fleurdelis
25-01-18, 17:06
This is a bit embarrassing, but if you've been diagnosed with internal hemorrhoids in the past, should you just assume that any bleeding is from them? I'm a 29-year-old woman--went to the doctor last spring because I saw a fair amount of (pretty bright) blood in the toilet bowl/on the side of my stool. I'd also had a couple other instances like that a year or so earlier, and had an occult blood test, which was negative. Anyway, the doctor did an examination and said I had hemorrhoids, and I've tried to accept that diagnosis and not go running back to the doctor, despite never totally shaking the fear that it's colon cancer (I get a lot of crampy/stitch-like pain on the left hand side--probably IBS). I've sort of relapsed with my health anxiety lately, though, due to real medical issues (possibility of a recurring collapsed lung, which I've had several times in the past), so when I saw a bit of blood this morning while wiping, I panicked a little. It was only a tiny bit, and bright red, but I keep worrying that it was "in" the stool rather than "on" it--sorry to be graphic, but it can be kind of hard to tell on the toilet paper. Should I just chalk this up to hemorrhoids?