Hemorrhoids: You Don’t Have to Be a Truck Driver to Get Them

1. Hemorrhoid suppositories
2. Laxative suppositories
3. Prune juice

It’s Friday night. My boyfriend and our friends are headed to the bluegrass festival and I’m headed to Walgreen’s to purchase my evening reality, which will not involve an outdoor festival with port-o-potties. I pick up a People magazine to help ease into the evening alone.

It takes about ten days before my body restores itself to normal. And, during this transition, I become intimately involved with a good night butt kiss to my evening suppository, which ultimately delivers relief, but also delivers an oily substance in the toilet and a weird sensation when faced with the need to pass gas.

As I recount some of these painful tales to my boyfriend, his eyes get bigger. Apparently, he recently had some weird signs of things not feeling so right down there. He consulted some friends at work only to find that yes, a lot of us—including him—have this problem.

I do not profess to be a specialist in this area or prescribe what anyone may or may not have. I do, however, feel some need to openly address this seemingly silent subject. I learned some things in this process, and spent some time reading online to validate my findings. Some good resources for causes, symptoms, and treatments for hemorrhoids can be found at the Mayo Clinic Web site (they have a great guide to high fiber foods, too) and also at WebMD.

In short, we all poop. Some go more and some go less. But if we listen to our body’s rhythm, we’ll know when things are changing, when our outputs and inputs are out of sync. If in the short-term things don’t fix themselves, there are medical professionals out there who will help and talk to you about this in a way that will make you realize it’s silly to wait, silly to be embarrassed, and silly to think you are the only one who can’t keep your poop together.