Have I got rectal cancer?

[Toby2000]

Of course. Toby has admitted to being reliant on NMP which any potential therapist would see as a big problem as regards future real life treatment so the same applies to him.

Reliant whenever I have a huge problem, often I can go a week without checking if things are going smoothly

[Toby2000]

it`s a double edged sword for me, I`m out the other side of all this and pop on occasionally if I think I can help, not when I`m angry or have had a bad day. I`ve had extreme issues myself and know what worked and what didn`t - for me I must add, I don`t have all the answers for others.
I remember very well wishing I was well again, and listening to other people who`d recovered, along with my gp, any counsellors therapists etc. unloading on people without doing anything for yourself isn`t a good way to go.
The jist of tobys posts are that he`s not entirely happy with the colour of his poo, lots of people explain that diet is a large part of all this, and the ride starts again
I am entirely open to any good suggestions as to what we as a larger community can do for Toby, but at some point he will hopefully have the realisation that he and he alone will recover, or he won`t. Asking a load of amateurs to guess whats wrong with him is not a good plan.

anyway, that`s all said with love and high hopes for everyone on here, have the best weekend possible and enjoy whatever you`re up to.

I know it must be annoying to log in every day to see my rambling about the colour of blood or whatever but unfortunately my mind really analyses these things, last night I was in a frenzy trying to figure out from the one picture I took/from my memory if the most recent blood sighting was dark or bright blood.. but anyway yeah I'm gonna try, now that I'm off holiday, to improve my diet and ensure I don't get harder stools anymore or strain as much.. also I'm gonna use those hemorrhoid suppositories to see if they help

Hope you had a good weekend too

[Toby2000]

I think I'm caught up with everything now

I know you don't need updates but no blood still.. I just still have this urge to google all the time and I've been 90% successful in ignoring it so far but it's very pressing and often hard to ignore

Also I've been obsessing about the colour of the blood and been using a colour picker to find out if it was dark or bright blood.. it looked light in the picture I took of it on my hands but the flash was on? I've been obsessively editing it to try and make it look what it would look without the flash and the colour I'm left with in that case is somewhere between dark and bright blood... nothing like really dark but rich red... it's just really playing on my mind

[MyNameIsTerry]

How about making that colour picker very hard to access? But blocks up in front of it somehow.

For instance, I used to be obsessing over time and checking my watch constantly. My therapist wanted me to leave it at home, which is impractical as turning up to meetings late is a no go and obviously phones have them too, so I agreed with her another way which she was encouraging. I filled my pockets with crap and made sure the watch & phone were under it all so I couldn't get at them easily. Loads of loose crap that would fall out and be a nuisance. It helped.

[razziledazzile]

Hello, I use to use this forum a while ago when my health anxiety was at its peak, it has been bad lately with a few bouts of fears but recently picked up when I presented the same exact symptoms as you. I had used the restroom and shortly after I had passed blood and mucus. Didn't happen after that however, as usual I googled and freaked out and did the same thing as you, convinced myself I had colon cancer. I called my mom, who, to put me at ease called her friend who is a gastroenterologist, as I'm 21 and the blood is not constant and increasing, just like yours is not becoming more apparent, he said that he's certain it is due to straining when using the restroom bc you can produce some blood and some mucus, and colon cancer is highly unlikely at our young ages. It put me at ease and a call to the doctor( A STOMACH specialist) was much more reassuring than the internet and saved me weeks of worry. I hope this does the same for you. Its's not worth it to waste our lives worrying.

[Carys]

Maybe IF I turn out alright in the end or somehow find out I don't have cancer, fingers crossed

Heres some advice, this very statement shows that your thinking is still wrong, very wrong. You actually need to be saying 'I don't have cancer as all doctors/tests and symptoms have shown, but am still try to convince myself I do have cancer, so this thread might help someone else in the future who is similarly in the grips of HA'.

The key to this is definitely going out and getting more LIFE.....I'm sure of this.

[Toby2000]

How about making that colour picker very hard to access? But blocks up in front of it somehow.

For instance, I used to be obsessing over time and checking my watch constantly. My therapist wanted me to leave it at home, which is impractical as turning up to meetings late is a no go and obviously phones have them too, so I agreed with her another way which she was encouraging. I filled my pockets with crap and made sure the watch & phone were under it all so I couldn't get at them easily. Loads of loose crap that would fall out and be a nuisance. It helped.

I don't think that or deleting the photos I took would help much, if anything it would just make me more anxious. Tbh I wish I took better, clearer photos because now I'm convincing myself that the blood was really dark when it might not have been

[Toby2000]

Hello, I use to use this forum a while ago when my health anxiety was at its peak, it has been bad lately with a few bouts of fears but recently picked up when I presented the same exact symptoms as you. I had used the restroom and shortly after I had passed blood and mucus. Didn't happen after that however, as usual I googled and freaked out and did the same thing as you, convinced myself I had colon cancer. I called my mom, who, to put me at ease called her friend who is a gastroenterologist, as I'm 21 and the blood is not constant and increasing, just like yours is not becoming more apparent, he said that he's certain it is due to straining when using the restroom bc you can produce some blood and some mucus, and colon cancer is highly unlikely at our young ages. It put me at ease and a call to the doctor( A STOMACH specialist) was much more reassuring than the internet and saved me weeks of worry. I hope this does the same for you. Its's not worth it to waste our lives worrying.

Thanks for this

What would you call "increasing"? I'm scared that mine is increasing, I still only see it like once a month or so (it varies and yeah is usually if I strain a lot or have a hard stool) but I feel like the blood isn't as bright red anymore like it used to be? :(

I agree with the "constant" for sure because if it was a tumour you wouldn't expect it to bleed only once in a while, especially if it's growing

[Toby2000]

Heres some advice, this very statement shows that your thinking is still wrong, very wrong. You actually need to be saying 'I don't have cancer as all doctors/tests and symptoms have shown, but am still try to convince myself I do have cancer, so this thread might help someone else in the future who is similarly in the grips of HA'.

The key to this is definitely going out and getting more LIFE.....I'm sure of this.

Well, I just say that because no doctor can be certain about what I have unless they give me a colonoscopy, even the last doctor I saw admitted that technically there's a small, tiny chance it could be cancer because nothing is impossible, after I asked if there's a small chance that it's cancer

[Toby2000]

Like I say, I'm worrying even more about the colour of the blood I saw 3 1/2 (give or take) weeks ago.. I remember it in my mind being a dull colour, not dark but not too bright either. I took a picture of a little bit of it and in that it just looks like a neutral red with a hint of bright but the flash was on so I don't know?

I increased the clarity on that image to make the details stand out more etc and to make it look more real life and when I did that it looked sort of a bright yet rich red? But these tools may not be showing me what it actually looked like, they could be making it too bright or too dark... I remember at the time of seeing the blood I thought it was the colour of a "cherry tomato" or "cherry" for some reason but there are all sorts of shades of those

I wish I took a better picture :(

My main question is... why if it was a fresh hemorrhoid bleed was it not bright red- maybe it was but the colour of the stool altered it even though the stool was light brown but loose too? I know NMP said she's had varying shades of red which is reassuring, along with another thread I saw of someone asking why they had darker red blood on their stool if it was hemorrhoids (they made that post 5 years ago and are fine now so I assume it wasn't cancer) and the doctor wasn't worried about the colour as long as the stool wasn't red or anything... I feel like I'm going mad obsessing about this. My search history right now is just "bloody stool" "blood on stool" "dark red blood on stool" it's absolutely exhausting

I remember I wiped and there was blood mixed in the remnants of the loose stool/diarrhea on the paper, I can't remember the colour too well now but it wasn't the sort of bright red I saw last July which I'm now sure was caused by a hemorrhoid

I know everyone's gonna have a go at me but I've made a fair point

Therapy on Monday, I'll make sure to mention this