Hemorrhoidectomy

[lbp35]

Wjpjr,

I know what you are feeling, I feel the same. If I could turn back the hands of time, I would have never had this surgery. I am extremely depressed. I told my therapist about the fissures I have and that I eventually may need surgery again and am scared to death! She seems to think I need medication because of my nerves. Maybe it would help you too! I am going to take the meds hoping it will help me to quit obsessing aouut this. I also know what you mean about the "man upstairs" I was convinced I did something pretty bad to deserve all of this. Sometimes I think I'll just get another surgery to just be over all of this, but then I remember the pain from the first one and the long recovery time. I' m sorry I could'nt be hear to cheer you up, I'm having a pretty bad time myself but if you want to vent, I;ll be here to listen! Try to cheer up there has to be better days ahead!!!

[wjpjr]

Originally Posted by lbp35

Wjpjr,

I know what you are feeling, I feel the same. If I could turn back the hands of time, I would have never had this surgery. I am extremely depressed. I told my therapist about the fissures I have and that I eventually may need surgery again and am scared to death! She seems to think I need medication because of my nerves. Maybe it would help you too! I am going to take the meds hoping it will help me to quit obsessing aouut this

Ibp35,

Thanks for your concern. No one should suffer this much in a life time. I know what you are talking about with the obsessing. There was a period during my early recovery I would look at my butt hole about every 5 minutes. Of course that was ridiculous since there was no way my butt was going to improve in that short length of time . My primary care doctor prescribed a med for the obsession but eventually I got over it without using the medication. The med had its own set of problems that I did not want. It's really amazing the side effects most of meds have when you research them.

[Tammynoska]

lbp35, I completely agree with Walt on exercising great care about popping meds for anxiety or depression. These meds are meant for people with chemical imbalances, but, in recent years, have been abused and twisted, by many doctors and therapists, to treat feelings of depression and anxiety due to genuine causes. It is almost as if having normal feelings these days are taboo, and we are becoming a society of anesthesized zombies. Any drug your doctor gave you because he wants to 'turn off' your feelings of anxiety with a pop of a pill, you should visit the drug manufacturer online and read all of the possible side effects. You need to be fully informed about all of the adverse effects of that med before you dare swallow even one.

I have known people, who were normal before they took anxiety drugs, to commit suicide as a side effect of these drugs, to lose their sanity and seems like crazy mental patients. I have personally known people who have taken these drugs for short term anxiety and then found they were addicted and had to go through a long withdrawal process, or risk terrible side effects. Not to mention, what if some of these drugs cause you constipation, which would worsen your fissure problems.

It sucks to have fissures, it is genuinely depressing and distressing.

Instead of pill popping, you need to develop mental strategies to help you cope with these problems, while you are working to get over the fissures. And let me let you in on something else: lbp35, you didn't do anything wrong. God isn't punishing you. Perhaps an incompetent surgeon has screwed you over, or an unethical one who didn't advise you of the risks is fully responsible for leaving you in this miserable state.

I think your therapist is an idiot who has no clue what it is like to endure this type of problem. To even dare suggest to you that you need meds because of your nerves, is to show not only how clueless your therapist is, but also insensitive to the level of pain and distress you are in. Your therapist might have helped you with some emotional issues in the past, but your therapist clearly shows she does not possess the understanding of how traumatic this surgery is, and is, therefore, in my opinion, not qualified to advise you properly in how to cope with your natural feelings of distress at the possibility of having to face another surgery. So if I were you, I would not discuss this problem with her as she is only going to give you an insensitive, and possibly needlessly dangerous, solution as she already has telling you to pop anxiety meds.

Honestly, if after going what I have gone through, and I had a therapist who told me she thought I needed meds to 'treat my nerves' rather than offering me support and methods to cope with the stress and distress, and meet face on and get through healing fissures, and possibly having repair surgery, I would ditch that therapist.

Don't take meds to turn yourself into a zombie to 'stop obsessing' about a genuine physical problem. Instead get pro-active to treat your fissures, and if that doesn't work, then use mental techniques to help you get brave to undergo repair surgery. Do you want to be a medicated, loopy idiot with painful fissures? Because that is what you risk popping anxiety drugs. Or do you want to be in control, trying different healing methods to get over your very real and painful fissures, and have a good chance of doing that, with all of your mental faculties intact?

I had a fissure 6 weeks ago that I healed. I just got a new cut 3 days ago during my transition off of colace and going to metamucil. The last thing I need to do is to pop meds that downplay my feelings of anxiety. Do you know that those are natural, good feelings that act as a signal from your body to make you act and do something now to heal yourself?

How did I get over my fissure? I used nifedipine cream 0.2% compounded by my local pharmacy for $45. I used this for 2 weeks, then followed with 4 days of elocon. I also took lots of colace and kept my stools consistently soft. The fissure healed. Technically, though, I should have kept up the nifedipine for a month, but I got lazy. I get awfully tired of having to doctor my butt, as I am sure you know what I mean.

Now I am doing the same thing for my new cut. I started nifedipine 3 times a day, with A&D ointment inbetween. I am still experimenting with the metamucil alone, without colace, as I am now almost 5 months post surgery, and am trying to go completely without colace. I am giving myself a week to fiddle with the metamucil to get it right.

However, if within a week I continue to have intermittent bouts of hard stools, I will add colace to soften my stools to get over this new cut. End of story. When I feel the pain of my cut/fissure which feels like alcohol on an open wound, I get genuinely distressed and depressed. What the hell is wrong with those feelings? Nothing, they are normal, and no way should you let anyone tell you that you need to medicate yourself when you experience such normal feelings of anxiety due to genuine physical cause. Your therapist has just earned the Turkey Award. Pass along the dressing, and we'll have Thanksgiving feast around her.

[Tammynoska]

Originally Posted by wjpjr

Tammy, When you had your fissure did you have any pain?

Walt, like alcohol poured on an open paper cut. Very ouchy. That cream is nifedipine, and it has to be compounded as it is not available as a cream. It is compounded at the same strength as the nitroglycerin cream for fissures.

I had to call around my local pharmacies for one that does compounding, and then I had to argue with the pharmacist who wanted to sell me on a different cream used by a well-known hospital in my area. I firmly declined and told him I only wanted the nifedipine.

If you do a search online you will read some very uplifting information on the use of nifedipine cream for fissures. Do a search on nifedipine cream treating fissures and a couple of studies should come up on it. Generally it is used for 2 months for best results. I actually stopped at 2 weeks, shame on me, as I got lazy. Then I used elocon for 4 days. I've got a new cut now at the 6:15 position I have started to treat with the nifedipine, and have gotten good relief only 3 days into the treatment. My fissure last month was at the 6:30 position.

By the way, from what I've read, a fissure is a shallow cut, so I actually think most cuts in the rectum are considered fissures. But it makes me feel better to call mine a cut, as it doesn't seem so tough to heal when named that.

Lpb35, if you are reading this, the mental switchero I did to call my fissure a cut to make it easier to deal with mentally, is an example of a healthy mental coping technique, and that is what you need to develop, not pop pills instead!

[buckeyebaby]

Hello All. I have been reading all your posts since I decided to schedule my hemorrhoidectomy. I was not looking forward to it after reading this site but I felt I was at least well informed on what to expect, and was expecting the worst and hoping for the best. I have been dealing with hems- internal and external since the birth of my son about 10 years ago, and recently started getting to the point I couldn't stand it any more. Well, I am about 10 days out from my surgery and doing ok for the most part. I had a bad overnight stay at the hospital and was not well taken care of there. I had terrible anal spasms for which the doctor prescribed Valium for and the nurses didn't think I needed it because I didn't seem anxious. Finally after asking for it , it helped alot. My first 4 days were terrible, alot of pain and bleeding and constipation. And I have rarely ever been constipated in my life. So I stopped the pain meds and that helped the constipation(I have also been taking my Metamucil!)(I also had been taking Colace- but stopped because I had diarrhea after I stopped taking the pain meds.) So by day 5 I was doing much better-able to get around and not much pain except for BM time. I felt lucky to be improving so much. However 2 days ago I started losing stitches, not sure if this is normal so soon. I have also had a ton of itching the last couple days which I figured is due to healing. Well I decided to take a look in the mirror and I swear I have new hems. Please tell me I'm not seeing what I'm seeing! I broke down and had my husband look and he thinks so too. I don't go back for followup for another week. And even though my recovery has not been too bad so far,esp. in comparison to many of you- I can't take the thought of going through it again! Everyday I feel like I'm living from BM to BM,worrying if its gonna be hard or soft, will I bleed, will it hurt?
Worrying what I eat is going to make it that way. I know all of you have been through it- I just want to cry because I feel like all this stress I just went through (and continue to go through) for this surgery was for nothing! Should I call my doc or just wait for my appt.?