Symptoms and diagnosis
Symptoms
The most common symptoms are anal bleeding – blood drops on the toilet or in the toilet paper -, although the bleeding tends to be minimum, and pain while defecating. Hemorrhoids in the anus can be self-palpated, and they can even be manually reduced by the patient.
Next, we provide a list of the most common symptoms of hemorrhoids. Even though each person may experience these symptoms differently, there are some that are always there:
- Pain after defecating.
- Red, shiny blood in the feces, the toilet paper or the toilet seat.
- Anal itching.
- One or more hard, sensitive protuberances or lumps around the anus.
Diagnosis
The episodes resulting from hemorrhoids usually appear and disappear rather quickly, but if the problem persists or worsens or if there are characteristic symptoms such as blood in the feces, you must see your doctor. You should be tested to verify the presence of anemia. As rectal bleeding is the most common symptom for internal hemorrhoids and for several colon and rectum tumors as well, we recommend having a rectosigmoidoscopy in order to rule out other causes of the bleeding such as cancer. This procedure is an exploration of the rectum and the ending of the large intestine (also called colon or sigmoid) performed with an instrument (rectosigmoidoscope) which allows visualizing the mucus in those organs.
