Witch hazel is a small tree which grows especially in North America, but also in Japan in parts of China. It’s only a few feet tall and it usually grows in form of shrubs. In some areas of USA witch hazel is also called ‘winterbloom’ because the plant’s flowers are produced during winter time, on leafless branches.

As a medicinal plant, it has been known for centuries by Native Americans which used to extract the active substances by boiling the shrub and then condensing the steam in order to produce a distillate. They used it to treat a variety of medical problems such as cuts, open wounds, tumors, insect bites and inflammations. It’s worth mentioning that it wasn’t used in hemorrhoid treatment because the Native Americans weren’t suffering from this condition, as they had an adequate diet and they used the squatting position for defecating.

In modern times, the astringent properties of witch hazel have been noticed and it was then linked to treating various conditions such as acne, varicose veins, hemorrhoids and others. It is this astringent quality that makes it efficient in curing hemorrhoids because it reduces the swelling caused by inflamed veins allowing the patient to have more freedom to move as the healing process takes place.

This is the reason why most of the over the counter hemorrhoid drugs have witch hazel extract as the active substance. These kinds of drugs include creams, suppositories, foam, ointments etc. However, the astringent properties of witch hazel can be also used by purchasing pure extract, or by making infusions with parts of the plant and then improvising a sitz bath.

Although witch hazel is thought to be a good natural cure for hemorrhoids, it rarely gets rid of them only by its self. In order for the healing process to take place, the witch hazel extract has to work in conjunction with other active substances as it only has the properties of reducing the inflamed veins and of relieving some of the pain and itching.