What are the causes of blood in stools in young adults?

Question

Hello doctor,

I am a 26-year-old male and weigh 229 pounds and am 5 feet 9 inches tall. I have blood in my stools whenever I have spicy food. I have diarrhea that increases when I am stressed. I have been feeling dizzy for the last week now, but I do not know if this is because of the stress and anxiety I have been going through for one month.

Whenever I eat well, I do not feel stressed, and my stool is normal. I went to the ER last night, and they did a blood test. My results were normal. Please go through my results. I do not have a family history of colon cancer. However, I am scared I might have colon cancer since I have stomach upset and diarrhea whenever I eat spicy food.

What do you think about my condition?

Kindly help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I read your query and understand your concern.

After a careful review of your health query, I want to add that many different possibilities need to be ruled out, and for that, further probing is mandatory here.

If this is due to stomach ulcers (open sores that develop on the lining of the stomach), the color of the blood should have been dark or black. If there is a lesion (may not necessarily be colon cancer) of the colon or rectum, the color of the blood should be fresh red. It can also be due to piles or hemorrhoids (swollen veins in the lowest part of your rectum and anus). Another possibility can be inflammatory bowel disease, which is a chronic inflammatory condition that primarily affects the digestive tract (that can be Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis).

I suggest consulting your local gastroenterologist for proper evaluation and management of the case. They might require camera-assisted studies of the digestive system, especially the colon and rectum. It will clear up the doubts. Hopefully, things will settle down after a thorough evaluation, as we will be in a better position to treat the disease.

Investigations to be done:

The investigations you attached here (attachments removed to protect patient identity) can be interpreted as follows:

Troponin I is normal and is required in a healthy person. Your hemoglobin is well within the normal range, which means there is no evidence of a major bleed that could be dangerous. So, there is no need to worry much about bleeding that seems to be scanty. It shows there is some ongoing infection in the body that can be a colonic infection, too. Other blood works, like D-Dimer (a substance in the blood that is produced when a blood clot breaks down in the body) and bleeding or clotting tests, are well within the normal range with no worries.

Please feel free to ask for more elaborations if there are further queries left over.

I would be happy to assist.