Hemorrhoids :: Thrombosed And Hemorrhoidectomy Experience

I'd like to post my experience with these awful, awful hemorrhoids. Let me give you all some background first....so I have a habit of bringing my phone in the bathroom and reading articles, checking emails, social networks, whether, bank accounts, credit cards, bills, but the point is my BMs generally took a few minutes but sat on the toilet far too long, anywhere from 15-30 minutes and maybe longer. I saw having BMs as a perfect break point in my super busy life to get updates on emails and such. DO NOT DO THAT, please God do not make the same mistake as me.

So this behavior has been going on for quite some time and a week or so ago is when it all went downhill. Now I always shower after BMs if I'm home, so I started noticing these bulges in my anal area during my showers. They just went away and they didn't really hurt or anything and my initial thought was, "huh...hmmm that's weird". But other than that, I totally ignored it.

I didn't even really know what hemorrhoids were. So then one Friday night a few days ago I had a BM. Hopped in the shower (as I was home) and noticed another bulge in my anus and initially I was like, "huh, what is this weird thing". Towards the end of the shower I noticed that this time it didn't go away. At this point all I was thinking was, what the f***....so I began googling and soon educated myself on hemorrhoids and made the self diagnosis that I now had a thrombosed hemorrhoid. I immediately called my family doc and Monday afternoon I had it checked out. He confirmed my self diagnosis and referred me to a specialist whose literal job is to look at hemorrhoids. By the way, that weekend while waiting for my appointment was awfully painful, I had a hard time playing with my dog, making love and BMs were the absolute worst. Anyway, my family doc said that the specialist would probably make an incision, drain the dreadful roid and then I'd be fine....WRONG.

So I called the specialist (over 25 years of hemorrhoid experience) and scheduled an appointment later the same day (Monday). I went in optimistic, however, after the specialist checked it he said, "Chris, this is a pretty big thrombosed hemorrhoid, and I'm going to have to remove it. You also have a rather large internal hemorrhoid that needs to be removed as well, I can't just drain it at this level". By the way, it was about the size of a decent grape tomato. So surgery was scheduled for the next day (Tuesday) , a hemorrhoidectomy.

This being my first surgery ever, I was scared out of my mind. I watched the medical procedure on some college website which only worsened my anxiety (please don't do that). The surgery went well and I felt perfectly fine in the recovery room (the drugs hadn't worn off yet). However, the pain started to present itself after a few hours being at home. I tried to have a BM that night but nothing but blood came out, no pain though. After my BM attempt I made a warm bath and sat in it for maybe 30 mins, which really relieved the pain. So this brings me to today, this morning (Wednesday).

I'm currently sitting in another warm bath and the pain is minimal in the water. I have a difficult time walking around as I can't stand up straight. So far the pain has been tolerable and overall not as awful as some other posts suggest. I still haven't had a BM since the surgery about 14 hours ago. Honestly, I'm terrified too. I'll try to keep updating this with comments as I progress through recovery.

I have the idea that when I attempt to have my first BM, it will be in a warm sitz bath. I'll clean it out then hop in the tub, as I heard having a BM in the water is much less painful, gross but I think it will be effective and absolutely worth it. Just remember to stay as clean as possible. This is my first forum post ever so bare with me as I attempt to update. Thanks for reading and wish me luck.