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Blood in diarrhoea

8 replies

Thierryo · 09/03/2023 21:58

Hello,

My daughter (4) has been unwell since Friday last week (3rd of March). Started off as a temperature and loss of appetite for the first couple of days, and then there was some diarrhoea. She was sick one night (third day I think) but not since. The temperature has gone but the diarrhoea has persisted, but for the last 3 days there's been noticable blood in the majority of the stools and also what looks like mucus. She's also getting bad stomach pains, which seem to come on before she needs a poo. When she goes toilet the stomach pains become worse whilst she's trying to defecate, which usually all comes out in a quick splosh. Again, very little to nothing solid there, but some blood and mucus. Her appetite still isn't back to what it was either but she is drinking fluid okay. Between the stomach aches she seems okay though, otherwise. A little grumpier/more sass than normal and she's sleeping more than usual but other than that, she's okay. But when her tummy starts hurting it's clear she's in quite a lot of pain. It's heartbreaking.

Obviously I've tried to get help and after ringing 111 was told to take her to hospital. I took her last night and got to the hospital at around 10.30pm and left at 6am after being told little more than that hopefully it's just a very bad virus and to take a stool sample to her doctor on Friday (tomorrow) which I will do. They told me she isn't showing any signs of dehydration thankfully.

Just extremely worried at the moment. Has anyone had an experience like this and can put my anxiety at ease?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
ReallyShouldBeDoingSomethingElse · 09/03/2023 22:04

It's likely harmless. A bad stomach virus can cause mucus and bleeding. Having said that, it's gone on longer than they generally do with children so you want to rule other stuff out.

A stool sample is a good place to start but ideally you want to provide two separate pots - one to be tested for bug cultures and one to be tested for inflammatory marker called Calprotectin (don't be alarmed if you google this one and it mentions cancer - it's used to diagnose many other conditions).

The thing is, you can't just turn up and hand in a stool sample - your GP needs to have raised a request form for it. And the sample will need to be delivered to your surgery in the morning (at mine it's by 10:30) to go off to the lab before the weekend, so you might be pushed to get all this sorted tomorrow.

Weaselstoatferret · 09/03/2023 22:05

We had this recently and a stool sample showed it was Campylocacter which the GP said was particularly nasty bug. My DD was the same with very bloody mucusy stools and pain. It took about 14 days to calm down and another couple of weeks for her bowels to be back to normal.

Your poor Dd, it is a rough one! It doesn't sound like anything to worry about though. Definitely get the stool sample incase she needs antibiotics.

wobblymum1 · 09/03/2023 22:11

Weaselstoatferret · 09/03/2023 22:05

We had this recently and a stool sample showed it was Campylocacter which the GP said was particularly nasty bug. My DD was the same with very bloody mucusy stools and pain. It took about 14 days to calm down and another couple of weeks for her bowels to be back to normal.

Your poor Dd, it is a rough one! It doesn't sound like anything to worry about though. Definitely get the stool sample incase she needs antibiotics.

Exact
same here but my little one ended up being hospitalised due to dehydration. It’s one of a few that can cause blood in the diharrea and the gp definitely needs
to do a stool sample to rule out that and e - coli (im sure it will just be a horrid tummy bug but you do need a stool sample to rule out the
more nasty ones)

wobblymum1 · 09/03/2023 22:13

Campylobacter is also well known for very bad cramps before diahhrea comes out. It does pass so don’t worry but good you’re getting her checked. It awful seeing them in pain ☹️☹️Hope she feels better soon xx

Thierryo · 09/03/2023 22:40

Thank you so much for the replies everybody. :) Made me feel a lot better. Hopefully everything will be okay.

OP posts:
Lolacat1234 · 31/03/2023 19:10

How is your daughter now? Did you get samples back? My daughter also 3 has had diarrhoea for a week now, not anything like your daughter with blood and cramps, she seems fine in herself but I've just sent off two pots today. She's had tummy bugs before but nothing that's ever lasted more than 3-5 days! I hope she's better now xx

Thierryo · 02/04/2023 10:25

Hello.

The answer to that is debatable lol. Let me explain. We got a sample and took it doctors and got it sent off and then in the days following that she improved alot, stopped vomiting and her stools returned to normal... Unfortunately I caught the bug and it was horrible, had to have 8 days off work! However since then we've both had another tummy bug and aload of other people that we've had contact with. My stools keep going from okay to runny, and I'm getting random stomach aches and being sick. So yeah, no idea what is quite going on right now but not too worried as there's definitely something going around at the moment.

Out of interest, when we caught this second but, I did ring the docs to see what that first stomach bug was exactly, but unfortunately they told me that the stool was insufficient..

OP posts:
Lolacat1234 · 02/04/2023 12:23

Oh no!! What awful luck to catch another one!

I do hope you both start to feel better soon. My daughter has been ok since yesterday but it keeps coming and going so not sure how it's going to go.

Wishing you both better

Xxx

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