Ever The Optimist - That is great news!! So happy for you. Gives us so much inspiration and hope. Many of us here struggle to find a recent story of healing without surgery, someone we can write to for real advise. So thanks for sharing your story.

BTW, was planning to PM you after the last post, but realized my question might benefit others on the forum too.
What caused real change in your condition? Was it only Diltiazem or something else as well. Thanks again.

I'm new here and this is exactly the kind of story I was hoping to see! Congratulations! Optimism is essential, I believe!

Hi,
I am just so happy to read that my story provides hope!! Because honestly, it really is all about patience, being positive & staying optimistic. Life is temporary! & So is this....Hang in there!!!
Butt - my CRS didn't say that the skin tag would disappear for good but he did say that over time, it may well possibly shrink to the point where it becomes barely noticeable and I don't know whether it's psychosomatic or not, but my bottom just feels better by the day these days!!! I'm beginning to feel most of the time that it's not even there, although I do still have times when I know it is! I think just telling me I was "healed" has had the most amazing impact. I continue to get some sensations from the scar tissue but nothing that it is stressing me. I just accept that the area is fragile and will be for some time yet......and it's good because it's a continuing reminder to be careful. I have continued to use Vaseline and Coconut Oil religiously and these just seem to really help a lot.
Sufferer - I honestly don't know what caused the real change in my condition but I believe as I physically got better, I mentally got stronger and the focus shifted off the fissure a LOT, which meant I just started to forget about it a little more day by day - that really helped because at it's worst, I was obsessed with it all. I think also all the changes I made to my diet/ toilet habits (no straining) were starting to pay off long-term. It takes a long time to heal a chronic fissure and I think many people feel deluded and disappointed because they suddenly change their eating habits etc. when they first get the fissure and it helps for sure, but people also expect (and want of course) immediate relief & healing but it doesn't happen that way always because of the nature and location of an anal fissure. All these changes have to be continued and religiously practised on a long-term basis for proper healing.
The Diltiazem played a major role when the fissure was acute in providing me with major pain relief and it did NOT solely heal the fissure but allowed the healing process to kick in to an extent where, when I stopped the cream, the fissure must have healed greatly so I was able to continue with all the conservative methods to help continue it's healing.......The truth is that once you develop a chronic fissure, all the good stuff you start doing is almost "too late", which is why my CRS advised me to act immediately if I ever felt a reoccurence. It's the old story of had I known retrospectively what a fissure was really about, I would have changed my eating and toilet habits a long time ago before I had even developed the damn thing!.........The only other things that changed were 1) I started to eat more chocolate (strange one I know - but learning that Chocolate is a good source of Magnesium kind of makes sense and it truly softens my BM's! 2) I started using Coconut Oil - I read so much about this that I was just curious and so I did and have never looked back! It's just intensely moisturising and makes my bottom "feel" good. 3) I guess I just simply stopped the straining on the toilet and this is probably the most important change of all - No straining/ No toilet paper/ purely cleaning with a shower head. I also adopted squatting pretty quickly too soon after I got the fissure.... I can honestly say that since I stopped straining at all, my hems and my fissure went from "better" to 100 x better! but again, this has to be done religiously.
I hope this helps you all and many thanks to you all for posting. All the very best! You WILL heal!

Thank you ETO. Would also love to hear the timeline wrt healing. From the time you stopped dilitazem and kept doing the other stuff what were the progressive improvements you witnessed? Wk 1 was pain level 10, wk 7 was at level 5, wk 10 was 2 etc...something of that sort and other associated symptoms, e.g. burning, itching, soreness etc. I'm doing better coz I know there hasn't been blood in the last 5 weeks now, but the pain is still there and it varies largely with the BM everyday. But again last 2 wks hv been pretty consistent on low pain (pl - 2). So I don't want to fool myself into believing that I'm close to healing but would love to be able to relate this to someone like you who has healed.
Sorry asking for too much..but you have suddenly given us a lot of hope :) Thanks sooo much for that!

Hang on, I love chocolate and I stopped eating it cause I thought it constipates.
I agree about straining. I felt so well lately until I had to strain last time and this set me back again. Stool was around 4-5 but the last piece just wouldn't come out. I avoided very soft stool like 6-7 cause it was very irritating while the fissure was raw, but now that it started to scar I think softer stool would be much better, simply because it's self-running. I'm reintroducing linseed, see how that goes.

NICE!!:dancfrog:Have you ever been diagnosed with crohns disease?

Congrats ETO I hope you stay 100% healed
 

Thanks to all the further comments added on this post! I just refound it!! Hope you are all doing OK out there and No, do not have Crohns, but do suffer IBS now & again xxx