As I said, my appt. is Monday afternoon.
Tucks, eh? Sounds good.
Fissure or fistula? How bad is that?
Rez-- Yep. Some blood. Highly unpleasant.
“I don’t remember eating a razor. . .”
Comes and goes.
When you’re growing up it’s always the stuff of jokes and sounds like a minor discomfort, but then, surprise! It’s agonizing! Entirely different from other constipation-type pains.
Oh, but wait, and: What AlaItalia said. Doesn’t contradict what I said. You want to get regular enough so that when you feel like you need to go, it goes! Magical timing. That sort of full bloaty thing is a sort of thing of habit and I think at that point you are already constipated-- you don’t want to get that far, but if you do, the exact moment will arrive and it will work. Just wait patiently for the right moment. . . prepare for some unpleasantness. . . and next time go earlier.
I have just recently cleaned up my diet by adding fresh fruits and vegetables as well as plenty of water and psyllium(sp?) to my protein shakes. Let’s just say its one thing to be regular; its quite another to be unstoppable. It works just like QtM says, large landing craft with smooth sides and almost imperceptible passage. Was that description delicate enough for you?
Okay, I see what you mean.
I haven’t had any pains for the last few hours. By contrast, the afternoon was hell.
Fissure is like a deep cracked chapped lip. Not too terrible, but a pain for sure.
Fistula is an infection track, usually from inside the rectal vault thru normal tissue to the outside, next to the anal orifice. Can be more problematic.
I have a rectal vault???
Come on Quadgop, have pity upon us, please!
Certain you’ve heard it before, but I used to think asphalt had something to do with diarrhea.
Just got back.
That’s what I got, too!
First there was a lot of jazz about “How do you know it’s hemorrhoids? What makes you so sure it’s hemorrhoids? You can’t see them…Oh, you looked in your compact mirror? Okay, what color were they? Same as your skin? That’s not hemorrhoids…Now, you know what I’m going to do with this thing, right?”
I did not know what I was saying.
“Okay, push down like you’re having a bowel movement,” she says.
“Okay…ah…OH GOD NO I CAN’T OH GOD OH GOD!”
“All right, I’ll try it with my finger…Now push down…”
“OH GOD NO NO NO I CAN’T”
“You have to push! I can’t put it in there.”
“Okay, I’ll try again…AIIIIEEEE NO NO NO…”
I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. It hurt, it burned. I can take what other people do to me, but I just couldn’t do that to myself.
So she kept saying it didn’t sound like hemorrhoids.
“See, it’s like this,” I tried to explain. “See where my finger is? Now, just above the rectum, there’s what feels like a hard tube, but when I push, it goes outside—”
“That’s a skin cap.”
What the hell is a skin cap? And is it supposed to hurt?
Fiber, water, no spicy foods, wash but not too often, and something called Anusol. Oh jeez, I was a breath away from saying, “Oh, like Anbesol, but…” :o
So no real relief, yet. I’m sorry she couldn’t make a diagnosis, but I just couldn’t do that to myself. I could take a metal dildo if someone else was doing it, but I can’t torture myself.
Skin cap? Never heard that one. Qadgop?
Even my masochistic squeeze-happy baby-surgeon first doc didn’t try to put anything up in there. The second doc didn’t have to do anything but take one look, he immediately scheduled surgery.
I hope you don’t get to that point, but I did everything the (first) doc said (pretty much same as yours said) and they still got so bad . . .
Did I tell you I was only 22 when I first got them? Took 'til I was 32 to get so bad I had to have surgery. In my extensive reading on the subject, I saw somewhere that some people just get them, even if they do everything “right,” like some people are just prone to varicose veins. Actually they are varicose veins. Then they can thrombose as Qadgop was discussing and then the real fun starts.
Also I didn’t mention before, when my little one flares up, I use a prescription suppository. Hurts like hell to get up there, and from your last post I’m not sure you could do it, but once it’s in, it really does work.
I really really hope you’re not doomed like me and following the doc’s advice works for you. I would not wish my experience on my worst enemy, if I had one. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
Yeah, she did say that about varicose veins!
She also asked if I’d ever been pregnant (no). I got the impression that if I had been, I’d be used to invasions like this. Whatever.
**
That sounds very much like what I have.
AlaItalia: Ten years! You poor thing!
I first got a hemorrhoid in my early 20s, scared the crap out of me, first showed up after a day of lifting heavy stuff. I didn’t have any problems for a while, occasional blood when I poop but no lasting pain, then I got a job where I sat down all day and I started having a chronic problem.
I finally went to a doctor a couple of years ago, I have a fissure and irritable bowel syndrom. The hemorrhoid apparently pushes up through the fissure when I strain too hard, and I frequently strained too hard because the IBS squeezes the fluid out of your fecal matter and makes it into tight hard pellets, that would accumulate and form a huge evil conglomerate turd.
My problem never would have got as bad as it did had I not listened to Howard Stern. He talked about his fissure on the radio, and gave some advice that I think was intentionally bad, but I did not realize it until later. Basically said to wait to go to the bathroom until you couldn’t put it off anymore, this advice is terrible because your turds get hard and big and cause more damage on their way out.
The horrible thing about butt problems (as I call it) is that it makes you want to do things that make it worse. When you are sore you don’t want to go to the bathroom, but not going when you have to makes things bad. I think the nervous stress from the discomfort and embarassment makes things worse. Also, when you go a couple of days without having a bowel movement you start worrying about how difficult it’s going to be when it comes, and I’m sure the stress from that contributes.
I hardly every have problems anymore, however. I take a generic metamucil-like product every day, it keeps things regular. Every now and then (maybe every couple of months) I’ll be sore for a few days, but things are much better than they were.
And I forgot to mention that I used to have a pilonidal opening. It closed up when I was 18, but I still have a dent. Don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but there it is.
Hemorrhoids?
Nah, you’re just turning inside out.
::d & r::
Rilchaim:
My guy put a finger in too (bad for us I got thru it thinking: Tough way for the doc to to make a living, no?).
I hope the Doc’s advice works, if not or even if you’re pretty sure its not working my advice (IANAD) is get a second opinion.
Good luck. Don’t you dare give up & just try to live with it … for your own sake
One more thing and I’ll leave you alone . . .
Badtz Maru reminded me: no heavy lifting. Or even moderately heavy lifting. I forget all the time and lift some box at work and then I’m sorry. Heavy lifting is about the only thing that brings it on for me now.
jimmmy: Heck, no, I wouldn’t try to “just live with it”! I have health insurance for a reason!
AlaItalia: I’ll remember that. Funny thing is, this started right after I started doing squats with a barbell, to strengthen my thigh muscles.
Is bike-riding okay?
I think what she meant was that it is really common to get hemorrhoids during pregnancy… and the pushing aspect of birth.
Yeah, I first got my Affliction (as it is known around here) when I was pregnant. About a year later, I had gallbladder surgery, and they cut it off as a twofer. The recovery is not pretty! I didn’t have stitches, but they gave us a little squirter of cleansing fizzy stuff. Two or times times a day, my loving husband brought himself to squirt me.
I still have a Tucks addiction. Them things are the best. Generic is just not the same, either.
Right; that’s what I meant, and knew she meant. The “whatever” was a shorthand way of saying, “If this is one of the things that goes along with pregnancy, I couldn’t ever stand it!”