Hi

Sorry you are going through all this worry.

I've had bowel cancer twice and both times different symptoms.

You did the right thing getting checked at your GP's, the fit test is very good BUT... if you have the slightest bit of blood, for example you mention 'stingy anus' so maybe piles, it will come back positive, so don't be surprised if this happens that you get sent for the urgent 2 week hospital appontment. They will probably do a colonoscopy, this is very good and will find out if there's a problem.

Worry does cause 'tummy problems', also don't google stuff, once you read it, it sticks in your mind festering!

thanks there :-)

If I have to have a colonoscopy I'm dreading that. They tried to put a camera down me (I forget what it was called) before having my gallbladder removed (done via the mouth) but it was painful and I could not keep still and so had an extra stay in hospital (concerns of having blood poisioning) but that was 2 years ago. I don't know if the camera they use for that procedure (colonoscopy) is smaller than the one for gallbladder - but I just wasn't able to keep still for long enough even though I had been given sedatives (2 years ago) - but I remember being told for some people the sedatives would do nothing - !

I've had the pain in my stomach or whatever is in that (roughly) bellybutton for about a week now. Can't quite diagnose it however sometimes it feels as if the indigestion-like pain goes away after eating but yet sometimes the total opposite if I don't eat. It is really hard to nail down precisely. 

Using google I agree it is a nightmare. You can get lead down lots of rabbit holes mosts of which usually seem to end in something serious. I tried to avoid this as much as I can (I did initially stick to just the NHS website) but then I find I can never quite match all my symptoms.

Only other thing I can think of is that I just feel ever so slightly "out of whack" - not despereately ill in the sense I'm collasped on the floor and in agony but rather being "a bit below 100%". You know .... sort of everything is nearly ok but not quite.

Wonder if anyone here can define "a change in how much you should poo/deficate". Would that mean a change as in going from once a day to two times a day or form one to 5 times? Could a small change just be a symptom of being older?

One more thing to add: Today (friday) the "indigestion" felt really bad. Went into work as normal and deficated around 9AM (felt somewhat like I should go and partly through fear/neves). Normally I don't do this -- I usually try to wait until the evening when at home back from work. After I'd done so for a time the "indigestion" pain went down by quite a margin but not totally. Normally though I don't do this I usually wait until the evening.

I guess though this is why I did end up using search engines and not just the NHS website -- my symptoms are just all over the place and don't seem to tie up with anything!

ljones

I'm no expert, but I would say that a small change could be due to anxiety or just paying more attention to it. I had a bit of a bowel cancer scare over the summer (which turned out to have nothing found in the colonoscopy) and started thinking, "am I going more often? How many times did I go each day before this started? When exactly did all this start? Are we talking more often than I went last month or could it have changed a couple of years ago, before I started seeing blood?"

Once you see "change" as a symptom of something, it's quite easy to notice things that appear to be changed, when they might really be normal or just one-offs.

Given that you said it was partly through nerves that you went that morning, I'd say anxiety could be playing a part. I found I was getting loose stools two or three times a week in the run-up to my appointment. Since the colonoscopy, I have gotten them maybe once or twice a month, which is pretty much normal for me. Literally, happened maybe twice in the two or three weeks after the colonoscopy, then went back to normal. So I suspect anxiety and stress was playing a part.

If you cannot find something that fits your symptoms, maybe some are stress reactions or just normal fluctuations that you are noticing because you are monitoring to see what symptoms you have (I also remember when I had thyroid cancer, I read that one of the questions the doctor would ask was if my neck hurt and I suddenly started getting a slight ache in my neck. After I saw the doctor and answered that question with "occasionally, but only since I read it was a symptom so I might be imagining it," I never again experienced that symptom).

Oh and I will say I felt little or nothing during my colonoscopy. So try not to worry about that.

You could well be right there. It is all too easy to add up X and Y and get something totally different and then think that means something bad. Though I will have to wait and see what comes back with the stool sample results.

Still have that nasty indigestion like "pain" around roughly where the bellybutton is and it dosen't seem to want to go away hopefully this isn't something more serious. I did check my stool again today however this time easier to pass and from what I could see (though I couldn't see the whole thing) no sign of blood again and no stinging.

ljones

Just jumping in to say I wish you the best. It's very hard not to second guess yourself and worry over every niggle. I'm booked in for a colonoscopy on the 5th after having had a few months of symptoms, trying my best not to jump ahead to the worst scenario. Fingers crossed you end up with a positive result also.

Thanks there! I did get to speak to the doctors on monday in the end but I have to wait until tomorrow (wednesday) for the results.

ljones

Thanks again :-) - Ok, I've just spoken to the doctor. My news is mixed; the FIT test came back negative. I did mention what I said above earlier about seeing blood in my poop but they did not seem to be concerned about it. The other poop test came back positive however for some sort of bacteria although I don't recall exactly its name, helio....I'm not sure. 

The doctor said it was very unlikey to be cancer and so I now have to pause the current tablets I'm taking and take different pills 3 of them twice a day for a couple of weeks and then see how things are after that point.

So weather that's good news or mixed or whatever, Not sure!

ljones

Hopefully it will be a wee bacterial infection then that the new tablets will clear up. Gosh it is just horrible waiting to find out what the situation is; I am so glad that I've came across this chatroom. I don't feel like I can mention my worries to anyone in real life. It's great to feel a level of support on here. 

Try not to worry and hope for the best. Let us know how you get on x

Ok, thought I'd give an update here.

In the end my problem seems to have come down to a heliobacter infection ("H pylori") ?. I was given a course of medicine in december (early december I think) to get rid of it.  I've long since completed this course of medicine.

Right now I'm taking lanzaprozole to reduce stomach acids (since roughly just before xmas), but I'm finding that I still have stomach pain. It seems to come and go in waves almost a week apart. I'll have a bad stomach, I'll feel midly dizzy but it will go away and I'll feel OK but then it all comes back again, over and over.

So I have no idea what the problem is now. I've been advised to carry on with the lanzaprozole for a few weeks and if that dosen't seem to fix things then they'll "put a camera" down there ( hopefully not a colonoscopy or something, I think I'll need to be "knocked out" to do that - !).

My FIT test came back negative and a blood test came back as normal. I did test positive for heliobacter though.

Any thoughts on what I might still have? I just hope it isn't an ulcet; my symtoms don't seem to match up, I mean I can feel slightly dizzy when my stomach is bad but I'm not getting black and tarry stools or anything like that.

The doctor I spoke to also mentioned something called gastritis but I don't know any more about that.

ljones