Hello fellow AFers!
Wow! Big, big ups to Cheryl for starting this forum! I cannot say enough how great it was to find a place to openly talk about anal fissures.
I've had an anal fissure since I was about 21 and I'm 36 now. It wasn't until about four months ago that I realized that I even had an AF. Back when I was 21 I first had an episode while sitting in my car when all of a sudden I had this very sharp pain and no amount of changing my sitting position would give me relief. About a day or two later the pain went away. Throughout the years I've had episodes but the pain would just subside after two maybe three days. This whole time I thought it was a hemi and since the pain would go away relatively quickly, I didn't pay it much attention. Then, about 8 months ago I had an episode and the pain didn't go away for about 3 weeks. Even still, my BMs were very different. Different in that I had to change the way I pushed in order to evacuate but I didn't have any pain. About 4 months ago I finally experienced the "real deal". I can only describe the pain as a "darned, mother darned, darned shag". That is some strong language but the pain....that pain....was much, much worse. I went to the doctor and voila....anal fissure. I got on miralax, severely changed by diet and began to drink water like a mofo. I thought I had it beat but then the holidays came and I screwed myself...badly. The pain...that pain...was back. As soon as the holidays were over I went back to my regiment and, finally, as of right now (knock, knock, knockity, knock knock on wood) I have my fissure in check. The silver lining? I've lost close to thirty pounds and my high blood pressure has dropped. I haven't eaten meat since the holidays and my cholesterol has gone from the 230's to around 180's. To all my AFers, we are an incredible bunch. The pain we are able to endure, in my opinion, is astounding. I wish you peace and many, many pain free days.