Struggling to extinguish a very minor flare

Sorry in advance for the long story... but thought it might help.

After being in remission for nearly 2 years, last fall and again in Jan I saw a streak of blood after pushing a couple of stools. It happened 3x and was coincident with menopause symptoms which made me wonder if my hormones might be triggering a flare. The pushing was not from feeling constipated, but because I was in a hurry to leave the house and I'd be out in the field most of the day with no bathroom. I had no other signs of UC, but was wondering if this was hemrroids, internal fissure or UC coming back. After an exam with GI, he said no hemrroids, possibly internal fissure; he didn't think UC was likely with no other symptoms. Regardless he had me go to daily Canasa for several weeks. Once I stopped the Canasa, I saw a streak of blood the next day. So I went back to Canasa for a month. After slowly tapering and getting to 1 day on/2 days off, I started seeing tiny amounts of blood again. We went to nightly Rowasa and morning Canasa for a week or two. Since Rowasa worked well for my first flare, I switched to a month of daily Rowasa. I tapered from a few days on/1 day off and then eventually to twice a week Rowasa... but it only took a week or so of that, and I'm currently back to a tiny bit of blood again.

I don't know if the initial blood may have been a fissure, but clearly this is now a small flare that's lingering and lasting way longer than my first, more symptomatic flare. I know this is so small compared to what many of you deal with, but I'm frustrated and am not sure where to head now, because I feel like I'm back to where I was months ago. Is 1 month without blood on nightly meds enough to try 1 day on 1 day off? That seemed to work ok with both meds. So how long to stay on that routine before tapering further?

BTW The scope I had while in remission was clear of UC. The doc thinks this is a very mild proctitis case now (due to the lack of any other symptoms), which makes me think I need to go back to the Canasa, since the tapering results were essentially the same with the Rowasa.

Thanks for any advice you might have!

Thanks John. The doc didn't seem overly concerned either, but that was several months ago and I haven't been in touch with the office for awhile. I was sort of avoiding the sigmoidoscopy so far bc it's expensive and no-so-fun. But now I'm thinking if it's been simmering all year, that's not good either. When the nurse calls back to refill my prescription I will ask about the two tests that you brought up - I've never done either before.

Ditto CC
Stay on the rectal meds and don’t wean. I started with very mild proctitis as well.

Thanks everyone. I guess after a couple of years of just maintenance meds, I thought I could get back to that point. Sadly, it doesn't look like that's the case any more.

TT - I'd say about 2 years.