Clinical features
Haemorrhoids often only produce intermittent symptoms. Symptomatic episodes are often precipitated by constipation. These episodes usually last from a few days to a few weeks. Often they are completely asymptomatic between episodes.
Clinical features of haemorrhoids (piles) include:
bright red bleeding after defaecation:
- may just stain the toilet paper or streak the faeces (it is not mixed in)
- if copious it may splash around the lavatory pan
- faecal soiling due to impaired continence
- mucus discharge
- pruritus ani, caused by a persistent discharge irritating the perianal skin
- a feeling of incomplete evacuation after a bowel movement if prolapse occurs
- occasionally pain:
- thrombosis may cause acute severe anal pain occasionally necessitating hospital admission
- thrombosis may cause acute severe anal pain occasionally necessitating hospital admission
- grades 2-4 may be felt as a rectal mass
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