Can you float with piles???

This picture comes from Metro magazine on line. The question it prompts is: "Can you float with piles?"

OK what are piles? That's the common name for haemorrhoids and many people suffer from them at some time in their lives. I have no idea if the Mummy was caught in that painful expression due to piles but then again "We should never, ever doubt, what nobody is sure about?"

It is a great pity that many sufferers, not just Mummies, do not realise that painful piles can be "manually adjusted" and this adjustment is a really good idea.

Piles are a prolapse of the local inflatable sacs around the anus which are part of the system for keeping seepage inside and your underpants clean, (usually). They (the sacs) are filled with blood and when healthy they form the water tight seal about 2.5 cms (one inch) inside the anal sphincter. Bill Bryson is very good on this subject in "A short history of nearly everything".

OK so now we are clear what we are talking about, these sacs can inflate with blood and protrude through the aforementioned anal sphincter causing discomfort and pain. They can get stuck there ("strangulated" is the charming medical term) and the picture then gets worse and worse.

Getting to the point, if you float in a salt solution with protruding piles it can hurt like hell. You won't find this important advice on many websites but it's true.

However there is good advice to be had and I will summarise it here. Number one, get rid of the library you keep by the toilet bowl. Staying too long "at stool" is a prime cause of piles and reading on the loo is a very bad habit especially if you know you are prone to piles.

Number two; be prepared with creams and stuff and take the time after straining away, and wiping, to push those grapes-of-wrath back inside with your fingertips. You will need to learn the trick of relaxing that sphincter to allow the inflated piles to deflate and pop back inside where they belong. That is a really worthwhile trick to learn because while outside, those ballooning grapes can not just itch, not just feel uncomfortable, they can get worse, bleed and so on.... I don't want to get more graphic than I have already.

If you cannot succeed at this trick, or if they do get worse, do overcome your embarrassment and get medical help, you know it makes sense, and in the meantime save floating for another day.