22 years old and scared to death

[Mostu]

Hey everyone, because of one thing today I decided to do an update. So, my colonoscopy is set on January 22. Ever since the initial bleeding I experienced no other symptoms. During last days however, due to a tooth flare up, I was in a lot of stress, ate one time a day and took a lot of OTC pain pills. 3 days ago, I had diarrhea but I always have it after I drink a lot of alcohol(damn you New Year's Eve...). 2 days ago, I had a nice long big stool. Yesterday the stool was also normal but in smaller pieces. Today morning it was normal too, but an hour ago I had one of those pencil thin stools and I'm worried. I mean, if you google "pencil thin stool" then all you see is cancer. Should I be worried about that? I try to rationalize that if I had a tumour then my stools would always look like this, and it's just a single event. Oh, and I didn't really feel the need to poop an hour ago, but I like to maintain my "2 stools a day" so I kinda just went, tried to push something out and I had the pencil thin stool. Am I overreacting?

[Pemba]

Frist great your getting a colonoscopy second stod using dr google, third if you only experience one pencil thin stool after a lot of normal “fat” stools then I would not worry at all! Like sometimes my shit is thick sometimes thin, other times both. You can not have the golden Bristol banana shit every day, life doesn’t work that way, it depends on what you eat, drink and how much exercise you’re doing.


I’m sure nothing serious is wrong with you, try to relax until your colonoscopy.

[Rikimaroo]

Do you eat a lot of spicy foods? This can cause bleeding as well. Based on the information you have provided I don't think its cancer, but always good to get checked. My symptoms were blood marks ON my stool. Not a big pile of blood. That could be diverticulitis that you may be experiencing.

Keep us posted and I hope it is not cancer, but based on what you showed in that picture, don't seem like a cancer type symptom, but you never know. I have a coworker who is 84 came in and thought of me because pooped alot of blood like you did and doc said it was diverticulitis. Gave him some medication and he is fine now.

Keep us posted and good luck buddy.

[Mostu]

Thank you for your answers. Yes, I do eat spicy stuff but I doubt that was the case. The pencil thin stool was a one time happening luckily. Anyways, here's another concern of mine. About two hours ago while at school, I felt the urge to have a bm. Let me just copy a post I wrote on Reddit:

A month ago I had a big rectal bleeding ( https://i.imgur.com/Fn3hhs5.jpg), went to doc and they set my colonoscopy on 22 January. I'm not really concerned about it because I've been reassured by doctors and people that it's probably nothing serious and that cancer bleeding are small and basically just coat your stool in blood because of a bleeding tumor, and in the pic you can clearly see that something just burst inside. HOWEVER, an hour ago I went to the toilet, had a bm, and looked on TP. First wipe was just poo, I wiped a little harder and noticed a small red dot. I wiped even harder and now it was a bright red stain. I wiped again just to make sure, basically scooped my asshole and put a finger inside, and I had a streak of blood on my toilet paper. I'm anxious and panicking now. Can wiping so hard cause bleeding? My ass feels kinda sore right now as well but I've got no idea if that could be a fissure? I'm just 22 and scared to death because I've read so much about cancer

Now I came home and felt another urge, so I went and when I pushed, all I felt was a big wet fart (sorry) and when I wiped, the toilet paper was all watery. It was clear with a yellowish tint, but the amount is really worrying me. My colonoscopy is just 1.5 weeks away but I'm so anxious now that I can barely function. Any help?

[Pemba]

One of my male friends got a hemorrhoid and even now when its gone, he can still get some fresh blood on the TP when whipping to hard or to many times, because the skin is sensitive. If thats the case it would of cause stain more if you afterwords began to stretch the skin even more and digging in there.

[Mostu]

Thank you, but I'm still concerned about the passage of mucus. I'm basically laying in bed since an hour and I'm shaking, like this happened to me for the first time ever. Went to have a bowel movement, and had this wet fart which I initially thought was diarrhea, when I wiped the tp basically was soaking wet. Is passing mucus instead of poo a colon cancer symptom?

[Maggie Nell]

Mostu, between now and when you have your appointment on Jan 22, it might help if you
follow a low-residue diet (google that up) as your colon is under stress. It's the one
thing that you can do to support your body.

As well as taking yourself to an Emergency Room if your symptoms worsen.

[DarknessEmbraced]

I've read that passing mucus means there is inflammation in the colon. Inflammation can occur for a variety of reasons that are cancer related. I would talk to your doctor.*hugs*

[Pemba]

I've read that passing mucus means there is inflammation in the colon. Inflammation can occur for a variety of reasons that are cancer related. I would talk to your doctor.*hugs*

Hope you mean “Inflammation can occur for a variety of reasons that are NOT cancer related”

And it’s not always a inflammation, if you have IBS it’s normal to have increased colon mucus, also if you’re constipated the colon wall makes more mucus to help the stool along. My doctor says there are always mucus in the stool, it’s just mixed and can not be seen, and sometimes it produce more for various reasons. If there are blood mixed into the mucus then it’s a sign of CC or inflammation and if it’s bright yellow also a sign of inflammation. It’s also important to watch how often it happens, is it every day or only once in a month.

Also various stool softener makes extra mucus the same with enema, that’s how fake things like colon mucus plague and ropeworm came to exist..

BUT yes it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor

[Mostu]

Well, the increased mucus was only happening for a short time, couple of days at most, and then it settled down, so hopefully that was just some kind of inflammation, or maybe stress related? I had a lot of exams this month lol. Anyways, I'm going to the hospital at Saturday, gonna get the prep for my scope over the weekend and then I'll be getting the scope on Monday. I'm going crazy, I try to keep telling myself that it's gonna be fine, that I'll go there, they'll do their thing and tell me that I don't have cancer. But the slight possibility of hearing the bad news on monday is killing me, I know that all the odds like my age, or no symptoms at all (except the initial episode of the moderate bleeding a month and a half ago) are in my favor, but still, I just can't relax. I'm really appreciative of all the support I got here from you guys, you're all awesome!

[Pemba]

Hopefully it will all be over soon piles/hemorid can also cause mucus because of irritation, so if the blood was caused by a bursting hemorid then it can also explain the mucus. In fact it could be a hundred things like a normal stomach virus.

Go get yourself some great toilet entertainment for that prep, and remember not to eat or drink anything remotely red with the prep, and remember to get some salt, but the doctor will tell you all that!

[rockhound]

Hopefully it will all be over soon piles/hemorid can also cause mucus because of irritation, so if the blood was caused by a bursting hemorid then it can also explain the mucus. In fact it could be a hundred things like a normal stomach virus.

Go get yourself some great toilet entertainment for that prep, and remember not to eat or drink anything remotely red with the prep, and remember to get some salt, but the doctor will tell you all that!

I second the toilet entertainment for the prep! I just had my first colonoscopy since my original diagnosis and all the treatments last week, and I was on the toilet for ~5 hrs. Was not too bad and glad I did it- one 5mm precancerous polyp that was snipped away (fast growth!). That's the great thing about the colonoscopy - if there is something odd going on, the GI doc will catch it, esp. if you prep fully. Just do exactly what they tell you with respect to the prep because you want to be as cleaned out as possible...

[DarknessEmbraced]

Yes, oops I meant for a variety of reasons which aren't cancer related.

[Mostu]

Could you guys elaborate on the entertainment part? I honestly thought that the prep makes you go often, but the bm's are quick. Will I spend a lot of time on the toilet then? I'm on the optimist spectrum for now because I thought about how I only had this one bleeding and no bleeding after. Like, if there was a bleeding tumor in there, it wouldnt just stop bleeding right?

[Mostu]

And im back to worrying. I found this story online:

Andrew, 22 years old
In April 2010, I suffered a huge amount of bleeding when I went to the toilet. I had no warning signs – it just happened out of the blue. It was so bad that I went straight to the emergency ward at the hospital. I think they thought it was just haemorrhoids so I was given a DRE (digital rectal examination) and the doctor took some blood and sent me home.

But I knew it was more than just haemorrhoids – there was way too much bleeding to be something so minor – and a few hours later, I fainted because of the blood loss and was rushed back to hospital in an ambulance. This time they kept me in hospital for a few days suspecting a possible virus, but still did not find anything they could confirm.

Four weeks later I was given a colonoscopy, which revealed a 4cm-long tumour, and a biopsy showed it to be cancer. A couple of days later, I had a CT scan, then surgery to remove the tumour and have a temporary stoma fitted, which was reversed after six months.

So basically this guy who was the same age as me had literally the same thing - huge bleeding out of the blue, no symptoms, diagnosed with cc. I'm losing my mind...