Take a look at this rubber ring. Do you think that sitting on this rubber ring, if you’ve got
hemorrhoids, will relieve them and fix them or make them worse, what do you think?
Hi I’m Michelle, and actually the answer to this is sitting on a rubber ring is actually
going to make your hemorrhoids a whole lot worse. Fortunately, there are a lot of things
you can do at home to fix your hemorrhoids, and to stop them worsening; and today, I’m
going to guide you through some of the key strategies that you can use at home to fix
your hemorrhoids to stop bleeding and to stop pain, and these are all things that you can
do at home. Now, I need you to use your imagination here, to start with. I’m going to get
you to imagine that’s your anus and this is the hemorrhoid. So obviously with your
hemorrhoids, it’s a swollen vein, a rectal vein, and sometimes they can push out of the
rectum like that, the external hemorrhoids, or they can actually be inside the rectum and
also too cause a lot of pain. So we know that there’s a number of things
you can do, and a lot of these things are to do with bowel management. So I’m going to
be talking today about bowel management, about general exercise, about how to empty
your bowel, and also too, dietary management for hemorrhoids; and I’m going
to go through the best topical ointments that you can buy over-the-counter as well as ways
you can give yourself immediate relief at home. So let’s get started straight away.
The first thing to note is if you’re sitting on the toilet at the moment using your mobile
phone, I want you to put it down straight away, because if you sit on the toilet for longer
than three minutes, it actually is going to cause yourself to strain and actually you’re
going to be having that sort of effect, if I can demonstrate, pushing down on the
hemorrhoid, which is what you don’t want. Emptying should be a maximum – it’s a noisy
hemorrhoid – so emptying should be a maximum of three minutes. If you can’t empty
within that three minutes, get out of there, walk around and then come back.
So I’m going to give you some strategies to help you empty within that three minutes. So
what are you going to do? So the first thing we need to do is go through the correct
technique to avoid straining because constipation and straining are the biggest causes
along with diarrhea of hemorrhoids. So to empty your bowel properly and safely, you
need to do a number of things. You need two, sit yourself nice and tall, you need to lean
yourself forward, inward curve in the lower back, and then you need to open up the anal
sphincter by taking some deep breaths into your belly, and that actually opens up that
anal sphincter and allows everything to push out, as opposed to if you pull in through
your tummy, what you do is you tighten that anal sphincter and that makes the pressure
greater and on the actual hemorrhoid. So then thinking about breathing deeply into your
belly, so you can take a couple of deep breaths into the belly in that position as you lean
forward, and then you make your waist wide to push and bulge your tummy forward,
move to poo, and you can check the video above for the details on this. So making your
waist wide, bulging your belly forward, and then drawing up through your pelvic throat
through the back passage when you finish, now, that’s key.
Now, the only way that technique is going to work is if you have the right stool
consistency. If your stool consistency is too hard or if it’s too runny, then that’s going to
be really challenging and going to make the hemorrhoids worse. So how do you fix your
stool consistency, this is a big question, isn’t it? There’s some really great research, and
I’ve looked into the research in preparing for this video, and a recent Cochrane review
found that the best laxatives or the best type of bulking agent you can take is either
Psyllium or Ispaghula husk. So I’ve got some here today to show you and to talk to you
about how to actually use this. What this does, these are natural fiber plant-based
solutions and they actually bulk the stool and they soften it and help the stool move
through, and what the research has found is this actually reduces bleeding with
hemorrhoids and also reduces pain. So the things you can do, you can get
these things over-the-counter. This is a Psyllium husk, it actually looks like this – oops, I’ve
spilled it on my leg there. That’s just a fine grain. And I like the natural Psyllium husk,
but you can also – and you normally get that
from health food shops, but you can also get that as Metamucil, that’s also Psyllium. I
prefer to get the natural grain because it’s inexpensive, it’s over-the-counter, it doesn’t
have some of the irritants that some of the other products also have. You can also take
Normafibe which is the other type of Sterculia, which is also to the plant-based grain. If
you’re like me, and you get really gassy having Psyllium, which I can’t tolerate, you can
also use something like your osmotic laxatives like your Movicol, your Osmolax or
MiraLax in the US. And again, that’s with a sachet, you have a sachet. You can have a
number of sachets, they come like this, and you mix them with water.
Now, the important thing is, if you’re actually taking these bulking agents, is that you
have additional water. So if you’re having one teaspoon of Psyllium, which is what I’d
suggest you start with, then you have one extra cup of water a day. If two teaspoons, then
two extra cups of fluid a day. Be really careful that you just start with your one teaspoon.
I normally suggest having about two extra teaspoon or two teaspoons a day to soften the
stool, and you can have that over your yogurt or with your cereal, because it’s actually not
that palatable to have on its own. But that’s a really great product to use, cheap,
inexpensive, and really helpful. So that should help you as well. I’ve got a video linked
above if you’d like some more information on foods to soften the stool.
Now, if you’re someone that suffers from diarrhea, you might also try the Psyllium,
because it actually can tend to bulk the stool, and also too, your products like
Loperamide, Imodium, which are usually available over-the-counter too, and that will
slow down gastric motility. So they’re two really important things to know about
managing your stool. If we talk a little
bit more about diet for hemorrhoids, it obviously involves foods that are
going to soften the stool. So the average American adult has about 15 grams of fiber in
their diet a day, and the goal should be really 35 to 38 grams. Now, I’m not saying to go
out and have a whole lot of fiber, because if you do that while you’re constipated, it’s
going to make things worse. You need to relieve the constipation first through one of the
methods I talked about earlier, but maybe your Movicol, your osmotic laxatives or speak
to your pharmacist about that, to clear the pipes first of all before you gradually start to
increase your fiber. And that’s the key point, gradual increase, not sudden. If you
suddenly increase your fiber, you’re going to make your constipation and straining much
worse, and also too, if you suddenly increase fiber if you suffer from diarrhea, it’s going
to make your diarrhea worse as well. So gradually increase your fiber and then increasing
the foods that will actually help with your stool and again that video is linked above too.
Now, let’s move on to the topic of general exercise. Now, general exercise is really
important – just because you’ve got hemorrhoids, doesn’t mean you need to stop
exercising. General exercise will actually improve stool movement or improve your
gastrointestinal motility, and help your bowel movements, but it’s a matter of choosing
the right exercises. So the right exercises are things like your low impact exercises, so
exercises that involve one foot being in contact with the ground all the time or exercises
like cycling, you can do your walking, and rather than doing walking for half an hour,
split your walks up to three lots of 10 minutes, and that way you’re actually putting much
less pressure on the hemorrhoid and giving yourself time to relax, and not putting too
much pressure on that hemorrhoid, and not pushing it down constantly. Exercises like
swimming, those things are also too great. If you’re exercising in a gym, watch your wide
deep squats, and I do have a video linked above on how to squat safely in the gym with
hemorrhoids. Obviously, reduce the weights that you’re lifting so that you’re not straining
when you’re lifting, and things like, if you are thinking about your squats, vary that or
change that to a lunge which is going to be much safer, still get your leg strength going,
but much safer than your wide leg squats.
Now, let’s talk about over-the-counter medications, because some of these can be really
valuable, especially in terms of immediate pain relief, and also too cheap in ineffective
ways or inexpensive ways of getting relief. A product I want to talk about is Anusol.
Now, Anusol is a lubricant, it gets inserted into the anus and it provides a coating for the
hemorrhoid, so that is a really valuable thing to think about using. Otherwise, you can get
Preparation H, and that’s also shown above, I’ve just checked and you can get that from
Walmart and you can also get that over-the-counter in Australia. Now, the thing about
Preparation H is it has an anesthetic in it, and it also has an anti-inflammatory in it that
actually shrinks the size of the hemorrhoids if they’re external hemorrhoids. So
Preparation H is also a really good product to think about.
Now, the third product I want to talk about is Rectogesic. Rectogesic comes in a tube,
and you also insert that, and what Rectogesic does is relaxes the smooth muscle in the
anus, so that can also provide immediately immediate relief from hemorrhoids. The only
problem is sometimes using Rectogesic can give you a headache, so just be mindful of
that as your side effect.
I also wanted to talk about wiping and cleaning the hemorrhoids, so if you use toilet
paper as your last wipe – and I’m going to use like a visual demonstration here, so you
can imagine using the toilet paper over the hemorrhoid – what actually happens is you
wipe and you wipe and you wipe and you can’t get clean; and if you think about wiping
with tissue paper, it can also too be a little bit abrasive on the hemorrhoid. Now, if you
use a wet wipe as your last wipe, so I’ve got some wet wipes here – so this type of a wet
wipe, you could get them in packets like this – it actually makes it much easier to clean in
and around the hemorrhoid and stop soiling after your bowel movement. It’s also much
more comfortable on the hemorrhoid too, so make sure your wet wipes are alcohol-free.
So check the ingredients, make sure aqua is one of the ingredients, so that they’re water-
based, and they don’t contain alcohol which can actually irritate in and around the
hemorrhoid as well. Now, my last but not least tip is
to use a sitz bath or a warm water bath. Now, warm water baths at home can provide immediate relief.
Ideally, you’re looking at about 37 to 39 degrees Celsius or a 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
And just dipping into the bath, so you could have a shallow bath or some people
actually use a tub, and they place it inside the toilet and just sit there for three minutes,
that can be really soothing for the hemorrhoid and also helps you to clean as well. So that’s
another nice way of getting immediate relief from your hemorrhoids.
So there’s a lot there, isn’t there? There’s not just a one simple fix for hemorrhoids, there’s
a whole lot of things combined. They include your bowel management, they include your
stool management, making sure that your stool is soft and well-formed, and also too
things like using your over-the-counter pain relief medications and medications or topical
ointments that will actually help to shrink the stool. And finally, we also talked about
using sitz baths to actually get some relief. So I really hope that one or a combination of
these things will help you manage and fix your hemorrhoids at home, and get some
permanent relief. So thanks so much for watching today, I really hope that this
information helps you manage your hemorrhoids much better and get some fix at home.
As always, if you can give the video a like below, then YouTube will actually recommend this video to
other people that can benefit from watching it as well.
So thanks so much for watching today, I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.