10+ years experience, realizations and combatting pruritus ani

Hello people, I write in faith that somebody with similar condition as I was in reads this and it provides value and hopefully what I would consider a solution.

A bit about my story. This is all started about 10 years ago when I going through some constipation, nothing crazy, something most people go through at some point, but this caused what I believe to be anal fissure. I never did anything about, it was just itchy and I was young so I didn't think much of it.

Time passed, I had a very itchy anus at night and it was very annoying but I mostly experienced this at night time and it didn't go much beyond that. It honestly just became a habit, I would experience itching at night and after about (varying) 10-30 minutes of itching I would fall asleep. Sometimes I would also wake up very early because I had been itching in my sleep and this prevented further sleep afterwards (annoying). Years passed like this as you can tell from the title and this is because I'm stupid. I never thought about going to the doctor and even if I had, I would never do it and again this is because I'm stupid. The thought of a doctor looking at my ass is just too transgressive for me, simple as that.

Early last year I thought, the nightly itching was something I had to deal with for the rest of my life. It actually made me very sad thinking about and thinking back it has probably affected me more than I realized, messing with someones sleep every night is a really big deal.

I don't hope any of this sounds familiar to the people reading, but since you are on this forum some of it might be relatable. It's been about a year since I discovered this forum and this was the FIRST time ever reading about other people going through similar experiences. The feeling of having other people to share this struggle with was comforting.

When I was reading these posts, I was hoping to read was someone with a miracle cure, that one ointment that could solve all problems. I tried a bunch of stuff to calm the itching, some people recommended vinegar, vaseline, wool and all kinds of different ointments. Unfortunately nothing really helped me. I don't remember the post, but someone recommended an ointment called Calmoseptine, which I ordered and it was actually soothing the itching. I could NOT believe that something actually was helping and for the first time I was experiencing hope that this would not last forever. I used this ointment a couple of times a day everything was good. I actually came to a point where I wouldn't even fear for the itching at night, I didn't even think about - I was sleeping.. normally??

This lasted for a month I believe, but suddenly it stopped soothing that much and the itching got worse again?? I was super confused, I thought somehow my skin got immune to the ointment and it couldn't provide any soothing anymore.

I'm dragging this out. What I'm getting at is, for me, the ointment is simply just a pain/itch reliever it is NOT doing anything about the actual issue. The issue for me, was/is my digestion and stool. I believe it causing some tears or reopening previous fisurres when it is too hard. What I have done to truly prevent this itching lies in my diet. This sounds like a, yeah no s**t you should eat healthy and maybe you've already tried that. But this is about consistency and eating the right stuff to prevent anything related to constipation, hard stool etc. The things I list now are what have stopped my itching almost completely and if I stop doing these things, the itch comes back, every time.

• Fiber (very important. I take fiber supplements and eat additional fiber rich foods, this is a key component in good digestion and stool)
• Water (I drink 2L every day, no exceptions)
• Vegetables (yes they mostly suck, but with some spices and a pan they can actually be pretty good)
• I don't go heavy on bread/diary

Those things have improved my life, A LOT. There are a bunch of health pros besides just preventing pruritus ani. So this is where the cause for me was, that it took me this long for me to figure out, yes a bit stupid, I guess I had to put up a struggle before living healthy.

Oh and a long the way I also got a bidet, that was pretty helpful aswell and less toilet paper.

As I said, I hope this helps. I was pretty desperate and got to a hopeless state which was very terrifying but please don't lose hope. Also please go to the doctor and don't be as stupid as me.

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