New to NMP. Need some help. Colon cancer fear.

[AnxietyMom5]

Quick intro. I'm Lindsay. I'm 30 years old. I was a very active member on anxiety zone until it was closed down. I have 5 kids and I stay home full time. I have suffered from extreme health anxiety and cancer phobia since early childhood. I am currently taking 10mg of Prozac for my HA and 20mg of Adderall XR for my ADHD. I have been doing extremely well until last Sunday. Here is where my post about my current anxiety begins ---

In 2013 I started to notice some blood streaks on my stools. This sent me into a major panic and I was 100% convinced I had colon cancer. I put it off for over a year due to fear. In early 2014 I saw a gastro who suggested colonoscopy. It took me a while but I'm late April 2014 I finally had the colonoscopy. The cope found a small polyp in my sigmoid colon. The rest of the scope was normal.
The polyp was removed and sent to pathology. I was called a few days later letting me know my colon polyp pathology came back as a benign hyperplastic polyp with no malignant potential. No follow up scopes needed for 10 years.
I was never easy with the fact I had a colon polyp just shy of 27 years old.

Anyways last Sunday I woke up in the morning and felt the urge to have a BM. All that came out was gas and mucous. No stool. This made me super panicked. A couple hours later I had a regular BM with no mucous at all. This helped my anxiety and I went about my day. Fast forward to Wednesday when the same thing happened. Passed gas and mucous only. There was only yellow mucous on the toilet paper and no stool. I lost it and went to my GP. I was finishing up Penicillin and he thought the mucous was most likely related to a bacteria imblance from antibiotics. He also told me some mucous isn't really anything to stress about. I told him I was still uneasy since I had a polyp removed for years ago. He offered me a FIT test which is a stool sample that checks for hidden blood and is considered a colon cancer screening. I of course did it. It requires 2 samples. I dropped the samples off Thursday and they were negative. I also haven't had anymore mucous.

The issue is I'm still really worried I could have colon cancer. I have been so upset because I have been doing so well with my HA. I have been going to the gym and eating healthy. I have lost 25 pounds since November and have felt amazing! I was so happy and now I'm back into an anxiety spiral.

Do you guys think that a negative FIT is a good thing and I should just let this go? I am so worried the FIT might have missed something. The mucous episodes have been so worried. I am so upset.

[vegetabletarian]

Hi Lindsay, firstly sorry to hear you are going through all of this, to have a blip in your anxiety levels can feel so frustrating! The fact that you've been doing so well is a sign that you are a strong person and this is just a temporary increase in your anxiety.

The symptoms that you experienced are bound to worry you, and I wouldn't feel disheartened that your HA has flared up especially given your past experience with that polyp. I would say however that given your recent dose of antibiotics that this is perhaps the cause of your change in bowel habits, rather than anything more sinister. Mucus in the stool is an uncommon presentation of colon cancer and the FIT test has good accuracy for low risk populations. 99% of bowel cancer is found in the over 40s, so given your young age, you'd need to defy the odds twice with both your age and the FIT test to have bowel cancer.

Mucus in the stool is much more commonly nothing than anything, and even when it is something IBS or IBD is usually the culprit rather than cancer. If you have no family history of bowel cancer in young ages (<50) and the mucus episodes have stopped I'd say that you can trust what the doctor and FIT test are telling you. As always though if the symptoms do continue or you don't feel completely ate ease get in touch with somebody or get a second opinion.

You have done amazing things having 5 kids to love and look after and managing to lose 25lbs (seriously major kudos to you!!) and you will have many more successes in your life I am sure. Keep strong and keep healthy and this HA blip will be a thing of the past before you know it.

I should qualify the above by saying I am not a doctor, but in my final year of training and have looked into some medical resources for the information I've used above so feel free to message if you want to look at any of it; and always seek advice from a qualified doctor over what I have said if it is contradictory!

[AnxietyMom5]

Thanks so much for your reply! I very much appreciate the kind worlds!