bloody stols.. what may i have???

Hi there, for the past month I been passing blood and mucus when going to the toilet. For the first 3 weeks I didnt have any other symptoms or pain but for the past week or so, I have had very very slight abdominal pains come and go and my stomach tends to growl sometimes. I go to the toilet as usual but my stools seem to be softer and i open my bowls twice a day compared to once. I haven't lost any weight and i still have an appetite. I'm 26 years of age and no history or colon cancer in my family. What do I have??? Thanks.

thanks for your reply

I had a very little blood in my stools & my Dr ordered a Colonoscopy in Dec.I was dx with IBS.I have since learned to eat better,& avoid trigger foods.I had to reintroduce foods back into my diet,even some trigger foods on a tsp.of those do I eat & I'm doing very well now.I take Pamine also for it.

Prevail, one thing to take note of with bloody stools: is the blood very dark, nearly black maybe, or quite a bright red? A bright showing of blood means the blood is fresh and more than likey due to hemmeroids but you need to get it checked as it could also be a tear or a cut. If the blood is dark you need to get yourself to the doctors or maybe even the hospital as this means it is old blood and could be from internal bleeding and this needs to be sorted as it can be dangerous.

I do not mean to cause you any alarm but feel this should definatly be mensioned to you. I have been throught this also and realise blood can look dark on the stools so take note of the colour on the toilet paper, but please go to a doc anyway to get checked.

Best wishes,

Indigo

Hi Prevail, 5 weeks is a long time but if you have irritated a hemeroid or you have a tear and you keep going to the toilet then it is possible for it to not have the time it needs to heal, note i say possible. I would have this checked out as soon as you can, it really should not have been left 5 weeks. Going to the gym could, again POSSIBLY, effect it if you are doing a lot of movement. Jumping around, cycling, squats etc could all be moving your insides around and not letting them rest. I strongly urge you to get this seen to tho, as it has been going on too long and no one here is qualified to give you a definate answer to this, only advice.

Indigo 

This is sort of gross but when I had bleeding I took a piece of toilet paper that just had the blood on it so the Dr. could see the color. As soon as he looked at it he said Hemmroid. There was not stool on the paper that I took. Sorry, all.

Hi Prevail,

My husband recently had bloody stools and we went to the doctor immediately (I have been working in hospitals and know that bright red blood in stools should be reported immediately). Often it is something basic like hemorrhoids or fissure but you should get treatment/tests to rule out anything else. The doctor gave him some suppositories (to help the infection/inflammation in the lower GI tract) to be used twice daily after a bowel movement and/or at night before bed, and this stopped the bleeding completely. He needs to continue for 2 weeks before doing the test for fecal occult blood. This way they would be able to better determine the source of bleeding. Don't delay, check with a doctor immediately, better safe than sorry.

He had bleeding just on one occasion when passing stools. It wasn't just trace bleeding or on the surface of stools - rather like drops of fresh blood, which made us alarmed and on my insistence we saw a walk-in doctor because the family doctor was not in that day. Fortunately, he has not had bleeding since then (he has a history of hemorrhoids) and the medicated suppositories seem to be working. He will be following up with the fecal occult blood testing to ensure there is nothing more serious than hemorrhoids or fissure.

If you use a bicycle machine at the gym or just a regular one, that can definitely aggrevate hemmroids and keep them from healing up; it's the way you sit on the seat. Also, chronic constipation can keep them stirred up, as can a lot of diarrhea that keeps you on the toliet a long time (the way you sit on a toilet puts pressure on your hemmroids--the more you sit, the worse it is).

If you have had a colonoscopy since you started bleeding, then you're probably okay trusting your doctor's opinion that you just have IBS. If the bleeding is more recent, though, then you need to go back to the doctor and tell him about it.

If he gave you pictures of your colonoscopy, you may be able to see if you have hemmroids; one of my pics is clearly labeled "internal hemmroids". That's how I knew for sure that I had them, although I suspected them when I would occasionally bleed a bit after a bad constipation spell.

I think they can when you aggrevate them. Bicycles are notorious for doing just that, and you've been doing a lot of riding! They don't have any chance to rest and heal up and shrink back down, just like it's hard to get a sprained muscle to heal when you keep using it a lot every day.

And some of it has to do with the seat too. I got used to riding an antique reproduction bike with a wide, padded and spring-set seat. My Dad gave me a 21-speed bike and it had a very hard, narrow seat with no shock absorbing springs on it. If you're riding a modern bike, that seat's probably to blame too.

Mine don't hurt, even when they bleed a bit.  They itch like crazy, though, as they heal up.  I think it's more the external ones that hurt. 

Well, it's all for the best that they check you out so you won't have to worry that you have something serious. A colonoscopy will show if you have bleeding hemmroids or not. If that's all you have wrong with you, you can take a break from the bike riding and try some suppositories to help heal them up and shrink them back down.

It may be expensive over there, but it's expensive in the US too, and I have heard good things about Japanese medicine. I had a friend in high school who was a boarding student and she got a cavity while over here. She went to the local dentist--whom everyone else went to and absolutely loved--and he kept remarking on how beautiful her other fillings were. She said she started to get worried when he went on and on about her fillings being so good; what kind of filling was he about to put in??? They're very meticulous, the Japanese, so I think you're in good hands.

I'm sorry to hear about your UC diagnosis however I am happy to know that they found out what was wrong and now they can begin treating you. There is a UC forum on HealingWell that you may want to check out. Lots of people with experience which can be beneficial to someone new to all of this.

Take Care