fissure/fistula in colitis

i'm suffering from very sharp pain in the anus on every bowel movement. the proctologist diagnosed a fissure and now a week later he says its a fistula. the pain in very strong and because of the colitis i'm having many bowel movements a day which means more pain more times.

anyone ever suffered this kind of thing? any suggestions on how to relief the pain, at least until i can get proper surgical treatment for it which will take a awhile.

thanks .

Yes, baths are the way to go!  As many as you can find time for during the day. 

With all the pain you are having I too wonder if there is an abscess forming.  They are very painful and can make you quite sick if they are not treated.  I spent three days in the hospital due to my abscess.  Definetely take a look down there.  When I had the abscess I couldn't see it, but felt hardness and pain under the skin.  With the fistula, I could see a hole. It was sore and well, quite frankly, yucky stuff drained from it.   I had a fistulotomy - where they cut away the top of the fistula channel.  Not a perfect solution, but I would probably do it again.

Hope this helps

well, if i look in the mirror i can see an ugly open bump and redness around the anus, but its not draining or bleeding or anything. the proctologist said its a fistula. i dont know about an abcess but there should be fever with abcess as far as i know. the pain i'm feeling (like a knife) is horrible with the bowel movement, and i take the baths afterwards, but is there nothing to do with the sharp pains you experience with every bowel movement??

when you say "open bump", I'm not sure what you mean- can you see a hole in the bump? If not, if it's closed then it probably is an abscess about to burst & turn into a fistula. I don't know what to tell you about the pain you experience with bm's- until my abscess did burst, the pain was terrible, the only relief I got was sitting in a hot tub & sleeping. Once it did burst, it was totally gross & drained all sorts of nasty stuff- again into the hot tub, about 6x a day to clean it out & prevent infection. And a course of Flagyl & Cipro to be on the safe side. The pain stopped immediately too- it actually felt good to have it drain. I don't know if I had a fever, but I did feel horrible all around. I thought it was a hemmorhoid, so didn't check my temp. They are quite rare in UC- my GI was amazed when I told him what happened. For a long time no one could even find it, I had cat scans & exams, nothing. Then my gynecologist finally saw it. I suppose one bright spot in having a fistula with UC is that it would probably make getting Humira (or any other Crohns drug) easier, as your GI could definitely diagnose it as indeterminate UC or Chron's Colitis. Talk about a silver lining, huh..... I do like hearing others success stories with surgical repair- I probably will get it taken care of, someday.... I just had a rough time coming to terms with surgery for UC itself, so when the fistula happened, I had made up my mind not to pursue a j-pouch or ileostomy. So the thought of any surgery involving my rectum, colon, etc. just turned me off totally. Plus it's not causing me any problems at the moment. At first I was aghast. Now I'm indifferent. Just one more nuisance "down there"! Did your proctologist order any scans or scopes, or just do a visual exam to be able to tell you it's a fistula? And are you only having pain with bm's? It sounds like the pressure from the stool is pushing on the abscess, causing pain. Not much you can do about that, unfortunately. What did the proctologist suggest?

ugh, what a hassle! I hope the appt. is made quickly for you, & they can accurately tell you what is going on- it doesn't sound like a fistula YET, because you can actually see the hole on your skin with a fistula. It does sound like an abscess though- are you on any anti-biotics? If you catch it now, before it bursts, it may prevent it from becoming a true fistula. What does you GI say??? I know weird skin things seem to be very common in people with IBD. Keep us posted! And try the hot baths- they really do help & are nice & relaxing also. Which I found hard to do with a hole in my body leaking fecal matter! Baths are nice for the mind.

ok, been to a surgeon, told me i got 2 problems- a fissure and a fistula, no abcsess yet thank god.
he prescribed me ointment for the fissure that relaxes the sphincter muscles which helps the fissure to heal quickly
he also raised the question about the fistula indicating maybe that it's crohn's colitis and not ulcerative colitis, which was my diagnosis for the past 8 years.

is there any way to determine if you have crohn's colitis or ulcerative colitis? i think i've heard once about a DNA test that does that, anyone else hear of that?
i also see that alot of you guys with uc, suffered from fistulas so its not that rare for colitis as far as i can see which kind of calms me down.

betsaronie- so your fissure doesnt heal completely? isnt it a problem that sould go away for good once healed?

thanks everybody for your comments!