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When to Seek Medical Care

Contact your doctor if home therapies are not helpful.

• You should call immediately if you think you may have a thrombosed hemorrhoid because early treatment is the key to relief.

• Also call your doctor if you are having any bleeding. Sometimes rectal bleeding can be a sign of a more serious problem such as colon cancer.

It is unlikely that rectal pain would require a visit to a hospital's emergency department. You may want to contact your doctor first before going to the hospital. A more urgent evaluation in the emergency department might be required if these conditions develop:

• Rectal pain becomes more severe, especially if associated with fevers and infectious discharge from the rectum.

• Pain is no longer confined to the rectum but spreads to the abdomen.

• You notice an increasing amount of rectal bleeding or a large amount of bleeding in one episode.

• You think you have a foreign body in your rectum or suspect rectal prolapse is the cause of pain.