Why does nobody talk about how you LOOK after hemorrhoid surgery???

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It's 3am and I'm losing the will to live. I don't even know whether anyone will respond to or read this, maybe I just need to get it all out.

I'm a 43 year old Englishwoman and this year I have undergone two bouts of surgery to try and remedy the horror show that is my arse. Transanal Haemorrhoidal Dearterialisation THD with mucopexy in April and then seven days ago I had extensive skin tag removal surgery.

Brief background I've suffered with this c**p for around twenty years. Mainly due to a party lifestyle and poor diet, I hold my hands up.  Around five years ago everything started to get dramatically worse. The mucosal prolapse started, although it was only slight to begin with. Haemorrhoid flare ups were occurring around every few months. Around two years ago I started getting MAJOR flare ups, including one occasion where I ended up in hospital with the worst thrombosed haemorrhoid I have ever seen, to this day. I was told I needed a full haemorroidectomy and that I had three large internal haemorrhoids.

Well, I started reading too many internet forums and was too scared to have the operation, despite my constant misery. With terrible delusions of grandeur I decided I WAS GOING TO CURE MYSELF! What did those colorectal surgeons who spent ten years at university know anyway.

I wont bore you, or myself, with longwinded accounts of everything I researched and tried. But here is a list of things that DO NOT WORK, or they didn't for me anyway.

• Consuming large amounts of peppercorns
• Ditto cider vinegar
• Coffee enemas
• peeled garlic gloves shoved youknowwhere.
• Internal and external massage. So gross.
• Raw food diet
• Daily anal dilation,had to go to a sex shop, don't ask lol
• Aloe vera gel.

Well, as is the way with haemorrhoids, things got worse and worse. A year ago my doctor told me about this brilliant surgeon who was new to the area who was highly proficient in THD Transanal Haemorrhoidal Dearterialistion. I googled this surgeons history and he had a glowing academic and post graduate work write up. prior to his arrival this area only offered the traditional full haemorroidectomy. So I went to see him. I liked the idea of stitching rather than cutting.

By this time the mucosal prolapse was hideous, hanging out about an inch long and wide like a big thick frill and there were other sentinel tags. Flare ups that put me on my back in chronic pain for a week were happening every month.

I had the THD and mucopexy surgery five months ago. The recovery was mind blowing. I discovered mental strengths I didn't know I had. I was in bed for three weeks, acquiring a black and green abscess on my anus that gre to the size of a walnut. My wonderful surgeon refused to see me for three months, sdepite any irate phonecalls to his secretary. Doctors and A&E were no use, I had to explain what THD was to THEM.

In fairness to my surgeon, I have to say that since then I have not had a single flare up of haemorrhoids. Which as you can imagine, is bliss. At last. Yay.

BUT

In the last couple of months the frill came back, albeit smaller. And, joy of joys, NEW protrusions. Couple of nobbly ones the size of a small grape with some sentinel tags on them for decoration. Call me shallow but one of my main motivations for getting this surgery was the way it all LOOKED. Ive been celibate pretty much for the last couple of years because of this. I tried one relationship but not letting him see me from certain angles and not letting him near certain bits whilst trying to be intimate just didn't work out.  Explaining your arse problems to someone quite early on in a romance is not a conversation anyone wants to have. Ever.

So seven days ago I had the skin tag removal surgery. It sounds so harmless. Skin tags, sounds like something you could deal with using dental floss. These were chunks of flesh. Three excisions were made and left unstitched. I know its only a week after the surgery but my arse is a MESS. Two of the cuts were radial, but the frill was cut circumferentially. And its not healing. I have a hole there. And not all of the other large "tags" were removed, so its all just a bloody mess.

I'm in despair and starting to think my backside is never going to look anything like normal ever again. I feel like I have been through so much this year and yet still I have an unsightly rear end. I still consider myself to be a young woman and I want to have a boyfriend and to feel confident about my body in intimate situations.

I have read dozens and dozens of accounts on forums from people who have had all kinds of haemorrhoid surgery but nobody sees to talk about how you LOOK afterwards and whether they were satisfied with the outcome aesthetically. Maybe most folks are so glad to be rid of haemorrhoids they're not too bothered about how it looks or they already have a partner who loves them.

So please, if anyone out there could let me know their thoughts and experiences on this subject Id be so grateful. Sorry for the long post but I couldn't sleep for fretting about this and had to just let it tumble out.

Thanks for reading