How Can Painful Hemorrhoids Be Treated?

I have a hemorrhoids that is about the size of a grape, ok maybe a little smaller, but it s so painful that it might as well be a basketball. This is different from others I ve had - I have some bleeding, bright red, some clotted but only about caper-sized or smaller, maybe sunflower seed sized. PAINFUL. I wore a minipad today and filled it during the course of 4 hours. I have since armed myself with new suppositories, cooling gel, cleansing wipes, new minipads and some bourbon (to drink, of course). I am thinking of giving this a couple of days to see if there is any relief before seeing my doctor (because of the cost). It s so easy to worry too much when you look up stuff on the internet, so I m trying to be rational. My husband is feeling less rational and thinks I should go to the doctor asap. Really, the amount of blood that I passed today was probably a tablespoon, no more. I will say that I have been doing a lot of heavy lifting in the last couple of weeks, moving my father from independent living to assisted living. He is from the generation that throws NOTHING away, so my task has been ... uh, big. I am usually very regular with bowel movements. Lately things seem to be going through me more quickly than usual. As in, I can identify more stuff than I used to - rice, corn, beans. Things just don t seem to be breaking down like they used to. Mentioning this as it might be relevant. Am I being overly nervous?