Drako
28-02-22, 10:36
Hey everyone, brand new to this forum! Hope you're all well.
I'm a 33 year old male and consider myself a veteran of the health anxiety cadre. I have also suffered with IBS, or at least I was told this by a doctor (without tests) when I was in my early 20's. I'm mostly in that IBS-D camp from stress or spicy / oily foods. Usual bowel habits for me are around twice a day and a good consistency between solid or softer smaller pieces.
Around November 2021, I was going through a period of bad job stress and at the same time, decided to take to a healthier diet of lots of vegetables. What I noticed was an extreme amount of gas build up that would make my lower left stomach feel like pressure and pain, this would usually lead to a fairly explosive bowel movement shortly after. There was also one night where my wife and I accidentally cooked and ate fish from frozen that should have been defrosted. We both had awful watery bowel movements about an hour later. At the time I remember thinking to myself that this was a noticeable change in my usual habits.
And what did I do? I took to google for colon cancer. Discovered the increase of incidents of younger people, read younger people's stories, symptoms etc. Became more of an obsession. Around mid December leading up to Christmas I cut out some of the veg and relaxed about work, and dismissed the colon cancer thing - bowel movements mostly went back to normal!
Come January 1st after a NYE of tons of flavoured vodka, wine and pizza, my stomach is all over the place. Decided to google IBS and stuff...and colon cancer...and now ever since this I've lived everyday with this worry. My bowel movements then became looser, with faint stomach aches. Then blood gate started; I began to over analyse trying to spot bright red. Of course I would spot tomato and pepper skins etc, sometimes I wouldn't be sure if it was blood, sometimes it obviously wasn't. Got to the point where I'd be trying to spot the tiniest pin head sized specks of red, but if I ever found any they were solid.
Now in the last 2 months I've mostly had usual bowel movements, but about every 2/3 weeks I will get a sudden grumbly stomach (like an actual washing machine), not much pain, but a sudden need to run to the bathroom with explosive action. On trying to recognise a pattern it tends to be about 1 hour after I eat or drink lots of water, and I never need to go more than once - I've not had a day where I need to keep revisiting the bathroom. Until Thursday just been I reached nearly 3 and a bit weeks without any issues, when suddenly on the train (after an overly exciting / stressed day) I could feel that horrible pressure again and need to go, got home it was explosive - yet in the morning it was completely normal! I have to also mention that because of my anxiety I have stopped looking inside the bowl out of fear of seeing blood.
Following Thursday I decided to call the doctor. He told me he first wants to do a stool sample test to look for infections and other bits. If negative he then wants to do a blood stool sample test, if positive I guess he'd want to do a colonoscopy or something. If negative then god knows, maybe he'll put it down to stress. But today I am due to pick up the tube and do the first test, which will be the first time I've properly looked at the stool in a month or so - I am fairly scared and have a lot of anxiety right now. I guess I just wanted to share this, and I'm sorry for the length of my post.
I'm a 33 year old male and consider myself a veteran of the health anxiety cadre. I have also suffered with IBS, or at least I was told this by a doctor (without tests) when I was in my early 20's. I'm mostly in that IBS-D camp from stress or spicy / oily foods. Usual bowel habits for me are around twice a day and a good consistency between solid or softer smaller pieces.
Around November 2021, I was going through a period of bad job stress and at the same time, decided to take to a healthier diet of lots of vegetables. What I noticed was an extreme amount of gas build up that would make my lower left stomach feel like pressure and pain, this would usually lead to a fairly explosive bowel movement shortly after. There was also one night where my wife and I accidentally cooked and ate fish from frozen that should have been defrosted. We both had awful watery bowel movements about an hour later. At the time I remember thinking to myself that this was a noticeable change in my usual habits.
And what did I do? I took to google for colon cancer. Discovered the increase of incidents of younger people, read younger people's stories, symptoms etc. Became more of an obsession. Around mid December leading up to Christmas I cut out some of the veg and relaxed about work, and dismissed the colon cancer thing - bowel movements mostly went back to normal!
Come January 1st after a NYE of tons of flavoured vodka, wine and pizza, my stomach is all over the place. Decided to google IBS and stuff...and colon cancer...and now ever since this I've lived everyday with this worry. My bowel movements then became looser, with faint stomach aches. Then blood gate started; I began to over analyse trying to spot bright red. Of course I would spot tomato and pepper skins etc, sometimes I wouldn't be sure if it was blood, sometimes it obviously wasn't. Got to the point where I'd be trying to spot the tiniest pin head sized specks of red, but if I ever found any they were solid.
Now in the last 2 months I've mostly had usual bowel movements, but about every 2/3 weeks I will get a sudden grumbly stomach (like an actual washing machine), not much pain, but a sudden need to run to the bathroom with explosive action. On trying to recognise a pattern it tends to be about 1 hour after I eat or drink lots of water, and I never need to go more than once - I've not had a day where I need to keep revisiting the bathroom. Until Thursday just been I reached nearly 3 and a bit weeks without any issues, when suddenly on the train (after an overly exciting / stressed day) I could feel that horrible pressure again and need to go, got home it was explosive - yet in the morning it was completely normal! I have to also mention that because of my anxiety I have stopped looking inside the bowl out of fear of seeing blood.
Following Thursday I decided to call the doctor. He told me he first wants to do a stool sample test to look for infections and other bits. If negative he then wants to do a blood stool sample test, if positive I guess he'd want to do a colonoscopy or something. If negative then god knows, maybe he'll put it down to stress. But today I am due to pick up the tube and do the first test, which will be the first time I've properly looked at the stool in a month or so - I am fairly scared and have a lot of anxiety right now. I guess I just wanted to share this, and I'm sorry for the length of my post.