What could be going on?

Okay I am a 26 year old female that 8 months ago had my first child. About 1 month after the birth I started having very painful bowel movements and blood. It was so painful I dreaded going. I went to the doctor and they said I had fissures.  After seeing a colon specialist because of so much blood filling the toilet after a bowel movement he wanted to do a sigmoid to rule out colitis.  After about 2-3 months of treating the fissure the blood completley stopped except for occasional streak after the bowel movement.  My questions are 1. can a fissure cause that much blood to fill the toilet?   2. Could it possibility be colitis?  3. If it was anything other than the fissures would it have stopped like it has?  I still have some pain after about 8 months of this but no where near what it was. I also didnt go through with the sigmoid because my family doctor said it wasnt necessary.  Please give me some advice.  Thanks

[Dani]

I also had fissures after I gave birth. I tried treating it and it didn't go away. I eventually had to have surgery. I can tell you that you can get a lot of blood from the fissure. That is the primary reason I had surgery, because it was bleeding so much. I say that if you treated it and it went away, then forget about it. I would doubt that you had colitis unless you had other symptoms. Fissures are known to happen after childbirth, especially if it was a difficult birth. Was yours difficult?

[Buggs]

No it wasnt really difficult, my first so nothing really to compare it to. Its just I have had this for about 8 months now and its about 80% better I just dont know if thats good enough. It also seemed like once the pain subsided thats when I noticed less blood too. If I can keep my stools soft its less painful also. These are the worst

[Dani]

I agree with you. These are the worst. I still have some troubles even after surgery. Sounds like you are doing the right things though. Keeping your stools soft really helps. Give it some more time. You may continue to see some more improvement. Do you know exactly what a fissure is? The best way I can describe it is like this. You know those "cracks" you get on your hands or fingers when they are really dry? The kind that hurt really bad? Those are fissures, just in a different spot. That is why they hurt so bad.