not the only new mum with this problem and we're all gonna get through this, there are still good things happening to you (surely your baby must be doing something cute every day and you're lucky to have that), this will eventually go away and you will find on this forum something that will work for you!
I used to have anxiety attacks when going to the toilet for a BM and I got advise to count loudly when on the toilet as it will take my mind off things...it sounds silly but it actually worked a bit! Also, it worked to convince myself that my day was not ruined if my fissure tore again because I had been through it before and I had survived so I will survive again....this thought made it easier for me to go to the toilet and accept that whatever happened happened and I could live with it..
Good luck with the suppositories! Maybe I should try some too :D
If you don't get better maybe you can give us some more details of your poop and pooping habbits...because as strange as it is telling us about it, sometimes it may help us to suggest to you what else to eat or not eat...
Also..one last thing...my baby is now close to 6 months so if this new fissure doesn't go away or if another new one develops, I will stop breastfeeding and see what happens....some people say hormones associated with breastfeeding may cause fissures to not heal etc. So, if I decide to stop breastfeeding I'll tell you mummies and any future mummies what happened.
Good luck!

Tori-tore and NewMummy thank you so much for the moral support! It really helps me a lot. Reading your advices and lifting up my spirit is really a BIG thing for me. I've been through a lot before I got this fissure and this one worsen my situation both psychologically and physically. Every time the lunch/dinner is served, i always want to cry cause i can't eat those delicious foods! I just prepared my own food (Quaker oats, papaya, wheat crackers) and it's been like that since I had this "evil". I'm STARVING. and because of that i stopped breastfeeding.
People start to notice that i lose weight and ask me what's my secret. I want to shout at them that they must eat constipating foods, no water and force their selves to poo! LOL. But naaah, i wont even wish this to my mortal enemy.
It's true that i should pre-occupied myself on happy things. positive things! But sometimes, you know, especially when you're alone, you can't stop yourself thinking about your fissures. So as much as possible I keep myself busy so i wont feel alone. This forum really helped me a lot.
Are you guys healed or ALMOST healed? Could you please share your conservative treatments? diets? or did you already undergo a surgery?(a big no no for me, im so afraid).
Thanks a lot for your time gals! So appreciate it!

NewMummy- my poo is somewhat watery now (sorry for the term) because of the fiber, prune juice, aloe vera juice and olive oil (so sick of taking those). A little amount of blood on the stool. And when i poo it's like they're exploding LOL. I can't explain it. 1 minute and i'm done. But still there's this after BM pain. There's always this significant sharp pain near my perineum area connected to my bum hole. I think that's where the fissure is.

Hi, I'm glad this forum helps. First of all, I know how it is to be alone with stupid unproductive thoughts in your head. My partner eventually took a week off and then I had a friend staying in my house for a week and that helped soooo much...I think that's actually what made me realize I could still laugh and socialize and my life wasn't totally ruined and neither would I let a fissure ruin it! So maybe if you have someone that can stay with you for a while, it might help you too...?
I actually managed to get my first fissure under control and then healed mainly with diet (have a look at the diet/supplement section for my diet....)The BEST thing for me was to start eating more soluble fibre and actually reducing the amount of fibre I ate. This made my poos less runny and less bulky, which worked well for me. You'll find several posts on this in the forum. The thing is that sometimes too much fibre, and in particular insoluble fibre may make your poo too large even though it's soft...could this be the case with you??? Also, people here say that too soft and runny poos, especially if you poo several times a day isn't that great either..BUT I think that's all individual. Also, someone just replied to me that explosive poos may also affect fissures negatively and create new ones. Not sure, but I wonder if too much fibre also may cause these explosive poos. So what you need to do is carefully think how your poos may affect your fissure and try to make them into a different consistency that may help to not irritate the fissure. Does that make sense???
Anyway, now that I healed one fissure I actually managed to get another one in a different spot!! I have no idea why...so I'll be going to a specialist to see if it's something wrong with my sphincter, pressure, or anything else that could possibly affect my bum after birth...oh I forgot to mention that I got hemorrhoids after giving birth too, and I wonder if they are causing some of the problem, so I'm trying my best to keep shrinking them to see if that helps...do you have them too maybe???
Take care!

NewMummy- Hello! I'm so much happy today. I didnt have difficulties with my BM. I'm kind of pain free but still i'm so happy for it! I don't know if my coconut oil + vitamin e self made suppositories or is it the ointment that my doctor prescribed me (FAKTU ointment) helped me. Either way i'm so so so RELIEVED. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed, you know this little evil is a traitor. lol. I hope this healing will continue. I'm really praying that i'll be back to normal again. The past days/weeks had been so horrible for me. Thank you Lord!
Now... my new dilemma is... I'm STARVING TO DEATH! I'm not satisfied with my AF diet. My tummy always rumble. lol. I want to eat a McDonald double Cheeseburger and french fries!!!!
Papa John's pizza have their new promo which is unlimited pizza. I am so DEPRESSED! But anyways, I'd rather get hungry than have those excruciating pain. hehehe.
I too had hemorrhoids. More of internal. But i don't think that made the fissures. I really blame that stupid iron pills. lol. Lot's of straining, poor diet, pain killers (for my csection incision) and etc. Oh and i think i read something about breastfeeding that it will make you dehydrated? something like that. Also when you recently gave birth, your digestive tract is somewhat tender and sensitive because of all the pressure from the baby while you were pregnant. That's why it is mostly common for new moms to have an anal fissure. Especially those who undergo normal delivery (episiotomy + vaginal tear + anal fissure= HELL).Cause i have a co worker who gave birth last January who also had AF (she didnt know it was an AF until i told her about my condition). She said she was having a hard time for a week moving her bowels. I thought at first it was hemorroids (when she told me about her pain I was still pregnant by that time, so i have no idea how PAINFUL it is). She continue to have pain for 1 week. What she did is drink lots of water and it healed. She also said that she just dismiss the pain and enjoy her newborn baby. So i think being positive is really a big help for us new moms. When i told her about my AF last week. She was shocked that i was putting ointment, tremendous diet, fiber and etc. Oh how i wished i was like her!
This too shall pass...