Bowel cancer or.....?

[Healthworrier]

Hey all,

So I am a 43 year old male from Solihull. I am overweight at 109kg and 6 foot tall.

For the past 20 odd years. Maybe more. My diet has been so so bad. Coke then moved onto pepsi max cherry. Probably 8L a week. And nothing else. Bad food to. Biscuits, pringles, kebabs. And it's probably caught up with me now. And left me feeling very worried and scared.

I suffer with anxiety. Especially health anxiety. Everytine in the past when I have tried to loose weight. I would get constipation. This is probably due to still drinking pepsi or maybe not enough fibre.

But since September 2023.this is when I can remember I have been having bowel issues. Constipated and bleeding bright red blood especially in the water and wiping.

I went to my doctors who gave me laxido. I was taking two a day and it helped massively. I was able to go toilet without effort. Wasn't diarrhea. Was a good movement with no blood. Felt a relief.

Over Christmas I started to get aches in my stomach. Buscopan helped. So I decided to try and change my diet.

I swapped the pepsi for flavored water. I swapped all the rubbish food for a better fibre diet. More fruit to. And cereals for breakfast.

I wanted to see how I would be if I came off laxido. And it was better. But not perfect. And sorry to be crude. But the start of my bowel movement would be a push and felt hard. But after that it was fine. Still got bright red blood though. It seems to be a streak on one side of my stool and nothing else

I still have stomach aches. And this has started to worry me. With the bleeding again I went back on the laxido and was going to the toilet everyday with no issues. I have now dropped down to one laxido a day. I have been today and although it didn't hurt there was a tiny amount of blood.

Through the doctors I have had a doctor feel around my abdomen and said she couldn't feel anything. And suggested I have blood tests.

I have had these and was mainly OK. The only two that came back abnormal was urea and electrolytes and liver and Bone. They think I may have a fatty liver. And want me to do more blood tests in 4 weeks time to see if the figures are any different.

But this has been keeping me up. I am convincing myself I have bowel cancer. The symptoms do sound like hemorrhoids but I always think the worse.

Sorry for the long post and I thank any replies.

@Healthworrier

bright red is piles.
dark red is a worry.

Have you done a FIT Test
the doctor will get one sent to you- you post it off and wait for the results

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-cancer-screening/

Surprised they haven't done one

I do a self test at home and that came back negative.

Do the flavoured waters have sweetener in them? Sometimes too much sweetener can cause stomachs to be uncomfortable

Yes I believe so. Although still better then pepsi? I just can't do tap water.

My husband had similar issues (although he actually eats very well). He started adding in 2 kiwi fruits per day (as I’d read this can really help with constipation) and it’s ended all of his symptoms. He no longer has the bleeding either. I’ve since recommend it to my constipated friends and it’s helped them all.

On a side note, artificial sweeteners are really not good for the gut biome and this sounds weird but have you tried mixing still water with fizzy and squeezing a little lime juice in? Sounds bizarre (and boring) but I have IBS and really can not tolerate many soft drinks, I hate plain water (it actually makes me feel nauseous) and full fizzy is too much on my tummy but a mix of them both is really nice. I have this all the time now.

that is really interesting, without being crude did he have blood after every bowl movement, for the past six months I have been bleeding on and off 2-3 days a week

cheltsam83 he goes through stages. If he gets quite constipated or forgets to eat the kiwi fruit it’s flares it up. He uses Proctosedyl and that seems to keep it at bay.

Doctor finally ordered one for me. Sent it off yesterday. Hopefully hear soon.