Causes of Piles often concentrate around one primary reason, constipation that occurs due to many other reasons. Piles or haemorrhoids are one of the most common ailments today. It is a varicose and often inflamed condition of the veins, inside or outside the rectum. In external piles, there is excessive pain but not much bleeding. In the case of internal piles, there is discharge of dark blood. In some cases the veins burst and this results in what is known as bleeding piles.

Most important cause of painful bowel movements is constipation. Constipation is a condition where the faeces are extremely hard and a person has difficulty to defecate. Sometimes constipation can turn quite serious and a person might have to take medical help to be able to remove faeces from the body. There are several reasons for constipation; children might have constipation most of the times because of their diets, where as adult constipation may be due to a variety of reasons. Constipation in adults may be because of side effects of medicines, hormonal changes or dietary. The person can control dietary constipation by eating more fibrous food and including salads and foods that contain a lot of water content to help bowel movement.

Another reason for painful bowel movements can be because of anal fissures. Anal fissure means an unnatural crack in anus. This could be caused due to unusually hard faeces. This is common phenomenon among children immediately after constipation and among women who have just delivered baby. The pain in this area remains even after hours after passing faeces. Piles is another cause of painful bowel movements, these are varicosities and swelling of veins in the rectum and anus areas. Piles are caused due to pressure on the rectal veins as well as because of straining too much during bowel movements. Excessive pressure on the rectal parts too can cause piles.

There are external as well as internal piles. Both these are painful during the bowel movements and passing stools. Pregnancy and excessive consumption of alcohol and caffeine too can cause piles. If painful bowel movements are only because of normal constipation, this problem can be solved if the person includes green vegetables and whole grains in his diet. Both these foods are rich in fibre and therefore can help the person avoiding painful bowel movement for forever.

Not only clear stomach means good appetite and good health, but inclusion of health foods in diets goes a long way to stay healthy. Painful bowel movements also can be because of diarrhoea; this might be due to indigestion, food poisoning and other reasons. Each of this requires immediate attention of the doctor. These are very transitory painful bowel movements therefore, once a medicine is administered for ailments painful bowel movements will automatically stop. Increased pain during bowel movements caused by constipation or diarrhoea may cause piles. It is thus a common condition due to constipation caused by water retention in women experiencing premenstrual syndrome or menstruation.

Hypertension, particularly portal hypertension, can also cause piles because of the connections between the portal vein and the vena cava, which occur in the rectal wall, known as portocaval anastomoses. Obesity can be a factor by increasing rectal vein pressure. Sitting for extended periods of time can cause piles. Poor muscle tone or poor posture can result in too much pressure on the rectal veins. Pregnancy may lead to hypertension and increase strain during bowel movements, so piles are often closely associated with pregnancy. Cigarette smoking during bowel movements, may worsen piles, may lead to severe internal bleeding of veins inside rectum area and may lead to other serious effects in the patient.

Excessive consumption of alcohol or caffeine may cause piles. Both can also cause diarrhoea. Caffeine ingestion increases blood pressure briefly. Alcohol can also cause alcoholic liver disease thus leading to portal hypertension.