Worried I have bowel cancer at 23? Please help

[Worriedguy1996]

I woke up about a week ago with a burning sensation while weeing which concerned me as I’ve had an UTI in the past (I’m a male) however I didn’t have chance to see a doctor the same day so I just waited a few days to see how it went. I started to get quite bad abdomen pains, I found it very painful to walk, turn in bed, cough or sneeze, no changes in bowel movement. I’d say on a scale of 1-10 - it was about 5,6. I think the pain was everywhere in my abdomen, not just on the left or right side. So I went to the out of hours doctor expecting it to be another UTI. The nurse said no infection was found which surprised me so she said to visit my GP. The pain went pretty quickly and I can’t feel anything now.

Fast forward a few more days - I have quite bad constipation. I haven’t had a bowel movement since Tuesday and when I do strain a lot, a tiny piece of poo comes out with mucus and dot of bright red blood (sorry to be TMI) and it was long and pencil like! I had blood tests recently which showed as normal except my haemoglobin MCH was a tiny bit low but everything else is within the normal range (I do have an underactive thyroid which isn’t being treated at the moment)

I’ve googled my symptoms (yes - I know doctor Google isn’t my friend) and they all say bowel cancer

I’m going to push my GP for a referral to see the colonoscopy but I’m so worried it is bowel cancer? Has anyone has the same or similar symptoms as me and found out it was something else? I’m not sure if I posted this in the right place and I don’t mean to disrespect those battling with this awful disease - I would just like some help as I don’t know who else to turn to.

Thanks for reading

OP you need to tackle your anxiety. Speak to your GP about that. CBT or ADs might be helpful. I think that's the only way to move on from the issues you clearly have with health anxiety.

Doyoumind - yes I do have health anxiety and I will get that sorted but my symptoms are real. Change of bowel habits (including size of the stool), nausea time to time, tenesmus, blood and mucus in my stool most of the time, alternating constipation and diarrhea.

OP, I have health anxiety too so I completely get it. I worried for months about a weird piece of skin I was convinced was cancer and turned out to be... a weird piece of skin.

See if you can get yourself some CBT or even antidepressants. It helped me a lot.

OP I understand you have symptoms but stress can wreak havoc on your digestive system so there is a possibility it's related. By all means continue to look into what's happening but I think if you spoke to the doctor about anxiety they wouldn't be dismissive.

Probably the skin off cherry tomatoes or peppers for the red bits that's definitely not blood.

Sounds like it's your anxiety to be honest.

It's unlikely to be bowel cancer but you're right to pursue an answer.
@CherryPavlova you're (charitably) mistaken or careless with information despite your health care background. The lovely, much missed whatwouldleslieknopedo was diagnosed at 21.

Myrtle, thanks for the reassurance. It’s very sad to hear about whatwouldleslieknopedo.

I’ve woken up feeling a bit nauseous and I seem to be struggling to put on weight despite eating like a pig and losing some weight after not eating for a week - but I have always struggled to put on weight so maybe the two aren’t related

I found cbt really useful for training my brain to think more logically.

I have health anxiety. My symptoms are also very real and over the years I've thought seriously I had
TIA's
Heart attacks
Blood clots in legs/arms
Lung cancer
Brain tumour
Ovarian cancer
Stomach cancer
Bowel cancer/obstruction
All symptoms we're very real and I had most of the symptoms for each of these illnesses. I have done hours of research and had numerous tests and seen specialist doctors.
The only thing that I have been diagnosed with is health anxiety.
I understand you have/do feel dismissed. It's great this doctor is ordering these tests as temporarily it will set your mind at rest if nothing is found however, in the long run if it is anxiety, then ordering tests etc is feeding a deeper issue.

MmyrtleWilson that’s very sad, but was it outside UK as not reported here if pre 2018?

CherryPavlova, I read about a girl who was 23 and diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2017. Are you saying no one under 27 has been diagnosed with bowel cancer since 2018?

No I am saying before 2018 in U.K. there were no cases of bowel cancer reported through national database for anyone diagnosed under the age of 25.

It is a disease of ageing with, in most cases, a poor lifestyle. There are known risk factors that can mitigate some of the risks but age is single biggest factor. It is not a disease of the young.

That is specifically colorectal cancer.
There may be cases of metastasis in the bowel from other primary tumours. These include cancers of lung, ovary, breast, prostate, kidney, and melanoma but metastatic spread to colon is still quite rare. You would be very symptomatic if you had bowel secondaries from another advanced primary.

Cherrypavlova will all due respect you are talking bollocks. I don't know where you are getting your info. There is even a young bowel cancer forum on the uk beating bowel cancer website. And as said above our own whatwouldleslieknopedo was diagnosed very young, in uk. Yes in epidemiological terms it is more likely to strike older people and poor diet and lifestyle are risk factors. But there are many people, myself included, who were misdiagnosed as we were 'too young' , thin and healthy. In my case I was mainly vegetarian too (processed meat another risk factor). There needs to be awareness in medical practitioners as well as the public that the number of cases in young people is rising.

Having said that op it is much more likely to be something else. Your gp should be able to do a fecal test for blood easily. Have another chat to them but stay off doctor google. It does sound like you have health anxiety so maybe the counseling referral might be work looking into too.

My information comes directly from government epidemiology data.

Cancer research stats are here:

www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/cancer-stats/cases_crude_mf_bowel_i16/cases_crude_mf_bowel_i16.xlsx

Certainly a disease which mainly hits us at an older age, but young people are still affected

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/cancerregistrationstatisticsengland/final2016#cancer-diagnoses-increase-with-age

Very few cancers affect the under 25s. Those that do tend to be very specific. Testicular cancer being a notable exception. The young with bowel cancer means under 50 not under 25.

My information is accurate unless an incident wasn’t reported through correct channels.

I notice more females get bowel cancer in their 20-24? I wonder why?

www.facebook.com/323917555219300/posts/325596708384718/

This just came up on my Facebook. There you go - £59 - results in 2-5 days. That should hopefully put your mind at rest.

I suffer (and we really do suffer) from anxiety, so understand where you're coming from. Also, I never look at any sites other than the NHS ones, as they're factual and reliable.

I think the initial Dr was probably right, and saw no red flags in the test results/your family history, but seemed very rude in the way they dealt with you. Although, they can't be seen to be feeding your health anxiety, by referring you to a specialist, so instead, they chose to be very blunt.

I think by tackling your anxieties (not just health) that should give you some strategies for dealing with this in future.

In the meantime, maybe keep a diary of how you physically & mentally feel, your symptoms, what you were doing at the time and how you dealt with it, and that may help the Dr to move forward with answers for you.

My DH had those symptoms with much more blood which led to a diagnosis of IBD/Colitis, which he's now medicated for, but it took a good few months.

cherry - are you suggesting that sooty husband isn't reporting his cases correctly or that the under 27s on bowelcancer uk are lying about their age or that Megan Pryde who died at 19 was misdiagnosed?

I do know from my gastric nursing days that blood from higher up in the bowel tends not to be bright red. You have more likely strained whilst passing hard poo and a blood vessel burst. A haemorrhoid.

Worried are you googling for your symptoms or for bowel cancer symptoms?

I've just typed 'constipation diarrhoea mucus' into Google. IBS is the main thing that came up. Why dont you think you have IBS? It is many many times more common than cancer.