Lee wrote:Hi and welcome. So sorry for all that has happened to you.
How old are you? Does colon cancer run in your family? I'm glad you are seeing a GI doctor. Make sure you get a colonoscopy. That will give a true diagnoses of what is going on. Anything else is just a speculation. Your symptoms could be cause my many things, cancer is just one possibility.
For what it's worth, I had no pain, yet many year prior my mother ended up in the ER with serious stomach pain and rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy was performed, no cancer, not even one polyp. Just a bad case of of diverticulosis.
Get it checked, butt try not to worry. Hope you get that abscess under control. Does not sound like a fun thing to have.
Keep us posted
Lee
Mom2FourKiddos wrote:Thank you so much Lee. I am 40 years old and no family history of colon cancer whatsoever. I think my age and family history is why the Drs have been dismissive and not too worried. I'm in the "what if and I should have done this earlier" stage of worrying. I had no pain before all the meds and anxiety over this all. The past couple days has been a lot better in the pain department too. The pains have been very minimal and not as constant.
I should add too, I've also had ultrasounds done for my ovaries and uterus and just came back as normal cysts and a HIDA scan done for my gallbladder which my Dr thought could be causing the pain. When it came back normal. His response, "your guts just hate you. Stop worrying. A CT scan would have shown something going on if it was colon or rectal cancer so try not to worry"
But I've googled and read differently. So I'm just not sure.
Mom2FourKiddos wrote:
Having 2 CT scans with contrast both times, would it show cancer or polyps?
I do have visible skin tags and hemmorhoids, could this be the cause of bleeding only after straining hard? Or can straining cause a tumor to bleed a bit too? It always stops after a day or two.
Would my bloodwork show something wrong as they were all clear if it was something sinister?
Does the pain I'm describing sound familiar? Just a daily on and off mild ache/light pinching feeling in my right flank area?
I'm so sorry to bug anyone with this. I just don't know where else to turn. Google has scared me into hysteria so I'm trying not to look anything up there.
Mom2FourKiddos wrote:And I forgot one more...I have bled like this for almost 10 years now. With Drs always saying, "if it doesn't stop after a couple days, you'll need a scope done" and it always stopped. When it would reoccur months later, same response. Would cancer bleed like this with no other symptoms for almost 10 years? I am so scared that it's possibly gone on this long and what they're going to find during my colonoscopy.
Lee wrote:Mom2FourKiddos wrote:And I forgot one more...I have bled like this for almost 10 years now. With Drs always saying, "if it doesn't stop after a couple days, you'll need a scope done" and it always stopped. When it would reoccur months later, same response. Would cancer bleed like this with no other symptoms for almost 10 years? I am so scared that it's possibly gone on this long and what they're going to find during my colonoscopy.
If you have been bleeding off and on for 10 years now, and "IF" it was due to cancer, I believe they would have found a tumor with the CAT scan. Something is going on, that is why a colonoscopy is so important, but I believe your bleeding is due to something else. Remember cancer is just one possibility out of many. Hemorrhoids, Chrohn's Disease, IBS just to name a few.
Colon cancer is slow growing. When I was diagnosed, they figured mine had been growing for about 10+ years. I had no pain, thus I never had a CAT scan. If I did, I'm sure my tumor would have been seen on it. While it was only 5cm inside my colon, it was 8 by 11 cm outside my colon.
Hope this helps,
Lee
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