perianal disease

As explained in 'my story' i also have Perianal Crohn's Disease and its my main disease. Perianal is a disease localised in the bottom end. Side effects of this disease are:
- rectal pain (pain passing poo etc.)
- incontinence/leakage
- anal stenosis (closing of the anal canal)
- skin tags (flaps of thickened skin occurring just outside the anus)
- ulcers
- diarrhoea/constipation (in my case, always constipation)

treatment for this disease goes alongside treatment for Crohn's as well. but some long term treatments can be a stoma bag (to basically give your bum a rest and time to heal) but once you have a stoma bag, you'll have it for life. A stoma bag is a bag that's attached to the side of your stomach. a piece of your bowel is surgically placed outside the skin to allow your movements to pass into the bag completely bypassing your lower intestine and anus. I have been offered a stoma bag twice (and I'm only 21) and have said no twice. I want to try everything else before it ever comes to that.

I have anal stenosis, which means my anus closes down for business and the only way to keep it open is to get an anal dilatation, which to my understanding is a good old finger up the bum haha. This is extremely painful for me so I'm always put under anesthetic for it. I have these procedures done every 3 months to keep it open and to have normal bowel movements. If i didn't have these dilatation's, I'd have a massive build up of poo in my intestines and because poo is acidic, it causes a lot of damage to my insides. I also get extremely lethargic, generally unwell, so for me, i think id have to have these for quite some time. My doctors usually have a look around during this procedure as well, and we all call it an EUA (examination under anesthetic) and anal dilatation :)

I have skin tags as well, they cause me no pain or discomfort which is good, but still a pain that they are there. Because of the medication I'm on and that it suppressed some of my immune system my doctors have always said no to removing them due to the possibility of me not healing well and being in a lot of pain. They've always said its not worth the risk and that if i get well enough they'd think about it, but i don't think it'll happen anytime soon haha.