whole toilet bowl red

I went to work today after taking the last two days off because I had pains in my upper stomach area and am currently flaring and as some of you may know I started using the hydrocortisone enemas again on Sunday night and have been using the mesalamine enemas in the am. Well I did see a tiny bit of blood this morning floating the toilet bowl, but nothing major (although a little disappointing). So I did do the mesalamine enemas this morning and then I went to work and was able to hold it all morning and I even forgot I did it when I went to lunch at 12 and ate something, but after I ate something I went to the bathroom and let the enema out and when I wiped it was bright yellow on the tp paper and I said to myself "well at least its not blood" but when I stood up and looked down in the toilet bowl the whole bowl was red. I was so scared I called the doctor immediately, I never experienced this before and was very frightened. My doc finally called me back a few hours later and said that if it gets worse to go to the emergency room but otherwise he will see me on Tuesday.

I did go again while at work, nothing urgent but no blood liquid yellow and orange poo. gross, I know. (could be the balsalazide) don't no.

has anyone every experienced this?

Yes, the orange is probably from the balsalazide. Whenever my flares are pretty bad, I get the orange color when I have a bowel movement. If you open the balsalazide capsule, the medicine is orange. I believe you are seeing the medication coming out because the colon does not absorb well when its flaring. Also, the red toilet can be scary. I have had that MANY times. Never gets less scary. But, if it makes you feel any better it always appears to be more blood than it actually is.

What I noticed is when I had proctitis, I never had a toilet full of blood. I bled, but it was more controlled. That only happened when my disease progressed to pancolitis. Your flare is probably involving your colon (not just your rectum) and it causes different symptoms depending on the area affected.

to me it looked red but there was no red on the toilet paper so I thought it was weird.

Thanks all for your replies, its great to have a bunch of caring people on this forum.

Well update this am no blood, (again fingers crossed, I'm very superstitious about these things).
I hope that was just a fluke thing.

I can't believe how scary it was to see this and not knowing what to do.

Doctor told me that I could take 12 pills balsalazide for the next two days to see if that helps, instead of 9 a day.

Thank u everyone, I think I might try that bleach thing london lurker that sounds interesting. It does confuse me about the whole experience as I was at work and did not look into the bowl before I went, although I usually do.

Right now pretty much everytime I go to the bathroom the whole toilet bowl is bright red. So annoying and scary... When I used enemas they were white so they didn't turn my BM's a different colour or anything.

Poppie said...

CDN26 said...

Ha, sometimes I would use public washrooms and not flush.

Pardon ?

Why would you do that..

?
Obviously because I get a humorous kick out of grossing random strangers out..

Poppie said...
if that's how you get your kicks then there's more wrong with the world than I've suspected before now...

Poppie, your a very condescending and mean-spirited person.

I left without flushing....meanwhile Innocent people are getting their heads cut off in the desert, among countless other atrocities that happen daily....

So you think about your statement you just made and your completely misplaced sence of disgust, cause I'm now disgusted, and unlike you, I'm rightfully disgusted.

Post Edited (CDN26) : 9/14/2014 4:36:11 PM (GMT-6)

Oh I agree. I don't see the humor in leaving a bowl full of bloody poo. Wonder if a child followed after you in the restroom?

Ahhhhhhhhh. Now I understand. It's mostly a maturity thing. I remember in my younger days I used to think certain things were funny but looking back at them now I realize how much of an idiot I really was. A few years ago a friend of mine gave me some advice on raising kids that I remember to this day. He told me that when my kids were teenagers that that would be the stupidest they will ever be. Of course that extends into the early twenties and hopefully not much further.