Hello,
Ive been lurking the forums the last week since visiting my GP and thought I would say Hi and start a post. Reading through lots of others posts and older posts have been helpful at easing anxiety so I thought if I started a thread documenting my timeline and hopefully good outcome perhaps it may help another in future to read. So hello!
I am a 36 year old mother of two. For the last year I’ve been experiencing small patches of blood when wiping but I suspected it was as probably piles as I’ve suffered on and off since pregnancy with them. Also started to notice my usual what I assumed was period pains then turned into ovulation pains and then eventually turned into just constant pain, especially after eating, and the on off nausea has turned into all day nausea, no vomiting just that constant light nausea putting you off your food. Since Christmas so 5 months ago I have noticed my bowel movements just aren’t right, sometimes loose and narrow and very dark in colour and sometimes constipated with the blood. I’ve never had huge volumes of blood or noticed it on the stool just dark stools. I’ve also been battling extremely low ferritin levels of between 10-20ug for the last 2 years struggling to get above.
So last week I finally saw my GP who agreed it wasn’t right, she performed a rectal exam which was normal and no hemorrhoids noted (although I know you can get them internally that an exam wouldn’t find).
We had recent bloods within three months to refer me straight away without FIT test results to accept me on to lower gi 2ww pathway based on the IDA.
The lower GI clinic moved me to urgent suspected cancer IDA pathway instead but I’m slightly concerned this will be the wrong clinic now as my FIT test result came back yesterday at 34ug so I think it will have been better under the GI team given the positive result.
Both clinics are 2ww clinics so fingers crossed they will both have the same investigations anyway.
So in terms of timeline for other people who are interested
28/04 visited GP who arranged FIT test and more bloods and made 2ww referral
05/05 telephone call from hospital arranging telephone triage appointment with IDA nurse for 12/05
05/05 FIT results back (5 days later Inc weekend and bank holiday)
12/05 first telephone consultation.
I will make sure I keep this updated as a diary to help anyone else going through these investigations.
I am aware the next step will be colonoscopy and potentially endoscopy at the same time, any advice for that will be greatly appreciated!
I’m feeling positive right now and have good support from my husband and close friend. I don’t feel ready to tell other family yet as I feel it may cause uncertainty and unnecessary worry for them.
I am hopeful this will be something less sinister with my younger age behind me and a lower FIT score than most I am leaning towards it being something treatable or nothing at all.
Best of luck to you all and thank you for reading.
