[rn/writer]

A couple of months ago, one of the patients on my postpartum unit had table sugar made available to her for use on her hemorrhoids. I asked one of the older nurses about this and she said it was a common remedy in days gone by, but she couldn't tell me how it worked.

Have any of you heard of this and can you explain how it might be applied? I'm also interested in the pathophys principles at work.

DD #3 is 28 weeks along with her second child and someone told her about using sugar. I Googled "sugar" and "hemorrhoids" and all I could find was how evil refined sugar is and how it wrecks your body and causes everything from hemorrhoids to brain meltdown.

Anyone have information to share?

Thanks,

[Jolie]

I'm assuming that you mean she "packed" sugar onto her external hemmorhoids?

I am only guessing, but could it be an osmotic effect, where fluid seeps out of the blood vessel toward the sugar, in a physiologic effort to equalize the concentration of sugar on both sides of the membrane (in this case the vessel wall)? That might lead to "shrinking" of the hemorrhoid.

Just a guess.

[CHATSDALE]

gee i wish i had not opened the thread

[EricEnfermero]

I couldn't resist trying a few searches on this one myself. Could not find anything on the pathophysiology of topical sugar, but I did find this page with various other home remedies for hemorrhoids. WARNING: Extremely graphic image at the top of this link! Not for the faint of heart!

http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/home-r...ids-piles.html

You clicked it, didn't you? Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

On this list I see a couple of recipes that include sugar, but they are preparations that you drink rather than apply topically. So I guess the mystery continues.

Eric

[Spidey's mom]

I got a pop-up for a margarita when I clicked on the link.

Yep, gross . ... but nothing I haven't seen in the ER.

I'd love to find out if sugar really works - love these old home remedy stories.

steph

[rn/writer]

Originally Posted by stevielynn

I got a pop-up for a margarita when I clicked on the link.

Yep, gross . ... but nothing I haven't seen in the ER.

I'd love to find out if sugar really works - love these old home remedy stories.

steph

So, maybe if you have enough margaritas you don't care if you have hemorrhoids? That's for the postpartum mommies only.

[midwife2b]

I remember my grandmother saying that potatoes (cold from the refrigerator, peeled and sliced) worked for her "every time". Anyone ever heard of this, or of the possible rationale behind it?

[matchstickxx]

Re: Share your funniest patient stories...
We had a 60ish female in ER with a rectal prolapse secondary to long-term laxative abuse. This thing was HUGE- I'm talking softball-sized. Evidently her sphincter had no tone; every time the ER doc reduced it, it popped back out and swelled up more. ER doc consults with surgeon, who says, you have to shrink it before you push it back in. How do we do that? Pack it with SUGAR...yes, that's right plain old granulated sugar (the theory being that the osmotic action will draw out the edema). Well, needless to say, I had never done this before (by accident or on purpose) and for a while I thought the ER doc was trying to pull one over one me (he's a known jokester). But no, another RN and I spent the next 2 hours opening those tiny sugar packets (of course, that's the only sugar we could find), pouring them into styrofoam cups and alternately sprinkling, sifting and packing this poor lady's rectum with sugar. Of course this pt is also diabetic, so we have to do Accucheck's q 30 mins (rectal mucosa absorbs the sugar, evidently). Finally, the prolapse shrinks enough, the doc decides to reduce it again. So myself, the other RN and the doc go in, and each time the doc tries to fix it, the pt bears against it and pushes it back out. So I grab the silk tape and tell the doc, on the count of 3... He pushes it back in, the other nurse clamps the cheeks together, and I wrap her butt in silk tape. Without a doubt, this was the most BIZARRE thing I had ever witnessed or done. I swear, this is true, I couldn't make this up! Oh, BTW, pt was admitted for surgery the next morning. Called report to the floor, told the entire story then the nurse asks,
Do you have an order to tape her butt cheeks? What the ??????

This is a post in Nursing Humor forum....page 20 of a thread about "Share your funniest patient stories"
http://allnurses.com/forums/f58/shar...ght=sugar+pack