HomeHemorrhoidsHemorrhoids

Are you aware of these facts?

3 common facts about Hemorrhoids:

1. The likelihood of developing hemorrhoids increases as a person ages.
2. Women are more prone to get hemorrhoids while they are expecting.
3. Sometimes, there is a need of medicines or even surgery to treat hemorrhoids.

Symptoms of haemorrhoids

4 symptoms of haemorrhoids:

• Bleeding during bowel movements
• Protrusion of skin during bowel movements
• lumps and swelling in the anal region
• leaking faeces

What causes hemorrhoids?

However, what exactly causes hemorrhoids is still not clear. There are several factors that contributes to it:

• Ageing
• Chronic constipation or diarrhoea
• Pregnancy
• Heredity
• Straining during bowel movements
• Anal intercourse
• Obesity
• Heavy lifting

Treatment of Hemorrhoids

However, hemorrhoids is an easily preventable condition and can also be treated at home if not much serious.

Nonsurgical treatment

It is imperative to visit a doctor at least once in order to get the symptoms checked before trying any home remedies or self-treatments. The checkup would be done through medical examination and recommend tests. If opting for nonsurgical treatment, it requires two to seven days to reduce the pain and swelling and the firm lump should recede within four to six weeks.

One of the procedure to deal with it is sclerotherapy, where a solution is injected into an internal haemorrhoid which produces a scar that cuts off blood supply to the hemorrhoid. Infrared photocoagulation and electrocoagulation are two other options.

Self-treatment include:

• Eating a high-fibre diet and drinking more water will help to prevent hard stools and aid in healing.
• Avoiding excessive straining to reduce the pressure on hemorrhoids helps in prevent protrusion.
• Taking warm tub baths for 10 to 20 minutes, a few times per day helps the healing process.

Surgical treatment

Sometimes, pain from a thrombosedhemorrhoid is severe, then it becomes mandatory to remove the hemorrhoid or clot with a small incision.

Rubber Band Ligation

This treatment is considered to be very effective in internal hemorrhoids that protrude during bowel movements. Here, a small rubber band is placed over the hemorrhoid, cutting off its blood supply and then the hemorrhoid and the band fall off in a few days.

This takes around one to two weeks for proper healing. However, little bleeding may occur even after the surgery. Also, sometimes there is a need to repeat the treatment for complete treatment of the hemorrhoids.

Injection and Coagulation

The method can be used on bleeding hemorrhoids that do not protrude. Both methods are fairly painless and cause hemorrhoids to shrivel up.

Hemorrhoid stapling

Here in this method, a special device is used to apply staples and remove tissue from internal hemorrhoids. This facilitates the shrinking of the internal tissue and is more painful than rubber band ligation, but less painful than hemorroidectomy. However, it cannot be used to treat external hemorrhoids.

Hemorrhoidectomy: This is considered as the complete surgical method for removing extra tissue that causes bleeding and protrusion. It involves the application of anaesthesia using either sutures or staples which depends on the case, hospitalization and a period of rest may be required.

Hemorrhoidectomy is usually opted when:

1. Clots repeatedly form in external hemorrhoids
2. Ligation is not effective in treating internal hemorrhoids
3. Protruding hemorrhoid cannot be reduced
4. There is chronic bleeding