Hemorrhoid Non-Surgical Treatments Your Doctor Might Recommend
Hemorrhoids can make your life miserable. You may suffer from pain, itching, and bleeding. Plus, you probably feel uncomfortable talking about your condition, so you might suffer in silence. You may even live with fear you might need to have surgery to have the hemorrhoids removed. Fortunately, there are non-surgical treatments that can help and lifestyle changes that can prevent the return of your condition. Here's a look at hemorrhoid non-surgical treatments.
Home Treatments
When you see a doctor about treating your hemorrhoids, you'll probably be given home treatments to do along with the medical treatments to help eliminate the hemorrhoids you have and keep them from coming back. For instance, your doctor might tell you to drink more water daily and eat more fiber. Eliminating constipation can also eliminate hemorrhoids since you won't have to strain with bowel movements.
You might be instructed to use over-the-counter medications that help reduce swelling and provide pain relief. Sitting in warm water periodically might also help. Sometimes, home treatments are enough to help with hemorrhoids, especially if the hemorrhoids are mild.
Medical Treatments
Prescription medications might be recommended as the first non-surgical treatment to try. Prescription medicated creams are stronger and better at relieving pain than creams you buy over the counter. Be sure to follow your doctor's orders for using creams whether they are prescription or not, since using steroid creams for too long might cause skin problems.
If lifestyle changes and medications don't help, your doctor can try other non-surgical procedures before resorting to surgery that removes the hemorrhoids. Common options include using rubber bands, sclerotherapy, and coagulation therapy. These are given in different ways, but they have the same result of cutting off the blood supply to a hemorrhoid so it shrivels and falls off.
Sclerotherapy involves injecting a chemical solution into the hemorrhoid. Coagulation treatments use infrared light, heat, or a laser. Rubber band ligation is done by placing rubber bands around the base of a hemorrhoid to cut off the blood supply so the hemorrhoid shrinks and falls off in several days.
Hemorrhoid non-surgical treatments are an office procedure, and you can return to your usual activities as soon as you leave the doctor's office. The treatments aren't painful since the area is numbed first, and they are usually effective ways to get rid of hemorrhoids without having to go through the pain of surgery.
Your doctor helps you decide if a non-surgical treatment is right for your condition. You may need to have an examination with a scope first since hemorrhoids are both internal and external. Both types of hemorrhoids can be treated non-surgically, and then your pain and suffering will be relieved as long as you make the lifestyle changes recommended by your doctor so the hemorrhoids don't return.
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