I'm really happy to hear that you're seeing the specialists on Thursday!

Thanks guys. Mypoorbutt - thanks for the advice. That's exactly what I'm going to do. I will speak to both doctors on Thursday - maybe there's some sort of pelvic floor disfunction that was manageable pre-fissure, but with the spasms is worse.

Thanks chachacha - I'm happy too, I'm counting down the hours until I see them. My mom is so negative about the LIS - but I just want to have it asap. She's convinced Botox is the way to go, but I haven't heard many good things about it.

I had the Botox and it was great I had a good 6/8 weeks pain free...I guess it depends on what your doc thinks...you seem to have a lot going on so maybe LIS will be offered straight away.

My CRS said that he would inject the Botox if I paid for it, but because he didn't believe that it would help me long-term, he refused to do it through the health system.

And Mypoorbutt, I only had the diarrhea for about 2 years, and can't imagine suffering with that for as long as you have.

To be honest chachacha it has never bothered me until I got this awful fissure...yes it hurt and was inconvenient but I lived with it amicably until this hellish tear appeared.
Funny I got told if I wanted LIS without having to pay I had to have the Botox first...sure it's all about where you live.

Hmm ok. Yes way too much going on for me to handle. I have a feeling they may offer Botox as at least a temporary solution, so we can try and figure out what else is happening, and then maybe consider LIS later.

Chachacha- did you have pain from the Botox procedure itself? Did you start to see improvements in pain levels quickly?

Thanks again you guys for your help - it is keeping me going to be able to talk about this

I really respect my surgeon's opinion (not so much other specialist's in other fields I've been exposed to though), so agreed to go straight to LIS. I had tried the creams, and suffered for years already, so that when he said that he didn't believe that Botox would help me, I didn't bother trying it.

Oh whoops, apologies, I meant to direct that to mypoorbutt!! But how did you find the LIS recovery? What I'm most worried about is trading potentially healing on my own for months of recovery from surgery. I am incredibly anxious to not just be pain free, but to get back to working out and training my clients...

My recovery was good. I had extreme pain during the first night, but that was my own fault for trying to force the swollen tissue up into my butt hole, because I thought that the surgeon had left it out by mistake (I had prolapsing hemmies at the time). Once I found out that it was just new skin tags (and very swollen ones at that), my healing progressed very well. I couldn't sit on a hard surface for at least 3 weeks though, and used a couch cushion when sitting at my desktop computer. I spent a lot of time on my side at first, but by about the end of the 2nd week, could sit on the couch in an upright position. I would say that I had pain at about a level 5 for about 4 days and then it gradually dimished and I was fully pain-free by the end of a month. I had no soiling, or incontinence whatsoever, except for passing gas unexpectedly once, while I was in the tub on day 2.

Thanks - that sounds pretty good. I'm just worried about not being able to make my trips to the bathroom easier and predictable ...worried that I would not be able to heal post surgery because of that. But perhaps once the muscles relax, things will go more smoothly.

I think I am going to still ask to be admitted to the hospital at my appointment on Thursday. I am having great difficulty urinating at this point due to tightness in the whole pelvic region. It takes me about 10 min on the toilet trying to relax to let just a little urine out.

This tells me things are just getting worse day by day...I'm not being put off to wait for more tests/appointments only to have this get worse and worse.