From Pain to Relief: How IRC Can Help You Manage Enlarged Hemorrhoids

When you have a hemorrhoid, it means that a vein around your anus or rectum has become swollen and enlarged. They often form due to pressure from pregnancy, chronic constipation, or straining too much on the toilet. 

No matter if you’re prone to hemorrhoids or you’ve only had one a few times in your life, they’re not pleasant. While you can treat them at home, it’s common for them to become incredibly painful and difficult to manage.

Outside of at-home remedies, surgical methods have typically been the only option for stubborn hemorrhoid relief. However, our team, led by Betsy Clemens, MD, at Midwest Hemorrhoid Treatment Center in Town and Country, Missouri, offers an innovative treatment that’s still effective but much less drastic: infrared coagulation (IRC).

This month’s blog discusses how IRC works and how it can help you get much-needed relief from severe hemorrhoids. 

Understanding IRC

IRC is a treatment that uses intense beams of infrared light to treat hemorrhoids that aren’t responding to at-home treatments but aren’t necessarily severe enough for invasive surgery. The goal of IRC is similar to several other medical treatments for hemorrhoids: cut off the blood supply to the hemorrhoid. 

One of these other treatments used by healthcare professionals to cut off the blood supply to severe hemorrhoids is rubber band ligation. However, the process of placing a rubber band around the hemorrhoid to cause it to shrivel and fall off can be a painful one. And that’s where IRC differs.

IRC is an incredibly quick outpatient procedure that doesn’t require any anesthesia, pre-procedure preparation, or recovery time, making it a welcome treatment alternative. During the procedure, infrared light beams heat the tissues around the hemorrhoid and create scar tissue. This causes the hemorrhoid to lose its blood supply and eventually fall off. 

IRC for hemorrhoids

If you have an enlarged internal hemorrhoid (hemorrhoid located inside your rectum) that hasn’t responded to at-home treatments or gotten better over time, IRC might be right for you. 

You have to do nothing to prepare for IRC, meaning no diet restrictions pre-procedure colon cleanses. You also don’t need to be under anesthesia for IRC so that you can drive yourself to and from your treatment. 

During IRC, our team has you lie on your side while we direct the lasers from the IRC device towards your enlarged hemorrhoid. While you may feel warmth or mild discomfort, the procedure shouldn’t be painful. The entire procedure only takes a few minutes, and you can go home and resume all normal activities directly afterward. 

You can expect to get symptom relief within 10 days of getting IRC. 

To learn if IRC can give you much-needed relief from enlarged and stubborn internal hemorrhoids, schedule a consultation with Dr. Clemens by calling our office or using our online booking feature today.