Many people are embarrassed to visit their doctor to have a consultation for their hemorrhoids. It is important to remember that hemorrhoids is a common ailment in the United States for people who are in their fifties and above.

Consulting a doctor when you are experiencing the symptoms of hemorrhoids is always the best thing to do because there are other medical conditions and diseases that have almost similar symptoms like that of hemorrhoids. Your doctor can confirm that the symptoms you have are due to hemorrhoids and not other diseases or medical conditions.

If you don’t have a family doctor to consult with, you can go to other general practitioners like the gastroenterologists, proctologists, and the colon and rectal surgeons who have expertise regarding hemorrhoids.

When consulting a doctor, it is important to describe the symptoms in a detailed manner to have a correct diagnosis for your hemorrhoids. These are some of the issues that you must carefully describe to the doctor: pain, bleeding, mucus or pus, change in bowel habit, change in the shape and characteristics of your stool, swelling, itching, and bulges and protrusions.

Pain – The anal area have many nerve endings that is why it is sensitive to pain. Painful flare-ups are caused by external hemorrhoids. When an internal hemorrhoids are prolapsed, they are also painful. But, not all hemorrhoids will give you the painful feeling.

Bleeding – The color of the blood is an indicator of the location of the bleeding – bright red is from the anal canal and dark red is from the colon. Bleeding does not always indicates hemorrhoids. It can also be associated with more serious medical conditions like colorectal cancer and ulcer.

Mucus or pus – Having some mucus or pus discharge is not associated with hemorrhoids.

Change in bowel habit – When you are under emotional stress, tension, trauma, or diet change, a change will occur in your bowel habit where alternating or chronic diarrhea and constipation may happen.

Change in the shape and characteristics of your stool – When your stool is colored brown or yellow and good in form, then you have a healthy stool. But when there is a change in the shape or color of your stool, it can be a symptom of other medical conditions but not hemorrhoids.

Swelling – A person with hemorrhoids will always have the swelling symptom, but this may also mean other medical conditions like infection.

Itching – Hemorrhoids, food and medicine allergies, skin diseases, stress, etc. can cause chronic itching.

Bulges and protrusions – Prolapsed internal hemorrhoids will cause bulges in the anal canal while external hemorrhoids will have hard bulges located outside of the opening of the anal area.

Not all of these symptoms will lead to a diagnosis of hemorrhoids. Consulting a doctor is not an embarrassing moment. Instead, it is the best way to find out if what you are having are hemorrhoids or not.