Most notorious anal condition with high incidence of recurrence
ANAL FISTULA
An abscess around anal orifice which bursts out spontaneously will very often give rise to anal fistula. Perianal abscess, ischiorectal abscess and pelvirectal abscess are considered to be the causes of anal fistula formation. It is a tunnel like wound communicating anal canal, sometimes rectum to the skin which may be formed due to simple injury or infection in the local area to more serious diseases like ulcerative colitis, intestinal tuberculosis and colon cancer. The symptoms herald with painful swelling in buttock or around the anus, if not drained out in time it bursts out externally and leaks into anal canal or rectum. In a limited number of cases the wound heals up naturally but in majority of cases the wound does not heals up completely, remains as pin-head, swells repeatedly and subsides spontaneously on emitting some amount of pus.
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Anal fistula is essentially a surgically curable disease. Underlying conditions like tuberculosis or ulcerative colitis are often treated with medicine. One point needs special mention here that, fistula surgery may not be a one-time procedure for many patients as recurrence is very common. Recurring fistula may need repeated surgeries. You may wonder what is wrong in doing repeated surgery? Let me clear your doubt. To understand the fact, you need to know the anatomy of the region. You have two muscles around the anal canal, they are called external anal sphincter (EAS) and internal anal sphincter (IAS). EAS is made up of voluntary muscle fibres that means you can contract and relax the muscle as per your wish. On the contrary, the IAS in constituted of involuntary muscle fibres which is regulated by nervous stimulation and not depending on your wish. These two sphincters regulate your stool and flatus continence mechanism. You may lose power to hold your stool of flatus if these muscles are hurt repeatedly as in case of repeated anal fistula surgery.
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You might have understood by this time that, you should select a surgery for your anal fistula which is minimal invasive i.e. causing less injury to the sphincter complex and high reported success rate. Anal Fistula Treatment with Ksharasutra is such an Ayurvedic procedure. Many other procedures like video assisted anal fistula treatment, laser closure of anal fistula and fixision are now being practiced with variable success rate.