blood and mucus in stool

That isnt something that would turn into a fistula that I know of. When I was Dx I had blood and mucous in my stool all the time until they finally Dx the CD. I currently have a fistula and there was no blood or mucous in my stool what so ever. I would definitly call your doc though it sounds like you need more than pentasa. That is what I was placed on post op to keep the CD away unfortunatly that didnt work. I was also on entocort and the fistula appeared while I was on the entocort so that was not working for me either. They are trying to keep me off of pred since I get diabetic symptoms while on pred now and have had bone density issues luckily I was able to get my bones back to a normal density but I was borderline osteoporosis before. I was on remicade for 5 years and it worked great but then in the 5th year I started getting reactions from the med and had to premedicate with pred before my infusions and they had to really slow down the time of the drip. It did help me get into remission though. I chose not to go back onto Imuran becasue it made my WBC drop so badly that if it dropped even 1 point lower I was going to need a bone marrow biopsy. Also with the IMuran when I would get a cold I would always end up with bronchitis and ended up with pneumonia 3 times so it was actually my lung doctor that pulled me off of the imuran since I was not getting better and had trouble breathing.

Definitly call your doc and inform them about the blood in your stool, mucous isnt great but my old GI never made any big issue if I had told him about mucous. Loosing blood can give you anemia and it can turn severe my blood loss while they were trying to Dx me when I was 8 was so bad I was unable to stand up. I had also dropped to 38 pounds at the time. I was having bloody D every 20 minutes then it was just blood since I wasnt eating. I ended up needing 2 pints of blood from all of my blood loss. it is pertinent that you contact your doctor and describe if it is red blood if you see a lot in the toilet or if just on the TP. If the blood is like coffee grounds it is more likely that the bleeding is in the small intestine or higher up in the GI tract. Black tarry stools also could be that coffee ground looking stool. The color is like that being that the blood is digested. If they know where your CD is that is helpful. Pentasa only releases once it hits the ileum Red blood can indicate CD or UC if Dx with that instead. Red blood means blood from the large intestine to the anus. It could mean hemmies too that may be evident more on tp than in the toilet however some can bleed so badly that it will show in the toilet. some hemmies can be internal as well. To determine the cause of the bleeding you probably need to see your GI and maybe havin some testing done.

I hope things start getting better for you soon

Probiotics are good. I take acidopholis myself. I get many yeast infections although I had more when I was on Imuran...about 1 a month when on Imuran. I had a resection in February when my Ileum perforated then 1/3rd of my colon didnt wake up so 1 week later I had emergency surgery again. this time it was a partial colectomy and a temp ileostomy. This surgery also came with complications. One of the reisdents was moronic and got feces in my incision from the stoma 2 times. I said to her dont you need to flush that out with sterile saline, she responded by dabbing the incision with regular gauze and said that will be ok. Well her being stupid not only made me ban her from my hospital room but it also got me a wound vac and a lovely bill from the wound vac company since my insurance only covers a certain amount for "durable medical equipment" per year. The stoma did not heal right on me so feces was going back into my abdomen by getting under the skin where the stoma wasnt healed right around teh skin. This got me many CT scans and a couple of pig tail drains placed as well as the abscess making a fistula to the incision and the stoma. I had to flush the abscess drain daily and had to flush sterile saline into the abscess by changing the flow on the stop-cock then turn it back to allow that saline to flow into the bag. When I would fluch it the saline would come out of the incision...pus was being sucked out by the vac too but when the vac was removed when flushing the saline would drain from a little hole at the bottom of the scar. It also would come out of the stoma. I had my reversal 4 months after the Sx since the abscess just would not go away after months of antibiotics and cultures to make sure I was on the right ABs. The reversal had the reconnection, more of both intestines was removed, abscess was removed and from the abscess all of my abdominal walls were infected so they had to be scraped of the infected tissue, and they found many adhesions that had to be taken care of. I now have had the CD return and now have this fistula that wont go away witout surgery I have tried all other treatments.

I wish that the Pentasa would ahve kept my CD away post op but it just was not in the cards for me. Luckily I have not had bloody stool in 20years when I was first diagnosed. When I flare now I am lucky to not bleed, I do have thrombosed hemmies and the occassional hemmies and superficial fissures around my anus that do bleed. Even though I have not had blood in my stool etc I still needed transfusions this year too after one of my surgeries I think I had 2 pints again. Back in 99 my Gall Bladder was ready to burst and since I was on Imuran it masked my symptoms and made it appear as if I had menengitis. My blood levels were so bad I needed 5 bags of Plasma before they could perform Sx to remove it since my blood would not clot.

To this day I am anemic but for about 5-7 years or so I was not anemic I did not need B12 injections for a while either but I am back on those. Make sure you tell your doc about the bleeding how many times a day you have a BM and out of those times how often you see blood. They will want to know the color of it, if it is diarrhea or loose or formed. They will want to know if you have to strain to pass it etc. They may even want an estimate of how much blood you see. Again they will want to know the color of the blood. The doc may want you to go to the hospital, go to see your doc asap or have some labs drawn depending on how much blood and how often you are seeing it. You should also monitor what you are eating, how often you have a bm as well as the time you eat, have a bm etc. that will help your doc determine if you need the ER, a visit with the doc, or some labs the severity of blood and fluid loss will determine that. I hope you feel better soon

I was working for an animal hospital from February 05 and this February I went to work in the AM it was my Sunday morning to take care of the boarding cats and dogs, after that I went to the walk in they took me to the hospital from there. Even though I was hired after the handbook came out they stopped my health insurance 1 month after I had been out and in the hospital. Luckily I had my husbands as a secondary. I have my colonoscopy next thursday :( and not looking forward to my fistulagram tomorrow

7.5 isn't a low wbc. Did your dr. ever do the prometheus metabolite test to see if you were at your theraputic level without toxicity?

yeah I did the prometheus metabolite test and it was in theraputic level.  Weird thing was my skin started to turn yellow.  I don't think it was jaundice but just think I was low on RBC.  sorry let me correct that.   my Hemoglobin level was 7.5.