Terrified I have Chrones or bowel cancer

[Jenni855]

Would ulcerative colitis come and go though? Like I said, I was fine for a month then the weird symptoms started up again. am so scared that if I do have it, my life will change forever and that I won't be able to go out without worrying about toilets and that I will always have diarrhea. Do the tablets work?
Seeing doctor again next week to discuss results. I know they will all come back abnormal :(

[Mindprison]

You're caught in a spiral here, your health anxiety is looking for something to latch onto. You've gone from worrying about Chron's and colitis, Bowel cancer, then back to inflammatory disease, then right on to ovarian cancer. This is a telltale symptom of health anxiety, I've had to put up with it every day for just over a year and this is exactly how my mind puts things together as well.

Your stomach issues are very real, let me just get that out there. You're not imagining it. But allow me to put your mind at ease by saying that cancer wouldn't just come and go, it doesn't just go away on its own and there are a million other reasons for your symptoms so there's that.

Ulcerative colitis, sure it's a possibility but even if it does turn out to be some form of inflammatory disease, it's not the end of the world. Yes it's inconvenient and there's no doubt that it will cause you problems, but it can be managed. That's what's important to note here, it can be managed. There's also the very real chance that you have bleeding piles and you just so happened to have diarrhea caused by IBS, anxiety or some other benign condition that caused them to get irritated and bleed.

Most of my family has some form of bowel defect. Me and my parents have irritable bowel and hemorrhoids. My grandparents have Ulcerative colitis. My aunt has Chron's disease. Bowel defects are actually quite common.

Your health anxiety is making out that all these conditions are in some way life threatening or are going to ruin your life. You might not even have any of these conditions at all and even if you did, they all tend to go through periods of remission and flare up and CAN be managed by medication or other treatments.

Stress makes my IBS worse and even someone with normal bowels will have toilet issues when they have anxiety. The same thing is probably happening here, your anxiety is making the problem worse, it's a bit of a cycle but i'm certain once you get a proper diagnosis and the stress starts to ease off, you will start to feel better.

[Jenni855]

The anxiety certainly doesn't help, I just terrified myself when I read about bowel cancer as I have so many of the symptoms. I am pretty sure I will be diagnosed with ulcerative colitis as I have again, all the symptoms but no real stomach pain. Doctor is confused as to why my stomach feels fine on examination and why I am not in more pain but I must just have a mild case of it.
I am petrified. I know I will be referred when the samples all come back and will have to have a painful procedure done followed by a life changing diagnosis. It is all unbearable at the moment. My whole life is going to change, won't even be able to eat what I want, go where I want....its just crushing me down, the way my future will be.

[Jenni855]

Really can't cope today, the anxiety is crushing.

[Jenni855]

And they indicated cancer would the person involved be rang at home straight from the lab? I am pretty sure I have bowel cancer at worst scenario. I have had alternating bowel movements, lots of diarrhea with traces of blood in it, vile smelling gas and weight loss. This all started in October, went away in November but came back this December. I have heard that if a lab technician detects cancer, he will ring the doctors immediately. So does this happen?

[Jenni855]

Hopefully I will have had a more urgent call from the doctors by now. I am due back in Wednesday but surely if cancer is detected, they would get me in sooner. I would hope anyway.

[wilky44]

Blood tests can't diagnose cancer. They give a general overall view of a person's health, and this may indicate if something isn't right. There are tumour marker blood tests e.g CEA, CA 19-9, but again they are not definitive.

The doctor, or surgery, will call if needed, not the testing lab

[Jenni855]

Yes, I just meant there are indicators which would alert them if someone may have cancer so hopefully I would hear back by the end of tomorrow if that were the case. I don't think (surely?) that they would make me wait a week when there were already suspicions that I had cancer.

[wilky44]

What tests did you have done? Some can take 1 day, some a week. FBC and associated will take a couple of days, tumour markers maybe 3 days. I had all mine back within about 5 days, and they were extensive. LFT's, FBC, CEA, everything.

I'll say again, blood tests can't definitively say yes or no to cancer, they can only indicate how a person is generally. If there was any reason for them to do further investigations, they'd call you. My doctors don't call unless necessary, but I can review any test results online regardless.

[Jenni855]

If a lab technician checked my blood sample today and found anything unusual then I would hope he would call the doctors ASAP. Even if there were indicators I would hope he would do so, right?