Phear, thanks for the info - I am definitely going to ask my GI about a better hemorrhoid cream. Tucks works okay but I'm guessing a prescription/steroid cream would be better.
Allie, I've tried various hemmie creams, wipes, cures, etc. The first hemmie I had stuck around for months. Prep H did nothing for it. Calmoseptine made it not hurt, but didn't shrink it or make it go away. The vitamin E treatment (take a gel capsule of vitamin E, poke one end with a pin, and squeeze the gel directly onto the hemmie) worked so-so. It shrank my hemmie about halfway but didn't make it go away completely, plus it's really messy (wear a pad if you try it! Vitamin E gel leaked through my undies and onto my khaki pants and made a big ugly oily stain right on the butt and the stain didn't come out after several washings so my pants were ruined and it was embarassing). Tucks cream works fairly well, I had a hemmie a few weeks ago that I put Tucks on every time I went to the bathroom, and that hemmie went away in about a week. I'm doing the same thing with this hemmie and hoping for the same results. If you've got a hemmie that has stuck around for years though, I don't know if anything will make it go away - you can try Tucks and see if it helps any, but I think I've read somewhere that really stubborn hemmies sometimes require surgery and don't often go away on their own.
Oh, and if it were me I'd definitely take a picture of the amount of blood you're passing. It can't hurt (if it does gross out your doc, I'd take that as a sign to get a new doc ASAP as any doctor should be well past the point of blood grossing them out) and it could help. I remember you had a big fissure awhile back that bled a lot - does this seem to be a fissure too? Internal hemmies can often bleed a lot too - I haven't had internal ones myself, only external. Apparently the external ones hurt but don't bleed much, the internal ones don't hurt much but can bleed a lot.
And your m-i-l doing "research" on IBS and then trying to give you advice based on that - sounds like my mother! When I first became ill, she mentioned it to one of her cousins. Well, apparently that cousin has celiac disease in their branch of the family tree. My mom freaked out and decided that I must have celiac - and therefore, she must have given it to me and so she must have it too. Nevermind the fact that breads & pastas are some of my safest foods, or the fact that I've had both the blood test and the upper endoscopy w/ biopsies and it's all come back negative for celiac. So my mom told her sister and my cousins and they all freaked out too for no good reason and decided to all go gluten-free. NONE of them have had any testing, not even the blood test for celiac. But they're all quite sure they've got it. And for awhile all of them, especially my mother, pressured me quite a lot to go GF myself. I was reasonable and explained why I don't have celiac (not to mention that I'd be pretty much only eating Ensure and bananas at every meal if I went GF because of all the other foods that do trigger me). It finally took an angry email from me to my mother stating in no uncertain terms that she is NOT to mention gluten or celiac around me again because I don't have celiac and all the lecturing about celiac is driving me $%&*ing nuts! She finally got the hint and I haven't heard any more about gluten or celiac since. You might just have to put your foot down with your m-i-l too and tell her you DON'T have IBS and don't want to hear anything further on the subject!
Star, glad to hear you finally get to have a test! After all your testing requests being denied, it sounds like that streak has finally been broken! I hope it can find something that leads you to a diagnosis (hopefully nothing scary though - this one is looking at your heart/arteries if I'm remembering right?). And with the way you were treated last time, I'm not surprised either that the complaints dept is still not following through with their promises. Who do you complain to when the complaints dept doesn't do their job though??
That's got to be so frustrating.
Sunshine, good luck with your appointment! I hope they're MUCH better than the Mayo Clinic and can figure out what's going on - whether you're in a flare or not. You're obviously not well even if you're not actively in a flare, so hopefully they recognize that and can do something about it. Good luck!
Space, that sounds so cute about the husky pulling a toddler on a sled!
My dog is short, but she's considered a "large" dog (she wears a size large doggy life preserver, and when I got her some size large doggy pajamas they were a bit snug on her). She's currently 43 lbs (down from 50 lbs as she's lost a bit of flab lately) which is kind of big for a corgi - they're supposed to weigh about 35 lbs max. My hubby and I sometimes joke that she could probably pull our youngest nephew on a little sled, but we never actually tried. How cute that your dog actually does that!
I hope everyone else is doing okay. As for me, I'm feeling blah today. Didn't sleep well last night, tummy has been crampy and upset all day, I've been having the "skinny poos" today which can't be a good sign, and of course the hemmie is still being a pain in the butt.
Oh, and I can't lie down at work anymore when I'm feeling ill, at least not for the time being. There used to be a little "sick room" at work - basically it was just a cot set up in a dark empty office (I brought in my own pillow and blanket too). Well, now it turns out that someone was promoted and is moving into that office, so there's nowhere to put the sick room anymore.
I was promised that something would be worked out and there will be a sick room set up "somewhere", but there's no empty offices anymore and I don't know what will be done. That's not good. I don't use the sick room often nowadays, but if my tummy feels crappy (like today!) or if I get a migraine or something, I can't go lie down. Just have to work through it or go home sick.
It sucks.
