Piles: Causes, Types, Symptoms, Diagnoses, Treatment, Self-care, and Natural Remedies

Before we start with the end-to-end information about piles/hemorrhoids, let us enlighten ourselves with the basic knowledge of what is piles.

Medically referred to as hemorrhoids, piles are the swelling inside, outside, or around the anal passage. All of us have hemorrhoids, which refers to mass, clump, or an aggregate of tissues in the anal canal. It becomes painful and calls for treatment when these normally-occurring hemorrhoids turn out to be big and inflammatory. It is exactly at this point, your doc labels you under the treatment for piles/hemorrhoids.

The Causes

• Constipation

When you constipate for a longer period of time, blood is pushed into the rectal canals and thereby leads to inflammation of hemorrhoids.

• Diarrhea

Though this is the extreme side of constipation, excessive bowel movement could also cause inflammation of the anal canal, leading to hemorrhoids.

• Too long a potty time

If you’re one that loves reading stuff and devising ideas on the pot and spends too much of time there even after you’re done, you’re very likely to have hemorrhoids. Excessive flow of blood in the rectal canal could cause hemorrhoids and inflammation.

• All-time Sitting!

If you’re prone and stuck to your chair all day long, again it creates excess blood flow to your rectal canals, causing hemorrhoids. Even if you have a desk job that demands sitting for too long, take a walk now and then to ensure you’re healthy.

• Standing, all the time

We know it must be irritating to hear that sitting or standing for too long can cause hemorrhoids. But excess of anything can pave way to piles. Standing for too long, pushes too much of blood to the lower parts of the body, including the rectum. This might in turn cause swollen veins and inflammation in the anal region.

• Overweight and Obesity

When you weigh more than the normal, the weight starts falling on your body on each organ. Your butt region is no exception. The more the pressure on your butt, the more the possibility of inflammation of the rectum, thereby leading to inflamed hemorrhoids.

• No Nutrition

When you don’t feed your body with enough fibers and nutrients, your body doesn’t digest well. When there’s no proper absorption of nutrients and digestion happening, piles are the consequences. So, feed your body well.
 

• Pregnancy

Preggers also becomes one of the reasons for hemorrhoids. This is again due to the cause of weight gain. The more the weight, the more the pressure on your butt region and this leads to piles again. Pregnancy also causes constipation or diarrhea in women, which could also be the reason for inflamed hemorrhoids.

The Types

Hemorrhoid inflammation can be of two types: internal or external.

• Internal Piles

While the internal piles occur within your anal canal, there are huge chances that it slowly starts swelling up to show outside of your anus too. The internal type of piles is graded according to their sizes.

A first-degree piles may bleed, but might not grow to be shown outside of the anus. A second-degree piles might show up when you are having a bowel movement. A third-degree piles might appear outside and might need manually pushing them to the inside. Finally, the fourth-degree piles may have a permanent partial swelling outside the anus and might lead to clotted blood stains.

• External Piles

The second type of piles is the external ones. This is nothing but a swelling or inflammation that occurs closer to the outside of the anal tube. They can be very painful and are differentiated into the blood clot and non-blood clot types. The blood clotting grade of external piles can be very painful.

The Symptoms

The following symptoms give you a heads-up for treatment of piles. See your Ayurvedic specialist or a doctor you trust in, to treat the symptoms and causes. We recommend Ayurveda, for it treats the cause and cures hemorrhoids, instead of treating the superficial symptoms themselves.

• Bleeding during your bowel movement
• A lump in or around your anal region
• A slimy mucous discharge
• Itchy or irritable skin around your anus
• Pain and discomfort in outer region of your anus making your daily life miserable

The Diagnosis

A doctor will ask you to explain the symptoms or causes that you’ve been experiencing. They might then insert a gloved-finger to feel your piles/hemorrhoids. If the case appears to be severe, they might recommend a proctoscopy in order to look inside of your rectum. A proctoscope used in the procedure “proctoscopy” is a short tube which has a light sensor attached to it. When it is inserted in your anal region, it gives an exact picture of your inflammation.

The Treatment

You could treat piles the western way or the Ayurvedic way. The western medicine includes the following:

• Dieting
• Ointments and pills for killing the pain
• Corticosteroids to shrink the size of the hemorrhoids
• Painkillers
• Surgery to remove the piles

Ayurveda recommends treating the cause of piles that were listed in the start of the article. Ayurveda strongly believes that the western medicine only focuses on reducing the size of the inflammation or providing relief from the pain and suffering. This might lead to re-occurrence of the piles condition again. Therefore, Ayurveda recommends treating the cause of piles itself, which will eventually take the pain away and also ensure that it doesn’t occur again. Therefore, with Ayurveda there are no chances that you’ll experience a re-occurrence of piles again, after having it treated Ayurvedically during the first occurrence.

Self-care

To keep yourself away from the horrific pain caused by hemorrhoids, you could take the following precautionary steps:

• Topical application of a lubricant, such as oil on the inflamed region
• Cleanliness in the anal region
• Ice packs on the swelling
• Hydration

Natural Remedies

Here’s what you can do from the comfort of your home, to stay away from the pain and causes of piles:

• Apply apple cider vinegar to the affected region
• Apply coconut oil
• Apply witch hazel
• Aloe gel
• Exercise to lose weight
• Take natural probiotics like yogurt/curd
• Up your fiber intake
• Soak yourself in warm water, exposing the inflamed region to warm water
• Keep the area clean and use water to wash the affected region, instead of dry napkins
• Use a proper moisturizer like the above-mentioned aloe gel