In cases of bleeding hemorrhoids, doctors preliminarily advise their patients to undergo high dietary fiber diets, take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and doing sitz baths. But if such measures brought only no results, doctors will then perform certain surgical procedures in order for these patients to recover from such abnormalities.
Cauterization is primarily done on patients with swollen external blood vessels since such piles manifest on the outer anal surface. It is the subjecting of a body tissue – in this case, the swollen hemorrhoids – to intended irritation in order to remove it from the body. Modern cauterization procedures include electrocautery (using a metal probe that is heated using electrical current) and chemical cautery (uses caustic agents such as silver nitrate, trichloroacetic acid, and canthanidrin), as well as the use of laser, infrared rays, and cryogenic agents like liquid nitrogen. But such anal blood vessels, on their normal phases, actually have advantageous uses in controlling the ejecting of stools out of the body; once removed, stools will have the tendency to be uncontrollably released – even if you’re not yet sitting on the toilet bowls (which is very yucky).
Sclerotherapy, which is actually done to treat the varicose veins on our legs, can also be done to such swelling external anal vessels. Such medical procedure is done by injecting a certain phenol to shrink the swelling blood vessels; thus not removing them like what is usually done on cautery procedures. Success rate of this procedure in the next four years is 70%.
Rubber band ligation is a popular surgical procedure among patients who suffer from second-degree bleeding hemorrhoids. In this procedure, a small rubber band will be tied on the affected blood vessel to stop the flow of blood to the swollen part of the vessel. The swollen vessel will shrink in the next two to seven days, and then the tied rubber band will be ejected out of the body through normal defecation. Complications from this procedure can include pains and bleeding, pelvic sepsis, another occurrence of swollen blood vessels, and anal fissures.
Hemorrhoid surgeries aren’t new in the celebrity and political circles as well. In 1980, baseball hall-of-famer George Brett was not able to play in the World Series that year due to his hemorrhoid pains; he then underwent surgical procedures twice. In 2008, political commentator Glenn Beck released his YouTube video of his allegedly unpleasant experience when he underwent a hemorrhoid surgery operation.
But if all else fails and the above-mentioned medical procedures didn’t work, next-level and much-more invasive surgical procedures will be done for the patient to recover from the bleeding hemorrhoids. Such procedures include (in brief summary):
1) Hemorrhoidectomy, where the affected part of the anal blood vessels will be cut-off
2) Transanal hemorrhoidal dearterialization, which is like the rubber band ligation procedure but only that a Doppler device will be used together with this operation
3) Stapled hemorrhoidopexy, which is like the first procedure but with the inclusion of the reconnection of the two ends of the remaining blood vessel tissue.
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