Convinced I have bowel cancer

[Mummyto2123]

For the past few days I've woke up needing to go to the toilet and after I've been i have cramps for a while after. This is making me really worry as my stools are quite loose. Bowel cancer is the first thing thats coming to my mind and I'm going out my mind with worry. I suffer really bad with health anxiety so it's making me ill with worry. My tummy is making some gurgling noises too so I'm not sure what this could be. I've not seen my gp yet as I was hoping it would stop and I'm also scared to see them. I'm 34

I had stage 3 bowel cancer. The symptoms were a bit of fresh blood and a sudden onset of intense feelings of urgency. I had probably lost a bit of weight and was tired.

It's the cramping after a bowel movement thats making me worry. I'm also extremely anxious now which won't be helping take my mind off it

See your GP if you’re worried about bowel cancer and they’ll put your mind at rest I’m sure.

I have a very strong family history of bowel cancer- my Gran, Mum and both Uncles all died of it. None of them had any of the classic symptoms of bowel cancer. All of them weren’t diagnosed until about 6 weeks before they died and it had already spread all over. What I’m trying to say is you’re wasting your life away worrying like this. Even if it WAS bowel cancer you might not even know you had it so if you do have these symptoms get them checked and try and shelve your anxiety .

@Afterfire That sounds really tough for you.

@Mummyto2123 As far as I know, the tests for bowel cancer are firstly to send a poo sample to a lab to check there isn’t blood in the poo.
And secondly to have a colonoscopy. There’s a very slight risk of damage to the colon from the procedure and it’s unpleasant. It probably costs the NHS a lot of money as a trained doctor does it while the patient is under sedation/relaxants and a nurse is required to oversee patients for half an hour afterwards to check all’s okay after the drugs and procedure.

The poo sample wouldn’t rule out cancer even in the absence of blood. Presumably not all polyps/tumours cause bleeding. ( My mum who died from bowel cancer wasn’t flagged for further investigation after her stool sample).

The gut-brain connection is very strong. Think about all the sayings about having a nervous tummy, butterflies in the tummy, gut-wrenching etc.

Could you do something to stop yourself focusing on your body? Volunteering is know to be good for improving mental health.

You've had a fair few posters suggest you see your GP - for your obvious hypochondria rather than anything else. Why don't you take their advice? You screwing yourself up with this which must seriously affect those living with you.

Tummy bug! And/or anxiety.

It's hard to think rationally when you have bad anxiety. I just don't know why I would be fine then as soon as I do the toilet I get cramping afterwards. It went away for around a week and now it's back