Posted 3/7/2022 4:40 AM (GMT 0)
Hey everyone
I have been struggling with an on/off flare since October 2020 that has seemed to improve a lot since going from 1gm suppository a day to my current regime in late December 2021. My main symptom above anything else was blood, not in overly large quantities but consistently present.
For the past 7 weeks I have been having 1 bowel movement a day practically everyday with zero urgency that is fully formed but comes out in 5 or so pieces. In this time I have had 4 "suspicious bowel movements" that may have had blood. In 3 of them I didn't see anything on the toilet paper, or on the toilet water itself but by shinning a light on the toilet I saw the slightest slightest amounts of reddish on a small portion of stool (from memory 2 seemed to have a somewhat orange hue). And just today I had a bowel movement which looked perfectly fine, no sign of blood whatsoever on the first wipe the stool or the water, but after my fourth wipe i saw what looked like 4 or so little red specks and started freaking out even though they looked rather solid and not like blood at all (had tomatoes yesterday for instance...)
I took a Calprotectin test at the very start of January (about 1.5 weeks after starting oral mesalamine and doubling the rectal suppository) which came back at 259 and will ask my new GI for another one when I see him later this week. Most recent ESR came back at 2 (ref range <30) and CRP came back at the lowest reportable level of <4 (Ref range <6).
My question is am I over analysing things? I want to say I am in remission, or at least near it, but seeing these occasional discrepancies in my stool just sets of my anxiety.