I've been lurking on this board for awhile, and have already learned much. It's wonderful to know that I'm not alone in dealing with this issue.
We have recently moved to a new city, and I will not have health insurance until July 1st. I am going to a rectal/colon doctor as soon as I can. Have already picked the clinic.
My fissure first occured last year, and I had it pretty much healed up with nightly laxatives and Metamucil fiber tablets. It returned when I began eating lots of celery, and has yet to heal again. It's been really bad.
I've had some setbacks, and I think I learned a lesson from each one...
1. I believe the chicken lunchmeat was responsible for one of my setbacks. Even though it wasn't cheap, it was tough meat.
2. Chew your food well. I'm currently down to oatmeal, pinto beans and brown rice as the bulk of my diet, but while having my BM this morning, could feel the lumps and chunks coming out (sorry, this is gross to me too). I think it came through too soon without having time to digest due to my nightly laxative.
3. I read one poster here confess to squeezing his stool before it came out in order to reduce it's size. I, too had started doing this. I guess that was a mistake.
Question...Is straining bad only when it forces through a too-large stool? I ask this because sometimes I feel a small, but slow-moving portion of stool is still up the pipeline, and in order to "finish the job", I squeeze/strain in order to move it along. Again, it's not a "large" piece of stool, it's just lagging a little too far behind. Is this kind of straining also bad for fissures?
That's all for now. This fissure thing really sucks.
mistergus

Hi mistergus, welcome but wish you didn't need to be here! I just wanted to say I would not strain for anything. I often feel like you do and now that my fissure is healing I have two internal hemmies, one of them causing the bulk of my pain now. Any starining could cause or aggrevate hemmies which you don't want on top of the fissure. As hard as it is I either "pinch it off" or just get off the toilet because it will come out when it's ready.

Mistergus...
Yeah, I agree with the above comment by Flanders. Avoid straining, avoid straining, avoid straining. Pushing on the narrow anal canal with your strong abdominal muscles will only increase your misery. If you really feel uncomfortable and feel the need to get that last piece out there are some people who have had some success using a rectal bulb syringe with a small amount of warm water, or even sitting in the hot bathtub and getting the muscles more relaxed down there.