Blood in motion
Very scary. Makes you think of cancer straight away. Isn’t it?
Reasons
Many things can cause blood to appear in your stool. First thing, calm down. Look whether its few drops or more. any clots? Is it separate or mixed with motion or alongside of motion? Is it bright red? Or maroon colored? Or blackish? Is it mixed with mucus or loose motion?
Causes
- Noncancerous causes are more common than cancers.
- Hard stools with blood and pain are usually due to fissures in anal region.
- Painless bleeding with hard stools may be piles.
- Painless bleeding with little or minimal motion, increased frequency, urgency maybe tumors (Cancers).
- Blood mixed with mucus and minimal loose motion may be inflammatory bowel disease.
- Severe gut infection can also give a bloody diarrhea.
- A bleed from stomach ulcer, or any bleeding from small intestine can give a blackish loose stool (melaena)
Diagnosis
A proper medical examination, proctoscopy can diagnose around 90% of problems. Only less than 10% need more investigations like colonoscopy and CT scan.
Treatment
Depends on the problem. most of them respond to healthy lifestyle and medications. Very few like cancers and higher degree piles need surgery.