Hemorrhoid Prevention Measures | Minneapolis & St Paul

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There are many ways to prevent the hemorrhoids for the patients in Minnesota.

One of the best ways to avoid hemorrhoids or a flare up is to avoid constipation by keeping your stools soft. Eating a diet that is high in fiber such as fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains are recommended. Taking a fiber supplement every day, such as Citrucel or Metamucil, can help keep bowel movements regular. Drinking enough fluids is equally as important so that your urine is light yellow or clear. Water is the best form of hydration.

Daily exercise is also great to help the bowel move through your digestive system and prevent you from becoming constipated. Moderate activity of at least 30 minutes 3-4 times per week is recommended.

Scheduling time each day for a bowel movement and keeping it a daily routine may help. Take your time and do not strain when having a bowel movement, because it is the straining that makes hemorrhoids worse or cause the rupture of varicose veins and thrombosis. Straining and holding your breath when trying to pass a stool creates greater pressure in the veins in the lower rectum.

Avoid frequent heavy lifting and obesity may reduce the chance of hemorrhoid development.

Lastly, once you feel the urge, it is important to go because if you wait to pass a bowel movement, the urge goes away and your stool could become dry and be harder to pass.

Treatment of the Thrombosed Hemorrhoid on the Road | Minneapolis & St Paul

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External hemorrhoids occur outside the anal verge. Thrombosed external hemorrhoids occur if varicose veins rupture and blood clots develop under skin. It is often accompanied by swelling with a bluish-purplish discoloration and severe incapacitating pain.

I have an interesting story that happened while I visited China many years ago. I was invited to give a lecture on office procedures as a guest professor in Zhejiang University, China. After the academic exchange, I had a few days to myself, so I went to visit an old friend of mine (let’s call him Dave). We decided to go visit a new resort town a few hours away from the city. As we were talking in the hotel, he was looking a bit shifty on the couch, as if he was very uncomfortable. I asked him if he was having a problem, and he said he had a lot of pain because of his hemorrhoids. Thankfully, this being an area of my specialty, I was able to diagnose him with having a thrombosed hemorrhoid that needed immediate treatment. I told him that a thrombosed external hemorrhoid is the common complication of hemorrhoids.

Dave said he would go to the hospital, but he hesitated to go because of inconvenient medical care in China. He didn’t trust the doctors in the local small hospital, and he was indecisive in choosing a larger hospital. I told him that I had fixed countless thrombosed hemorrhoids, and that if I had the tools I needed, I could fix it for him in a flash. I went to a local hospital in the town and identified myself, the medical staff believed that I was a general surgeon at Shanghai Medical University thirty years ago and that currently I practice in the US. I asked if I could get the necessary gear to do the procedure. Amazingly, the staff in the local hospital were very helpful and generous, and I managed to return with latex gloves, a scalpel, syringes, a pack of gauze, and a bottle of Lidocaine. I got him down on the bed and we did the procedure right there in the hotel.

The procedure took only a few minutes. I gave 0.5 cc Lidocaine to numb the top of the thrombosed hemorrhoid, then sliced open the hemorrhoid with a scalpel and removed the clotted blood with a cotton-tipped applicator. Once the clot was gone, I cleaned up the area by packing large amounts of gauze. The relief was immediate and other than a little bleeding for a day or so, the problem was gone. He was asked to do the Sitz bath three times a day and keep his stool soft.

I told Dave if he had the chance to visit Minneapolis, I can do IRC treatments to treat the root cause of problem – internal hemorrhoids.