I’ve also used Anusol, which was useful. Anusol Plus includes a mild anesthetic, which is even better. Preparation H is effective for minor flareups. I wouldn’t discount it.
Although both can be applied internally, neither is the answer for serious internal problems.
(Again, when I was in pharmacy school) There were news reports about Preparation H being the most commonly shoplifted OTC medical product, and a lot of people assumed it was because people were embarrassed about having hemorrhoids. It was actually because heavy cocaine users would use it to soothe their irritated nasal membranes, and in addition to having already spent all their money, they were embarrassed about THAT.
Around this same time (early 1990s) there was a big local story about a married couple who were mildly mentally disabled who’d had a child, and the wife died from a seizure and social services weren’t sure the father could adequately raise their daughter on his own. One thing they pointed out was that when she was teething, Anbesol was recommended, and he’d gotten Anusol instead. Probably not the only time that had happened, and that would include people with average or even higher intelligence as well, and hey, it would also have worked, even though it wasn’t designed for that purpose. In the end, they said he could continue to have full custody of the child, as long as someone checked on them every day, which their families had done for them all along.
People a generation earlier used paregoric for teething babies; this was probably a lot safer.
FWIW, there are various OTC supplements you can buy that contain ingredients like diosmin, hesperidin, horse chestnut, etc. These are designed to help with varicose veins in the legs but some of the product reviews say they also help with hemorroids.
Methods: One hundred and thirty-four consecutive patients with an acute hemorrhoidal crisis recruited in five colorectal units entered the study. Sixty-six of them were randomized to receive a mixture of diosmin, troxerutin and hesperidin (group A), and 68 a placebo (group B). The main symptoms, the use of oral painkillers and the Bristol scale score were recorded at each scheduled visit and compared using both Student’s t test for independent samples and the ANOVA models for repeated measures. The presence of edema, prolapse and thrombosis were also recorded and compared using the Chi-square test. Furthermore, the trend of proportions during the time of the evaluations was assessed by the Chi-square test for linear trend.
Results: Pain, bleeding and the proportion of patients who reported persistence of edema and thrombosis decreased significantly after 12 days of treatment in group A. After 6 days, the number of paracetamol tablets taken by patients in group A was significantly lower than the amount of flavonoid mixture.
Yes everyone has them. Their purpose, I’m told, is so that you can tell the difference between a fart and a poo. Apparently some people who have surgery in this area end up struggling to differentiate.