blood and mucus in stool, please help!!

ay_tech · 04-12-2007, 07:05 PM

Hi,

My brother has been experiencing the following sympthons for almost the past month, he is seeing mucus and blood on loose stool, and mostly on the toilet tissue. he is 41, no real pains just urgency to go out, and going more than often to toilet, and nothing much goes out but this mucus and blood,
no weight lost (just 1 or 2 kgs after he was on diet) and his weight is stable, no weakness, and no other sympthons

the whole thing started as in the following:

1. He was taking strong antibiotic prior to the sympthons.

2. then he had fever and he threw up.

3. After that he started noticing bright blood drops on stools, and the stools became yellowish, with more urgency to go to toilet, no real pains, just feeling uncomfortable guts.

4. Family doctor thought it is Amebic Dysentery and he suggested a diet and treatment by a complete course metronidazole (Flagyl) (treatement for 10 days, then stop for a week, then re-take the course for another 7 days), once he started he felt much better and the sympthons were almost gone. so he stopped the course (he stopped after the 1st stage of treatment, didnt continue)
5. After he stopped the treatment and diet the sympthons are back!
6. After that he made 2 stool tests with the following result

1st normal stool test: results are :
--------------------
white blood cells: +
Red blood cells: +
all other values are negaitve

2nd stool and FOBT test: results are:
------------------------
Fungi: ++
Fecal Occult Blood: Negative
all other values were negative as well

7. until now there is yellowish loose stools with mucus and blood strikes on it (though the FOBT is negative!!) no real weight lose (only 1 kgs or so because of diet) appetite is good, no weakness.

8. two days ago my bro went to the doctor .. he checked on him and the stool tests, and performed echography on him, the doctor say he doesnt think there is something serious but he appointed him for colonscopy in 2 days.

my brother is 41 years old,

Now we are waiting the colonscopy to know, yet we are all so worried, do you think it is cancer? and how come FOBT result is negaive yet there is bleeding?

please help i would like to hear your opinion!!

Thanks all,

Director · 04-12-2007, 08:32 PM

Your brother needs to see a Gastro doctor right away. It sounds like it could possibly be Colitis or Clostridium difficile(C. diff). I had C. diff, so I know the symptoms and treatment. They usually will treat it with Flagyl or oral Vancomycin for two weeks. There is also a treatment that is still experimental here, but done quite often in Europe, called a Fecal Transfer. I would mention this to the doctor.

If you need any additional information, please post and I'll do my best to help you.

ay_tech · 04-12-2007, 08:56 PM

Hi Director,

Thanks for the quick reply, as for the Colitis, i don't think it is the case, because it is usually Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD),which is not the case with my brother, but as for the Clostridium difficile (C. diff) sounds to be the reason especially that my bro took strong antibiotics just before the sympthons started, my questions are:

- why the bacteria was not caught on the stool Examinations my bro performed?
- can this case be accurately diagnosed by colonscopy?
- is it a dangerous disease? would u please share with me your experince with this disease?
- according to my original post, do you think cancer is a far possibility (which i really hope)?
- can echography tell if there is tumors in the colon (cancer)?

Thanks alot in advance,

Director · 04-13-2007, 03:05 PM

I had written a much longer, detailed post to you yesterday and then lost it somehow just prior to posting it. Hopefully, today I will be able to give you some answers.

I still stand by my two possibilites I told you about yesterday. Clostridium difficile and Colitis. You need to do some research on Colitis, as it's not a STD and the the symptoms are diarrhea, rectal bleeding, urgency to have a bowel movement, a feeling to have a BM, although you just had one, mucous in the stool, crampy abdominal pain and several others including fatigue and loss of appetite. There are several types of Colitis, and the one I just listed is for ulcerative Colitis. Like I said, there are many types, including what my wife of 14 years, had last year, which is called microscopic Colitis. It was discovered during a colonoscopy, but not verified until the speciman could be looked at through a microscope. Treatment for this is steroids. They started her on IV Prednisone in the hospital and then oral Prednisone when she was released. Later they had her on Entocort.

The other possibility is the C. diff I told you about. They tried me on four courses of Vancomycin to get rid of it at $1,200 each. Like I said before, I'm very glad we have good insurance. The Fecal Transfer is where you take a donor's feces (in my case it was my wife) and put in a cone like filter and run normal saline over it. You catch the liquid in a container, and this includes "good bacteria" from the donor. That is then insert in the patient during a colonoscopy at about every 10 cm and the result is the good bacteria will be back in the patient and proliferate and grow. I do take probiotics to help with the good flora and make sure the bad flora doesn't over take the good ones. This is available in drink form (liquid) or capsules like I take, called Florastor.

You asked why the condition was not caught in the stool sample. It can sometimes take at least two samples, like mine taken during a colonoscopy to determine a positive. Both conditions I have mentioned are dangerous, left untreated. That's why it is very important he see a GI doctor and have a colonoscopy as soon as he can. I doubt it is cancer, but of course there is no way I could definitely say, besides the fact I am not a doctor. Yes, the echo test should show a possible tumor, but the best way is through the colonoscopy. You need to make sure the doctor performing it takes stool samples from the colon and tissue samples of anything that looks "suspecious".

I hope I have helped a little and your brother is able to get some help very soon. Please feel free to post any other things that you might think of and need some answers to and I'll do my best to help you out.

carmela81 · 04-16-2007, 10:51 AM

hi, I have just been told that I have ulcerative Colitis they gave me canasa, it is not helping, I keep telling the doctors that I am bleeding really bad, a lot and it is starting to hurt really bad (sometimes) they are doing nothing for me, what bad can happen to me if it doesnt get treated? (this is for director)