I’ve just turned 37 weeks pregnant and for the past few months I’ve had some blood when passing stools, it’s not been alot and some of the time the stools just have darker bits in them or almost dots of red blood. I do have piles internally and externally which I originally put as the cause for the blood but since having the dots of blood I’m not so sure (I always thought piles just cause streaks of blood). Anyway, my haemoglobin levels have dropped in the pregnancy from 132 in Jan, 109 in May and now 102 in July, I felt awful at the start of July which is why they retested and have now put me on iron tablets twice a day. I only took pregnancy vitamins up until my 12 week scan because I had such awful morning sickness and couldn’t stand taking them, plus, I stupidly thought I only need to take them until then. I tried to reassure myself that the drop in my levels will be because of not taking the vitamins. Since taking the tablets (nearly three weeks now) I have felt a lot better, but do still get the odd moment of breathlessness and I know my heart rate was still slightly high last week. I saw my GP last week who advised to take a FIT test because I was worried about the blood, she said she felt it was all down to the piles. The FIT test has now come back as 34, I’ve seen anything above 10 isn’t good. Queue me now freaking out that all of this points towards bowel cancer. I’ll admit I do have health anxiety which I’m trying to control with therapy but this has definitely sent me in a spin. I did have a colonoscopy late November 2023 because of constant loose stools since February of that year, during the scope they found one small begin polyp. Although I know I should be reassured by the scope I just keep thinking they missed the polyp on the way “in” and it was only round on the way back out. I’ve since read you can develop bowel cancer within so many months of a scope and this type tends to have a very poor prognosis.
tbh I’m not really sure why I’ve typed this. I suppose I’m just desperate to see if anyone else has been in a similar sort of position and it’s all been fine. I’m terrified they’re going to put off any investigations because of the pregnancy and I feel like I can’t wait that long.