Thank you so much for this, as a person with Crohn’s I consider myself a colonoscopy pro and my experiences have been pretty much the same as yours. I’m extraordinarily privileged to have great health care that makes frequent low cost colonoscopies possible.
One thing I’ve realized recently is that because we don’t as a society talk abo…
Thank you so much for this, as a person with Crohn’s I consider myself a colonoscopy pro and my experiences have been pretty much the same as yours. I’m extraordinarily privileged to have great health care that makes frequent low cost colonoscopies possible.
One thing I’ve realized recently is that because we don’t as a society talk about poop, knowing what occult blood in your stool looks like is not something the majority of people would be aware of. So let’s take this conversation up another notch!
Fresh blood is obvious, alarming and yes sometimes just hemorrhoids or fissures but also sometimes a signifier that something way more serious like a GI disease or cancer is going on. Occult blood is not as obvious. Your stool turns a darker than normal color because the place that is bleeding is further up than your rectum and by the time it evacuates it’s changed color from fresh to dried. So if you have noticed your poop is consistently darker and it does not correlate to a diet change (like iron supplements or iron rich food intake) that is also something to bring up with your doctor.
Here’s hoping the next ten years of medical advancement make colonoscopies even easier!
Thank you so much for this, as a person with Crohn’s I consider myself a colonoscopy pro and my experiences have been pretty much the same as yours. I’m extraordinarily privileged to have great health care that makes frequent low cost colonoscopies possible.
One thing I’ve realized recently is that because we don’t as a society talk about poop, knowing what occult blood in your stool looks like is not something the majority of people would be aware of. So let’s take this conversation up another notch!
Fresh blood is obvious, alarming and yes sometimes just hemorrhoids or fissures but also sometimes a signifier that something way more serious like a GI disease or cancer is going on. Occult blood is not as obvious. Your stool turns a darker than normal color because the place that is bleeding is further up than your rectum and by the time it evacuates it’s changed color from fresh to dried. So if you have noticed your poop is consistently darker and it does not correlate to a diet change (like iron supplements or iron rich food intake) that is also something to bring up with your doctor.
Here’s hoping the next ten years of medical advancement make colonoscopies even easier!