My friend Quinn has had a lot of really awful health problems, most of them on the icky side, involving her digestive tract. The pages and pamphlets addressing her afflictions are all full of squeam and delicacy, and therefore lacking in the kind of down-and-dirty, up-the-bum tips that her co-sufferers need to recover.
This has prompted Quinn to assemble some really authoritative, no-nonsense, occasionally screamingly funny pages describing the ins and outs of icky illnesses. Her most recent page is for those of you who may be curious about anal fissures — something that Quinn got to experience in the aftermath of childbirth.
getting an anal fissure is not a freudian thing, it doesn't mean you rebelled against your parents by practicing anal retention and practice makes perfect. there's a good chance you need more fiber. if you have an anal fissure, the atkins diet may simply not be for you. i suspect i had a proto-fissure brewing for a while, but childbirth traumatized the area and very very hard stools post- childbirth ripped me a new one. many people look back and see their diet wasn't all it could have been. others discover that lactose intolerance or other food intolerances are the hardness culprit. every once in a while you're just kind of built that way, and laxatives may need to be a way of life for you. if your sphincter just likes to spasm and tighten all the time, the only thing that may work for you is surgery to cut the sphincter. both of these are extremes, but they happen, and when they happen, they aren't anyone's fault.