They come from sitting down too much, because long periods sitting puts pressure on those tissues. Same goes for constipation that makes you strain a lot on the toilet. Essentially they're varicose veins, only on your anus. (As for those on the legs, both too much standing AND sitting contributes to their formation, because the blood tends to pool in the lower limbs from the lack of movement. It impairs effective circulation.)
How bad are they? If they are really large, painful and bleed frequently, creams won't really do much. Can you reposit them with a finger, or are they permanently prolapsed? If they won't go back inside you ought to consider the surgical option. Forget your mother's bad experience, techniques have improved and developed A LOT.
Traditional haemorrhoidectomy involves cutting them out, which obviously is quite invasive, and has a prolonged recovery time of between 8 - 12 weeks, usually painful and uncomfortable. There's much better options now.
For grade 1-3 you can either get 'binding', which is tiny rubber ligatures tied around the haemorrhoid, which cuts off the blood supply so they just shrivel up and fall off. Or you can have them injected with a substance that has much the same effect. For grade 4s there is either laser or the Rafaelo method which uses radiofrequency (I've had the latter). Both are minimally invasive ambulant procedures, it's done under local anaesthetic, only lasts about 30-40 mins, and you walk out the same day. The rate of recurrence is only 10% so chances are it's one-and-done and you're permanently rid of the things. For me it was definitely worth it. They were getting very bothersome.
