Hey all, I had an LIS about 2 months ago after a first round of botox prior to it which didn't resolve my symptoms. I thought I'd make a post giving a follow-up since I know many people are grateful for these (I being one of them), rather than just disappearing.
I've suffered from fissures for about a decade. The first time I went to see a CNP specializing in colorectal conditions, I was assured it was small and superficial and would heal with topical nifedipine. It didn't. I wasn't sure they were healing and reoccuring or just had never healed, because I managed to live my life relatively normally most of the time. Every now and again, I'd bleed despite taking miralax twice daily. Because I was taking it consistently, I went mostly symptomless for a long time, although I'd have manageable pain sometimes for longer periods. About 9 years later I had an occurence that was particularly bad, and it seemed to be accompanied by hypertonia. It felt like I was using my abdominal muscles just to vacate, and it was incredibly painful. I went to see the CNP I had originally seen before many years ago, and she told me she didn't note any issues. Because of my descriptions of bleeding, she sent me to get a colonoscopy. During that, they also found nothing except hemorrhoids, which were very small non bleeding grade 1 and couldn't be causing my issues. They seemed to ignore the reason I'd originally come in because they simply ignored this fact. I decided to schedule for another opinion with a CRS and she found a chronic fissure pretty quickly. She suggested and I tried botox to no avail after many months, so I opted for LIS.
Very anxious going into it. I was worried about any incontinence risk because I'm a pretty active person. During surgery not a substantial amount of muscle needed cut because my chronic fissure was thankfully small and shallow in location, but it was the hypertonia accompanied with it that was making my BMs so painful. Fissurectomy w laser was also done.
Day 0 After surgery I was pretty uncomfortable of course, which transitioned into pain as some of the original meds wore off. It was a pretty manageable 5 while laying down, up to about a 7 when moving around. I spent a lot of this time just sleeping and laying in bed.
Day 1 The day after, I napped some more and stayed in bed practically the entire day. Mostly discomfort, not a ton of pain. Still no BM since the day prior to surgery day, which was my main worry.
Day 2 finally had first BM, it was dry probably because of pain meds, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I stopped taking pain meds except at night so I could sleep easier and to try to minimize constipation risk. I did experience some sharp pains.
Day 3 I think I started to have some leakage, underwear smelled pretty bad but I didn't note much other than small amounts of blood, I assume some mucus was coming out. Up until this point I was mostly staying in bed all day, I finally started moving around this day and slept 10h the prior night. Most other days I was sleeping 12h+ per day. Had another BM this day that was pretty easy to pass but relatively painful (6/10). So far none of them have been more painful than fissure pain at its worst. I managed to get up for around an hour today but spent the rest of the day laying down or sleeping.
Day 4 still a lot of sleeping, another BM that was easy. Started feeling quite a lot better at some point in this day and I could start doing a lot more. Way more freedom of movement without much pain.
Day 5 I feel a lot better!! Surgical site is noticeably swollen. I managed to stay up this entire day. Still don't really feel up to moving around too much but feeling pretty good. Still having some discharge.
Day 6 lot of discharge, not much pain though. Swelling went back down.
Day 7 most the same, not interesting. Managed to sit for a decent bit today, couldve longer, just a bit uncomfortable. Its worth noting I really haven't had much bleeding including the last day or few, it's mostly just gradual mucus discharge.
Day 8 bit of pain, but can sit pretty well now.
My discharge issue was fulled resolved after around 2 weeks.
After about 2 months and noticeably lacking any symptoms of fissures, I did try anal very slowly and carefully (I would not recommend doing it this soon if you're at all uncertain, I heal quickly, am relatively young, and very healthy). I know some people are interested in this in particular due to their sex life, so I am happy to report that I had absolutely zero issues and from what I can tell, after 9 years, I am completely symptom free and healed. My only regret is waiting this long, like many others.