Common Myths About Post-Hemorrhoidectomy Care

I remember having so many questions, doubts and uncertainties, especially at the beginning of my recovery. I notice many patients asked similar questions online as well. It’s was a frustrating experience of not knowing what the consequence each decision might lead to.  Through trial and err, I have found some answers to the inquiries I had early on, and maybe can serve as a reference to some reader friends –

Myth 1: Should I eat normal diet and just make sure to add stool softeners?

After my hemorrhoidectomy, my doctor told me, as you can find on many online medical literature, that I should resume normal diet, and only to soften it with some stool softeners, fiber, prune juice and lots of water. Now knowing how important diet and BM management to my recovery, I now think doctors and medical resource should stop giving this non-sense “normal diet” advice completely. It only shows how little they actually care about the suffering patients have to go through.

First of all, hard stool is the No.1 reason for fissure and a troubled recovery for a hemorrhoidectomy patient. One should avoid hard stool at all cost. Without knowing what a “normal diet” is to each patient, a doctor should not let a patient resume his/her “normal diet”, which could very likely be the bad diet that caused the problem in the first place. One online post by a patient who resumed his “normal diet” of two hamburgers and lots of bacon after the day of his hemorrhoidectomy cried that he paid the price in lots of pain the following day.

Remember when you have an acute fissure and hemorrhoidectomy, it doesn’t take a real hard stool to re-tear the cut and/or prevent healing.

Myth 2: If I skip food for a few days, that would give the cut enough time to heal.

I really contemplated this one a lot. After all, if we skip BMs a few days, my surgical injury can get a break and heal faster. Right? But, what if I am constipated…

Finally I found one online post in which the author said she tried fasting, and suffered constipation. Just what I feared! I did, however, read one patient claimed success for using fasting to cure acute fissure.

However, I did internationally eat less on certain days to have a small and easier poop the next day. It seemed to be ok.

Myth 3: I should take laxative and induce diarrhea to avoid hard stool.

Well, I have a solid answer for this one – “Don’t!”, unless you haven’t had a BM for several days. When my doctor told me to resume normal diet, I found it hard to believe. After all, what goes in, what comes out. And “out” was all I was thinking about all the time.

“Aren’t there any rules about what to eat and what not?” I had so much anxiety of what each food item could do to me on the exit that I lost all appetite. In other words, I was too scare to eat, for three days.

On Day 4, when I still did not poop (naturally since I hadn’t eaten), I started to worry about constipation. (I know – a lot of worries. But knowing what I know now, I would very easily avoid these anxiety. But hopefully after reading this booklet, you can avoid the mistakes I made.)

Unlike fissure, the initial pain after the hemorrhoidectomy was horrendous. To many, this lasts about a whole week. It was under this amount of pain and anxiety, I decided to take matters in my own hands. I decided that I could not afford a constipation. If I can turn it into diarrhea, then be it.

I took two spoons of Milk Magnisium and ended up having non-stoppable diarrhea. The problem – even diarrhea caused bad pain. And non-stoppable diarrhea meant non-stoppable pain. Long story short, diarrhea, like constipation, should be avoided at all cost. You might wonder maybe a one-time diarrhea would be perfect. Well, that’s what I envisioned, but our bodies do their own thing. Our brain can’t really control how many diarrhea we have. But as you will find, it is possible, though, to train our body to produce real soft BMs once a day at a regular time.

Myth 4: If you don’t eat enough and defecate enough, you might develop stenosis (anal channel narrowing).

I had this fear all along since my surgery – I credit this fear to online horror stories. The word “stenosis” sent chills to me when I was always desperately trying to heal from one terrible rectal problem. To have “stenosis” (which could only be fixed by another surgery) on top of what I was dealing with was just unthinkable!

I have paid attention to my own BMs and rectal muscles for the past five months. The fear of stenosis started to die down. I don’t think stenosis has anything to do with not eating or defecating. Instead, stenosis is a result of not being able to relax the rectum muscle, which also prevents healing from a chronic fissure. Muscle tightening is not directly caused by not defecating. Many patients claimed that they reduced the amount of food intake to help with healing. None of those patients developed stenosis.