Help!! It hurts!!
I've never had this problem before and now it has started - exactly one week after baby #4 was born. From reading this thread, its one of the thrombosed external ones, I think.
So, am I right that I can treat the pain and try to get the swelling to go down some, but as far as getting RID of it, I have to wait until it goes away on its own?
My midwife also told me to "just push it back in" but that hasn't worked. I've been using witch hazel wipes and one of those over the counter ointments. Its helped with the pain some, but I was hoping that it would GO AWAY!!! It just started two days ago - so maybe I've got another week or more of this.
I feel your pain.

This is a subject that I wish I knew NOTHING about, but unfortunately... I'm rawtha well acquainted with it.

I will share what I have learned in the past week or so. Thrombosed external hemorrhoids: nasty little buggers. They don't go away as easily as one might hope, either. Witch hazel did nothing for me.
I will admit this only because I hope it helps someone else. I tried taking a liquid cayenne tincture, hoping it would help. It did seem to help. Unfortunately, it made my breastfeeding baby extremely fussy. Fussy to the point that it didn't seem fair to take it anymore.
So... I tried applying it externally. On the problem area.
Yikes.
Yes, I realized in advance that it was going to be painful. But I figured, it'll burn like crazy for a couple of minutes, but then the worst will be over, and it'll help the problem, right?
Wrong. SO, SO WRONG.
Here's what REALLY happens:
You put the liquid cayenne on. It's warm. You're prepared for this. So you apply more, figuring, if it's gonna hurt, anyway, I might as well put on enough to do the job properly.
Then you walk away, thinking, "Hot, but do-able".
Five minutes into this little experiment, it is getting less do-able all the time. It burns like crazy, it's getting WORSE, and it's hard to nonchalantly eat dinner with your family like everything is normal.
Fifteen minutes in, you can no longer pretend nothing is wrong. You confess to your husband what you have done. (Is there no feminine mystery left??) He is mildly amused, and does not understand how BADLY this is starting to hurt.
Twenty minutes: you look longingly at the ice is your husband is taking out of the freezer.
Thirty minutes: STILL burning.
I kid you not: an hour later, the burn was still there. At that point, it was now bearable, but man! Do NOT try this unless you're willing to put up with some major pain. I don't know if I'll ever watch an exercise video again and hear them say, "Feel the burn!" without thinking of this.
I should mention, though, that the liquid cayenne I used was supposed to be some of the hottest there is. Maybe a milder powder wouldn't have been as bad?
Oh. I almost forgot; here's the really bad part:
It didn't help. It may have helped the other "basic" hemorrhoids, which weren't that bad to begin with, but the thrombosed one was still there in all its glory.
Moral of the story? Don't try this. It just ain't worth it.
Good news is, my thrombosed little friend seems to be going away on its own for good after about a week. Hope yours leaves soon, too.