Has anyone had a cauterization of their AF with silver nitrate? I had my post-Botox and tag removal appointment with my CRS. Unfortunately, my AF isn't where he'd like me to be. He gave me two options: A) try one more round of Botox in 2 weeks (I am five weeks post-Botox) it b) straight to LIS. He recommended trying one more round because I am young and healthy, and the LIS has a 5% risk of incontinence. He said he only tries two rounds, and if that doesn't work, he moves on to the surgery.


So back to the silver nitrate, he knew I had some bleeding going on. He said this helps with it. It burned so bad that it made me tear up. The burn radiated for another two hours until I took Tylenol. Has anyone had it done? Does it do anything other than stop bleeding? It sounds like it promotes scar tissue growth to close the wound, no?

A CRS that I visited, suggested Silver Nitrate Cauterization as an option to me for a chronic fissure. He said that it basically turns converts a chronic fissure into an acute fissure. I think it involves removing the scar tissue, cleaning up the fissure and then treating it with silver nitrate. The fissure then has a better chance of healing up (like an acute fissure). He said that in his experience, it had a healing rate of about 50%. I haven't tried it though. The one issue with it, which is the reason for its low healing rate, is that it does not do anything about the spasm of the sphincter and if you retear before complete healing which is likely given the sphincter spasm, you are back to square one. It might be something to try before committing to LIS though.

I am a bit confused by your post though. You mentioned two options a) botox and b) LIS. Where does the cauterization fit in? Did the CRS offer it to you as temporary measure?