My Hemorrhoid Report

I will begin the blog of my life today while I am suffering from a hemorrhoid attack!

Technical Details

Hemorrhoids are the swollen veins from the anal canal.  Veins can swell and stay inside the canal, or they can stick outside. Internal hemorrhoids stay inside your anus; hence, mostly causing itchiness and bleeding during bowel movement. Unfortunately for me, mine is the external type and causes extreme agony.
The cause: constipation!  Straining during bowel movement and passing hard stools put pressure on the veins of the anal canal, cause them to swell and stretch.
The good news: it's not life-threatening.
The bad news: it's a real pain in the bud!
The prognosis: 1 to 2 weeks recovery time.
The fix: stool softener, sitz bath, Preparation-H, water, pain medication, and eating fiber.

My Story

Day 1:   The bowel movement in the morning was strained.  I felt a little pain.  The whole week in an effort to combat constipation, I've been eating Fiber One cereal.  Although I drink a lot of water after eating the cereal, my stool was still dry. On top of everything, I decided to try out an Oat Granola Bar that has tons of fiber without drinking much water.  After eating the bar, I had a difficult bowel movement.  I felt the pain from the morning exacerbated, but still bearable.

Day 2:  I woke up and felt that the pain worsen, but again, still bearable, not even painful enough for me to reach for the Advil.   We had previously scheduled a ski trip, which involved 9 hours sitting time (4 hours to get to the ski resort, 3 hours waiting for Nathan's ski lesson, 3 hours driving back).   After 3 hours sitting in the car, I felt the pain worsen to a point of no return.  When we stopped for lunch at Carl JR, it was painful enough to make me reach for the first Advil.  To seal my own fate, I ended the night having 1 more painful bowel movement.  By then, the hemorrhoid became swollen so big and so painful.  DH was dispatched to CVS to get the Prep-H cream!
Lessons learned:

1. Don't ever sit for extended period of time when you have hemorrhoid!
2.  Prep-H cream is NOT as good as the old fashion ointment.  It caused a little irritation and didn't really help with numbing the pain as advertised.
3. Should have been trying to find ways to soften the stool!

 Day 3:  Agonizing pain continued and worsen because of the morning bowel movement.  I spent the whole day lying (sitting was not an option due to pain) on the sofa researching for ways to get rid of the pain in the bud.
Lessons learned:

1. It might have seem contrary to common sense, but the smartest thing (if I ever had the misfortune to be going through this hemorrhoid attack again), to be doing right now should have been trying to soften the stool.  But after 2 episodes of painful bowel movements, I firmly believed that I should try to hold everything in until my bud had a chance to recover. 
2. When I took the shower at night, I noticed that it seemed to lessened the pain.  I should have gotten the sitz bath right about now!
3. Prep-H ointment works better than the cream.
4. Avoid surgery at all cost!  I read on the forum that the recovery is a long agonizing process.

 Day 4: Wow, manic Monday didn't bring any relief.  On the contrary, it was getting worse.  I immediately went to see my doctor.  It was good to hear from her that on a scale of 10, my hemorrhoid looked like a severity of 8!  She recommended sitz bath, Miralax (stool softener), and prescribed ointment.   Normally, I don't believe in home remedies, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  I paid $14.99 for the Sitz Bath.   Miralax for 14 days also cost $14.99.  I skipped the prescription ointment because from the doctor's tone, it didn't seem to help much.
Lessons learned:

1. Again, it might have seem contrary to common sense, but the smartest thing to be doing right now should have been taking the Miralax.  But I was worrying about having diarrhea and allergic reactions during this pain.  The doctor did reassure me that it was ok to have bowel movement even though it's strained.  But after episodes of painful bowel movements, I again believed in waiting.
2. The Sitz Bath really worked.  Use the hottest level of water that your bud can stand.  Apparently, it helps with the blood circulation (or relaxes your muscles) and makes you feel a whole lot better.
3. Advil works!

Day 5: I woke today feeling great.  The pain was gone.  I was thinking, wow, the miracle of home remedy! It must have been the Sitz Bath!    Then I had my first bowel movement! And bam, it was back to hell again!  This was the day that I realize, I need to take the stool softener.  The healing will come as soon as the stool becomes soft.
Lessons learned:

1. Take Miralax as soon as possible.  Make sure you are not allergic to it by taking it slowly.  The powder allows easy dosage.  I started by taking 1/2 dosage.  After 1/2 day, nothing happened, I took another 1/2 dosage.  The doctor said that it's not supposed to be habit forming and can be taken on a daily basis.  It does causes gas initially.
2. Miralax takes 3 days to start working ... I actually think it works right away.  Unfortunately, there is a backlog in your system that take time to move out.  
3. Drink A LOT of water.  

Day 6: Now that I know what it takes to recover, I slowly accepted that there will be a couple days more of pain.  Yes, the stool was still strained so the pain continues.  The end is near ...  The pain is lessened so I decided to go grocery shopping and cooked a good meal.  I discovered that the healing is faster if I move around. 
 Lessons learned:

1. Eat Fiber One & Drink A LOT of water.
2. Take Miralax. 

Day 7: At last, soft stool!   Today was a beautiful day.  More energy, more appetite, more life!  Life is beautiful without the constant nagging pain!

 Lessons learned: sometimes I wonder why bad things happen.  It's easy to be negative during the darkest moments of life.  But I realized that I was still positive and full of optimism believing that God will not give you more than you can endure, trying to find the best way out for my pain.  And during this period of pain, I saw the love from all the people who care for me.

Day 21: Things are finally normal at last.  The swelling gradually attenuates until there just a little bubble today.  I made an effort to have at least 1 not hard/strained bowel movement everyday.   I drink about 6 to 7 bottles of water per day.  I stopped taking Miralax, thinking that I should reserve it for emergency and depend on my own digestive system to work on its own.  I drink 8-12 oz of prune juice each morning in addition to 2 (12 oz) bottles of water.  In addition, I also eat oatmeal + banana for breakfast.  On top of that, I try my best to eat veggies and drink water.

Lessons learned: sometimes I wonder why bad things happen. Again, I believe this pain episode made me realize how unhealthy my eating habit has been.  I used to be so dehydrated.  I used to not have normal bowel movement until the constipation sometimes turned into painful episodes of diarrhea.