get_n_better

Over the past 2 months I spent a lot of time in this board and I thank everyone who posted as it is helping me get through my ordeal. I'd like to repay my debt by stating what I did to overcome the most painful experience in my 30 years on earth.


I have had chronic constipation since I can remember -- Im sure it will be part of my life till the day I die. I have been living with roids since I was 19 and about 5 years ago one decided to peek his head out. He must have liked the outside world because that's where he's stayed since! About mid-January the constipation got REAL bad and I wound up ripping myself -- add anal fissure to my chart. This occured at work. Let me tell you, that was the most PAINFUL drive home I have ever had. I could only drive for about 3-5 minutes at a time before stepping out of the car and standing for 20 minutes. My 45 minute commute home became a 3 hour odyssey of pain. -- This happened again 2 days later.

On the Saturday before the SuperBowl I broke down and went to the emergency room. The pain and spasms had become overwhelming. The ER physician decided to do a DRE --- I swear to God that he shoved razors up there. Ive had two other DREs and a sigmoidoscopy -- a little uncomfortable but bearable. THIS TIME THOUGH I immediately began screaming and begged the doctor for mercy and to pull that damn finger out of me. I wound up whimpering and wiping tears from eyes for the next 30 minutes. Truly the most painful thing I have gone through to date. Doc's diagnosis -- anal fissure. Gave me some suppositories and some stool softener and sent me home. I wanted to kill the man.

Enter my web search for self-healing. I found this board -- a godsend.

I had considered surgery to end this hell once and for all. After reading the many horror stories posted here though, I made that my ABSOLUTE LAST OPTION.

For the whole month of February I did the following things:

- I drank organic juices -- some fruit, some veggie.
- Introduced Metamucil to my diet -- I take it twice daily and will for the rest of my life.
- I took Dulcolax stool softener for the 1st two weeks
- Took a sitz bath at least once a day but normally 2-3 times a day
- I avoided almost all solid food for the whole month, as a result I lost 29 lbs -- I look and feel much better!

The lack of solid foods and the consumption of the high fiber juices (by Bolthouse Farms) and metamucil gave me diarhhea for two weeks. Though the spasms and inability to fully "evacuate" dictated my life for this time, my stool was not hard and not painful to pass -- I graciously let this be my master for those two weeks.

Enter the month of March.

It is now March 11th. I began introducing solid foods on March 1 :

Lots of water
whole grain breads
Mini-wheat cereal
Salad
Some fish -- no other meats yet though
Fibrous vegetables
and of course morning and night dose of metamucil

I also saw somewhere here that a guy is using a heating pad on his rear end. I tried that -- WOW better than a sitz bath anyday and a little more convenient.

I now have minimal pain in relation to the roids and it feels like the fissure is about 90% healed. I now pass well-formed, normal stool and for the 1st time in years I feel like a "normal" person. I think one of the best things to have happened to me was the painfully violating DRE by the ER physician.


In a nutshell:

10 pints of water a day
2 doses of metamucil daily
Liquid diet while fissure is in primary healing stage
Sitz baths and heating pad on your bum
Slow introduction of solid foods - EAT WISELY!! I know I will from here out!
You'll probably lose a lot of weight if you are overweight -- I am 6'0 and dropped from 228 to 199 in about 6 weeks.
Drink that water

I am truly grateful to all the people in this forum and figured the least I could do was give short story about my recovery. Thank you.

Remember there are others out there who know and understand what you are going through.

-- David