Words: Dr Namitha RAJENDRAN P C
Most folks tend to be secretive about their so-called ‘awkward’ health issues. The more embarrassing the health problem, the more their reticence, or being on guard. Haemorrhoids, or piles, is one such malady.
Well, one thing is clear. The more one is aware of the condition, the better equipped they would be to opt for proper interventions, or treatment — not blunderbuss, or magic cures, that don’t work.
According to a recent health estimate, over 40 per cent of people worldwide suffer from mild to moderate piles. Lack of exercise, junk-food, and sedentary lifestyles are evidenced to be the likely triggers.
Piles, a blood vessel-centric, engorged ‘glitch’ of the anus, is not dangerous too, unless there is a definitive pathology, or threat lurking with a risky, chronic intent.
Symptoms
Piles may cause symptoms like bleeding, itching, pain and a ‘lumpy’ feeling in the anus.
Embarrassment causes most piles patients to suffer in silence rather than seek medical help. They prefer to visit the doctor when the pain becomes unbearable and/or the condition is so severe that it requires surgery. Early medical treatment can often help to successfully treat, or prevent, the disorder.
Causes
- Sedentary lifestyle — or, ‘blame it on your genetics’
- Low fibre diet, compulsive straining during stools, obesity, and pregnancy
- Portal hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease [IBD], chronic constipation, or diarrhoea, and raised intra-abdominal pressure, especially in the presence of a gut disorder.
Things To Look For
- Anaemia from prolonged blood loss, especially in chronic bleeding piles, followed by exhaustion
- Blood clots in the enlarged veins that may result in extreme pain
- Strangulated piles — when the blood supply to the vein is cut off. This causes intense pain
- This needs to be addressed appropriately, more so in chronic cases.
Gradations
Piles have gradations. Grade 1 and 2, or internal piles, can be significantly helped with homeopathy. In Grade 3 piles, the symptoms can be relieved, but the condition may not be completely cured. Grade 4 piles may ‘find’ symptomatic relief with homeopathy. Surgery should be considered, if symptoms are unbearable and persistent.
Healing with Homeopathy
Homeopathy is most useful in the management of piles and its symptoms of pain, bleeding, burning, or itching. It provides relief, gently, minus the side-effects of conventional medications, or surgical treatment.
- Aesculus hippocastanum is useful for non-bleeding piles, with ‘splinter-like’ pains lasting for hours after stool
- Aloe socotrina is useful for piles that are swollen and protrude like ‘a bunch of grapes’ and/or are calmed by cold soaks, or compresses
- Hamamelis virginica is a ‘remedy of choice’ for bleeding piles — provided the symptoms match.
There are a host of other homeopathic remedies too for haemorrhoids. Your homeopathic physician would be in the best position to decipher and prescribe one of them, following thorough case analysis and clinical assessment at the clinic.
A Case In Point
Forty-year-old Vicky suffered from disconcerting pain in the rectum, hours after passing stools. He also passed blood, at times, with stool. Long hours of sitting at work further, juxtaposed by a sedentary lifestyle and dietetic excesses, often aggravated his pain. His haemorrhoids distress was also related to his long years of being the ‘chronic constipation persona.’ When I prescribed him the homeopathic Nux vomica, one of the most useful remedies for his ‘type’ of piles, coupled with constipation, he felt better than ever before.
Clinical Study
Aim. Controversies and disagreement exist on conventional treatment strategies of haemorrhoids due to relapse, inefficacy, and complications. We intended to evaluate the role of individualised homeopathic treatment in haemorrhoids.
Materials and Methods. In this prospective, open, observational trial, haemorrhoids patients were treated using five standardised scales measuring complaints severity and anoscopic score. It was conducted at two homeopathic hospitals, in India, from mid-July 2014 to mid-July 2015. Patients were intervened as per individualised homeopathic principles and followed up every month up to six months.
Results. A total of 73 patients were screened, 52 enrolled, 38 completed, 14 dropped out. Intention to treat population [n = 52] was analysed in the end. Statistically significant reductions of mean bleeding [month 3: −21.8, 95 per cent confidence interval [CI]: −30.3, −13.3, P <0.00001, d = 0.787; month 6: −25.5, 95 per cent CI −35.4, −15.6, P <0.00001, d = 0.775], pain [month 3: −21.3, 95 per cent CI −28.6, −14.0, P <0.00001, d = 0.851; month 6: −27.6, 95 per cent CI −35.6, −19.6, P <0.00001, d = 1.003], heaviness visual analogue scales [VASs] [month 3: −8.1, 95 per cent CI −13.9, −2.3, P = 0.008, d = 0.609; month 6: −12.1, 95 per cent CI −19.1, −5.1, P = 0.001, d = 0.693], and anoscopic score [month 3: −0.4, 95 per cent CI −0.6, −0.2, P <0.0001, d = 0.760; month 6: −0.5, 95 per cent CI −0.7, −0.3, P < 0.0001, d = 0.703] were achieved. Itching VASs reduced significantly only after six months [−8.1, 95 per cent CI −14.6, −1.6, P = 0.017, d = 0.586]. No significant lowering of discharge VASs was achieved after three and six months.
Conclusion. Under classical homeopathic treatment, haemorrhoids patients improved considerably in symptoms severity and anoscopic scores.
- Kaushik Deb Das, et al, “Treatment of Haemorrhoids with Individualised Homeopathy: An Open Observational Pilot Study,” Journal of Intercultural Ethnopharmacology, Vol 5, 335-342, Issue 4; 2016.
