if you don't want to heal icky details, please read no further

[Guest guest]

Warning graphic details... read no further if you're squeamish..

I am in the very most pain that I have ever, ever been in my life... and

there is at this point no end in site. If you'll remember, a few weeks ago

I had uncontrollable diarrhea that immodium AD, Lomotil, flagyl, heating

pads, etc. could not stop. Because one of my boys was totally out of

control and doing things to hurt the family, I was extremely stressed trying

to get the situation under control... staying up most of the night until we

got an alarm for his room, etc. I went to the doctor and asked for more

flagyl since mine was years old, but was flat denied it. I also asked for a

weekend's worth of anti-anxiety medication, thinking that if I could get

some sleep and let some of the stress go that my diarrhea would subside. I

was also flat denied a half dozen low-dose anti-anxiety pills that asked

for...and I ended up with a terrible hemorrhoid on the exterior and a

terrible fissure inside my rectum. ( I did have the hemorrhoid operated on

two weeks ago, and that is better.) I was FINALLY able to get the diarrhea

under control.

But... then a condition that I have called lichens sclerosis... which is a

noncatchy... but a very painful skin condition that usually affects the

perineal area went ballistic. It has flared so terribly that I can barely

sit down and my perineal area is horribly excoriated. My urethral opening

is so excoriated that I am losing my ability to control my urine. And, now

this condition of lichens sclerosis that I have suffered with for 10 years

has spread to my anal area. (Lichens sclerosis destroyed our sex life as

even a finger in my vagina tears and causes terrible fissures.)

Ever since my DS, I have between 4-6 bms a day. Often I am awoken between 2

and 3... when I suppose it is dinner that rushes through my system. I don't

know... it just has always been. It is my joy to actually sleep through a

nght.

Now I awaken between 2 and 3 and when the (very soft) feces tries to pass

through my anus, it retears the fissure, and because my anus is so

excoriated fromt he lichens sclerosa, I am literally in screaming pain. My

hind end is literally swollen shut. If I get a chance, I swallow a

hydrocodone on my way to the bathroom, but generally I don't have time. My

poor children have been awoken at least four nights this week with me

screaming at the top of my lungs because it feels like a knife is being

plunged into my ass. (All the while I am gritting my teeth desperately

trying not to react... but often without success.)

Does anyone have lichens sclerosa... and if you do, what do you do if you

have a severe flare up? For the first time, I was given a steroid ointment,

which they told me not to try because the excoriation will be enflamed by

it. Then today, they said to go ahead and try it.

I have been in the doctor's office 3x in the last week trying to somehow

cope with this. Now I am running a fever of 102 with it. This doctor I saw

was the most sympathetic and the most helpful of any doctor I have ever seen

for this condition. Usually, I am told to just put vaseline on the lichens

sclerosa... but it just irritates it more. Laf, this doctor called up a

gynecologist and he said between using the steroid ointment first thing in

the morning, that I should spread crisco throughout the area. I have tried

that tonight and it seems to actually help a little... and thank God, a can

of crisco is cheap.

However, when the doctor said that we were basically (other than starting

the steroid ointment and crisco), we weren't going to change the regimen. I

totally lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably in her office. She then

prescribed ativan (anti-anxiety medication)... with the hopes that it will

reduce the spasms in my rectum. I'm supposed to be putting suppositories up

there, but tonight as hard as I struggled, I could not get one passed my

closed off rectum. This one was refrigerated. The next one will come out

of the freezer.

I am taking sitz baths, which seem to offer a small amount of relief, but

not much.

Has anyone struggled with this? Does anyone have any suggestions? On a

scale of 1-10, this is a 20 as far as pain goes. I could not even take my

kids to school today. I didn't pick them up either. I didn't cook dinner.

All I'm doing is trying to get through the day. I would have a dozen DS

surgeries rather than suffer this misery. I've had two kidney stones... now

maybe they were not as severe as they could be, I don't know... but I would

take a kidney stone for the rest of my life if I could clear this up.

Sorry for the whining, but I am physically in terrible trouble...

Elle