So I've had a fissure for about 3 years now (yeesh, it's crazy just typing that out). And I finally feel like I'm 50% of the way to having it in control.
The bigges culprit in my inflammation and bad bowel movements was coffee. Now, I'd always known that coffee made me insta-poo, but I watched this video and realized that I'm actually coffee-intolerant, just like someone can be lactose intolerant:
https://www.yahoo.com/health/maybe-your ... 69067.html
Notice the part where blood pressure goes up and food is digested faster? Yeahhhhh...those are both very bad things for a fissure:
Blood pressure: First, the blood pressure increase is why my fissure would be super-irritated every day. It literally would feel like someone was poking a hot knife into me after drinking coffee.
Digestion: There's two things happening here.
First, coffee contains gastric acid which triggers rapid digestion. So you've not only got food going through you faster, it's also food that's not fully digested. This can lead to very acidic poos. Poos that pretty much kind of burn and irritate coming out unless you *wash* immediately afterwards.
Second, there is also an acid in coffee which triggers the peristalsis motion of the bowels. This lead to a feeling of "always having to poo" or "incomplete BM" after drinking coffee.
So you can see it's kind of a one two punch. The gastric acid speeds up digestion and releases stomach acid into the intestines, while the other acids force your colon to keep moving things along, even when nothing is really there. The blood pressure spike also makes the area swollen and irritable.
All of this isn't even going into the rollercoaster that is caffeine!
I cut out coffee 3 weeks ago and I'd say the past few days my BMs are getting more and more normal, complete, and regular. I still have a little bit of pain if I've had a BM and I'm out all day, sweating, etc. But it's no longer the daily drain that it was.
I also have a kind of coffee replacement regime that has been really great:
1tsp Roasted Dandelion Root
1tsp Black Wild Chaga Mushroom Powder
1TBSP Collagen Powder
Water to taste
Sugar/Honey to taste
This recipe is great to wake up to and gives a nice, *gentle* and long lasting alertness, along with some really great vitamins, trace minerals, and antioxidants.
Long story short, if you've got a fissure, GET. OFF. THE. COFFEE.