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Symptoms of Anal fissure

The main symptom is sudden pains in or around your anus. This occurs during or shortly after opening your bowels. These pains are typically sharp and knife-like due to the fissure opening up each time your bowels are opened. The muscles may also tighten and go into spasm making the pain worse and prevent healing.

 Sometimes a swollen skin tag, called a sentinel pile, forms on the outside of the anus at the lower end of the fissure. A sentinel pile is not a haemorrhoid.

Most anal fissures are at the back of the anal opening (99% of men: 90% of women) Occasionally (10% women) are at the front, especially just after child- birth. If you have multiple fissures or they are at an unusual site it may be due to a more serious cause e.g. Crohn's Disease, Syphilis, an anal herpes infection.

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