It’s been more than four years since I had my first son. Four years of pain later and a shot of Botox up my bum, and I have finally decided to talk about the medical problems I encountered.
Other than the midwives who banged on about the risk of pethidine, nobody talked to me about potential issues or injuries birth could cause. No-one ever discussed the aftermath that I am still dealing with. Would I change having my son? No, not for anything, but I do think it’s unfair, and frankly bonkers, that childbirth means I still can’t have a poo without popping laxatives like they are Smarties.
My son’s birth saw him pulled out with the help of forceps, into a room with enough people to run a country, most of whom prodded, pulled and chatted about the weather. Days after the birth the stitches across my third-degree tear became infected and the antibiotics administered brought me out in an angry rash. Add severe itching to a ripped undercarriage, zero sleep and an inability to breastfeed and yes, it really was the stuff of dreams.
I didn’t know it would get worse when I finally managed a poo. Think red hot razor blades and trying to push out a particularly huge watermelon. I had anal fissures. These basically split the anus and bleed, but it’s so difficult for them to heal because, well, it’s impossible not to poo.
Life became a cycle: eat, panic, down laxative, sit on toilet for hours trying to ease out poo while screaming in pain, repeat. One month after birth, I returned to hospital, desperate for help. Sadly though, there is no quick and easy cure for fissures. I was put on morphine and sent home with a numbing bottom cream.
Since that initial outbreak of fissures, I take medically prescribed laxatives every day so that my poo is soft, and the healed wounds don’t crack open again. I am very strict with my diet and ensure plenty of fibre and water and I go through stages when everything is fine and I can poo without pain. At other times, something triggers a ‘blockage’ and the anus splits and I’m back to phase one. I have learnt to massively increase my laxatives when I have a flare up, because pooing out water is less likely to split the fissures.
I have developed anxiety and am now in constant fear of the pain returning. This is the first thing I think about most mornings - and it massively affects my mood and my marriage. My husband feels totally helpless, and when I have bouts of pain they make me grumpy, irritable and incredibly sad and despondent.
Two years ago, I underwent a sigmoidoscopy to check my lower colon and a colonoscopy to check my large intestine. The results were clear and I should have been relieved, but all I wanted was a diagnosis. I like explanations and facts - instead I had a bleeding arsehole, was walking like John Wayne with a broomstick up his bum, and was being told, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’
My consultant finally suggested Botox in my anus to help to heal the fissures’ muscles and to relax the internal anal sphincter to allow me to poo without spasm. It didn’t work - I should have asked for a bit in my face to at least gain something from the experience.
So, two years ago I tried a new method and saw a nutritionist. She simply gave me a list of ‘alternative’ remedies to take at an extortionate cost - none worked. I then tried Chinese medicine and acupuncture with no improvement, a dairy free diet, a sugar free diet, a diet which pretty much consisted of dust and air, and yet nothing improved my symptoms and the laxatives continued to be a part of my everyday life.
Finally, last year I was recommended a women’s health physiotherapist. She suggested that my pelvic floor was to blame as it was so tight that it was causing spasms, resulting in blockages. She recommended a different private consultant and it’s like finally someone understands what is wrong with me. His recommendation is to stretch the anus because it’s too tight and the way to do this? Yep I had to buy a pack of metal rod sex toys and I must put one up my bottom every day, gradually increasing in width as the anus becomes more ‘giving’. I’m not even joking. Anus stretching, sex toys, metal rods. This is my life now.
It didn’t seem as if the medical professionals I saw understood my postnatal health issues and it felt like I was on my own in relation to postnatal health. In France, women have 10 to 20 postnatal physiotherapy sessions to retrain the muscles of the pelvic floor, and yet it took me three years, huge costs and various health specialists to understand that my pelvic floor was the issue.
Who knows what will happen and if the magical rods will solve the problem, but I have hope and when you have chronic pain, I think hope is hugely important. Anyway, if nothing else I can hold my head up high and confirm I have had Botox up my arse and probably have the smoothest bottom around.
Guest posts
Guest post: “Having a child resulted in Botox in my bottom”
MumsnetGuestPosts · 04/04/2018 16:23
I ended up with fissures after my c-section. Wasn't allowed stool softener (I'll never forgive that midwife) as I was bf so the laxatives sent my IBS through the roof and I very quickly had fissures. A decade of crap (literally) on and I had botox last Oct. It seems to have helped a bit the fissures aren't totally healed though.
I know what you mean about them making you grumpy 
. I dread sitting down for long as it's uncomfortable. Although running and exercise does help, I'm lucky that I'm able to do this.
And, yes, I'd like my flippin' scowly face botoxed too.
I hope it'll settle down in a decade or so once both my dc's are at uni and I'm not so stressed all the time.
I had fissures after DC1 (also forceps, but avoided the 3rd degreee tear, just). Awful, awful experience. And in the first six weeks I had fecal urgency too and my bum sort of 'hung' open and v gradually closed again after a poo 
. The urgency etc resolved Ina few weeks, but the fissures did not. I had the stuff for angina that gives you a really bad headache, I used things you shoved up there to numb it. I tried diet. I had a consultant exam twice, and they decided against Botox and proclaimed me better (I was not).
They never fully healed before DC2 2yrs later, but during pregnancy it was all fine. Maybe all the increased blood supply? Who knows. Such a relief. Then afterwards, they came back. Back to pooing glass etc. Not quite as bad. There were times where they healed, but never fully went.
Pregnant with DC3, healed again and never returned, not even after DC4 (7.5yrs after DC1).
Thank fuck for that.
Good luck!
I’m so angry for you.
And so sorry you’ve had this.
I really hope the anal rods work (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type). 
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