# how can we diferentiate between ibs and colon cancer from symptoms?



## Arzu Caydere (Feb 23, 2013)

what is the reason for undigested food in the stool?

i chew considerably but it does not work.

my constipation, bloating, gas and dull pain in right hand side has no improvement.

i do not think it is ibs anymore! i am waiting for my new appointment in May.

i always have very small stools in a small amount and have them during day many times.

a lot of mcous also. the constpation is at a high level.

how can we diferentiate between ibs and colon cancer from symptoms?

they almost have the same symptoms. looking at age is not realistic because i know somebody who had

colon cancer at an age of 42.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Generally Colon cancer cause tiny amounts of blood you cannot see in the stool and generally other symptoms, IF and when they occur are mild.

IBS always in every cause causes obvious symptoms. Even when mild it is obvious.

You have undigested food in your stool because you eat food. It is there in every human every stool of their life. It is not a specific symptom that only happens to some people with some rare and deadly disease. Even if you chew, unless your food is chewed to where it looks like you put it in the blender and pureed it to death there will be some bits in the stool. And even then if you put it under the microscope you would find bits.

While Age isn't always a factor usually people who have colon cancer early have a familial problem where they get lots of polyps. Have you lost half your relative to colon cancer before the age of 50?


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## Arzu Caydere (Feb 23, 2013)

Kathleen,

I did not loose any body from my family before age of 50 but the person I know who hat colon cancer at age of 42 had not lost any of his relatives due to colon cancer.

Moreover, from internet I have read comments of many doctors that one of the main symptoms of colon cancer is tarry or black stool. But you said generally Colon cancer cause tiny amounts of blood you cannot see in the stool. I always see conflicting info and explanations!

Also, I have read that many doctors say that if the symptoms are occurring everyday or pain everyday then it is not ibs.

I do not know to believe to which doctor or expert.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

If Colon cancer was more common than IBS you would know dozens or hundreds or people. Yes it can happen, but it is extremely rare. She might be a new mutation in the gene that causes the polyp problems in families.

Statistically if you know enough people (and it isn't that many) one of them will have an extremely rare thing. doesn't mean that you also therefor MUST also have the extremely rare thing and cannot possibly have the extremely common thing.

I don't know where you are finding the experts who say every single IBSer has completely symptom free days all the time. Usually they say IBS typically comes and goes (that is varies in how bad the symptoms are) but I have never seen the IBSer must have one or more completely symptom free days per week as a diagnostic criteria. I really haven't seen all these people saying daily symptoms MUST not be IBS. Now it may be that with daily symptoms they would do more testing to make sure it isn't one of the inflamatory bowel diseases for diarrhea or an outlet obstruction or transit problem for constipation. But really where are all the people who are saying the ONE AND ONLY thing that could ever cause daily symptoms for a few months is cancer and no other thing?


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## andyroxxxxx (Mar 3, 2013)

Kathleen, I am wondering that too. I have had IBS-C my whole life. I recently posted on here for extra super bad constipation after quitting smoking. Then one morning I had a little fresh red blood in the toilet and I freaked out.

Went to the ER, got cleaned out with Mag citrate and enemas there. Been on Miralax daily since. I have had the best BM's of my life for the last 30 days! That stuff is wonderful.

However, I have noticed a couple times in the last month that there is still a little red blood after I go. Usually comes out after the stool passes, or on the paper, or maybe a drop on the surface of the stool. I am freaked out, since I am not constipated anymore or straining, so why the blood.

I went to the GI, and I have a sigmoidoscopy scheduled May 4. But I am so scared now!!!!!


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## Arzu Caydere (Feb 23, 2013)

Kathleen,

I will list my history:

-During last 10 years, from time to time I had bowel rumbling. To reduce that I was going to toilet
straining myself to remove gas. But that was from time to time. Not everyday. Maybe just a few times during a month.
-In the last two years, I had, in addition, feeling tired, bloating problems.
-6 months ago, one day in the morning I had a sharp pain in the right quadrant and then was diagnosed
with liver inflammation from ultrasound. The liver enzymes were high. After following a high-fiber diet
and loosing weight, the liver inflammation become normal and enzymes came to normal range.
However, the pain turned into a dull pain and recently I have excessive gas, bloating problems
and sometimes mucous in the stool. In February, I had a CT scan which showed normal gallbladder, pancreas, etc.

-After meals I get bloated. I can always hear the squishing of fluid and gas in the right part. Do not feel this in other parts but in the right part surprisingly.

Since I had liver inflammation and since liver is in the right part, i always think a connection between squish of liquid and air with liver problems.

However my gastroenterelog says your liver is now okay. I do not rely on her a lot. She is lazy and not interested too much. I tell her my problems and just say she does not know and maybe it

is ibs. I have never seen such a passive doctor. I tried to arrange an appointment with a Prof. from a university hospital after one month later. My current doctor says if it were a big tumor in the right part, it would penetrate over liver and your liver would not be better with time. This is not a professional explanation because maybe the tumor is not big yet, if there is any.

-I discussed my problems with my family doctor and she is again not a good doctor also. She said your ct and ultrasound results are okay and your enzyme results are normal.

She said do not worry and will not direct me to another gastroeneterelog. She said also I should not do a colonoscopy since it may involve a small risk.

This family doctor is also very unprofessional becaseu colon cancer cannot be detected from blood tests and from ct and ultrasound results.

That is why there is another test called colonoscopy. I am very shocked that there are such stupid doctors around with wrong thinking.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

When the chance of perforating the colon and having to be hospitalized is greater than what they think the chances are of seeing anything you do get to the point where you are taking a 2% risk for a 0.0000001% benefit and it doesn't make sense to do a test and cause harm that didn't need to be caused.

But I don't know if you will believe a normal colonoscopy. You don't believe that because a fatty liver causes high enzymes and losing weight reduces the fat in the liver an normalizes it.

Tumors are not the one and only cause of symptoms. Bloating after meals is common in IBS. Tumors cause bloating that is bad all the time rather than some of the time when it is normal for humans to feel a bit bloated (depending on the meal, eat a big enough fatty enough meal and anyone will be bloated after the meal).

Sounds like your anxiety is certain you have a tumor and you'll be dead any day now and they will find it during the autopsy. It doesn't seem like any other diagnosis is acceptable. It can be hard to fight that kind of anxiety (and that much anxiety isn't good for your health so I might talk to a doctor about that more than insisting they find a tumor, but that is me), and I'm not sure another test, or another dozen different tests will convince you that IBS causes symptoms in anyone especially your symptoms.

Tumors do tend to start messing up your blood work over time even if they don't have a specific test for the chemicals any given tumor spews into the system.


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## Arzu Caydere (Feb 23, 2013)

Kathleen,

thank you very much for your comments. yes, i have anxiety and that is correct. however, so far really the two doctors i visited (gastroenterelog and family doctor) many times did not convince me.

the reason is not my anxiety or that i do not believe them. the reason is their nonprofessional explanations. for example, when 5 months ago i had the dull pain in my right upper quadrant

and when from ultrasound/high enzyme results they told me that i have liver inflammation and that is the source of my pain, i believed and really spent a big effort to have a normal liver again.

however, my liver become normal but still there was no improvement from the dull pain, i asked the gastroenterelog that you told me the pain is due to liver inflammation but now you say liver is okay but i have still that dull pain and that means the pain was not from liver inflammation. she then said i am right and and she said she does not know the reason. when i started to have gas, bloating etc she then told me you now have ibs. how can i believe such a doctor? of course, i will try to do search, see other doctors to solve my problem because my life quality is very poor and i am at a point that i cannot continue my work.

now i think my dull pain is not due to liver inflammation. the diagnosis of doctor was wrong. possible reason is colon spasms, gas pressure if there is nothing other serious.

maybe the dull pain is due to gallbladder. my gallbladder was okay from ct scan but ct scan just shows whether you have gallbladder stones, etc but it does not

say anything whether the gas bladder is functioning correctly. that is why there is another test called hida scan to test whether the gallbladder is working properly.

but my lazy gastroenterelog just checks ct scan and says it is okay. she even did not say the necessity of hida scan.

i really lost my believe due to such doctors. they are simply lazy and do not like their jobs. that is why people are spending their years to be diagnosed for gastro problems.

to diagnose a gastro problem the doctor should be really an expert, should spend a lot of effort. should do many examinations and should be really interested.

otherwise. by just looking a ct scan and ultrasound and some ibs symptoms, thinking that the problem is ibs is not professional.

there are at least 20 different reasons to have gas, bloating. etc.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Sometimes they don't know which thing is the right answer until you work through correcting one condition and ruling things out.

Well then any doctor following the recommended guidelines for IBS is unprofessional.

Generally if someone has symptoms that are all consistent with IBS and no other symptoms you go with IBS with fairly minimal testing. You do not need a million dollar diagnosis for everyone with IBS. 95% of people with "just" IBS symptoms have IBS when run through a large number of tests, and the remaining 5% is NOT cancer.

Doing test after test after test after test in someone with IBS and no other symptoms only makes the IBS worse from the stress and strain on the system and getting normal after normal after normal result.

Now starting off with it could be the fatty liver causing problems when the liver was abnormal seems reasonable, until you get the liver fixed and the IBS symptoms are still there. Then you move on to another diagnosis. This is not lazy. Should they have ignored the liver problem?

And doctors are supposed to say "I don't know" when they may not know. There is no test to PROVE you have IBS so it is always in every situation an educated guess. Would you rather they lie when no one can know something to a 100% certainty.

However you do play the odds with the RISKS of the test (and every single medical test has risks, some of them serious and deadly) with the odds of a benefit. Maybe you do need a new doctor. But I don't think you will get a different set of answers. Just maybe the same answers given to you in a way you like them.

Most of the other things that cause IBS symptoms also cause OTHER symptoms. If it causes IBS symptoms and eyes popping out of their sockets (to make something up) you don't diagnose everyone with Eye popping syndrome when their eyes aren't popped and they just have IBS symptoms. If there are two things that cause eye popping syndrome and the test to determine which one it is may cause serious harm you don't test everyone who just has IBS symptoms as you will harm millions of people who didn't need to be harmed.

General rule of diagnosis is most of the time time the most common reason for the symptoms is the reason the person has the symptoms. IBS is very common so they should start there. And if something on the blood tests (like liver enzymes) shows something less common is going on, or they have additional symptoms that indicate something less common is going on, then you do the extra tests to see if something less common is going on. But it sounds like you had the most common reason that liver enzymes go up and they went down when you do the standard treatment to get rid of the fatty liver.

I know you wanted that treatment to make you feel all better, and I'm sorry it didn't.

They don't assume you might have Ebola and test for Ebola (and put you in complete and total isolation from all other people and put you in the ICU to monitor you) when you have symptoms of a cold or the flu. But like most everything else, it starts out with flu-like symptoms. So you could assume everytime you get a cough and feel achy you are about to die of Ebola. It probably wouldn't be healthy to do that, and the doctor isn't going to assume it has to be the rare thing when you have the common symptoms of a common thing, and no symptoms of the rare thing.

You don't seem to believe me that IBS can cause symptoms for the amount of time you have symptoms and I don't know if I'm coming off as lazy or whatever. "Just" IBS is bad enough, you don't have to have something else if IBS is causing pain and all sorts of symptoms.


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## andyroxxxxx (Mar 3, 2013)

Hi Kathleen, I am wondering if you could take a minute and reply to my post on this thread. Thanks so much.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

andyroxxxxx said:


> Kathleen, I am wondering that too. I have had IBS-C my whole life. I recently posted on here for extra super bad constipation after quitting smoking. Then one morning I had a little fresh red blood in the toilet and I freaked out.
> 
> Went to the ER, got cleaned out with Mag citrate and enemas there. Been on Miralax daily since. I have had the best BM's of my life for the last 30 days! That stuff is wonderful.
> 
> ...


So the pattern of blood sounds a lot like a hemorrhoid (they can be internal so you may not see it). Usually colon cancer blood is not red and is generally hidden in the stool, not on the stool or on the paper when you wipe.

Even if you aren't constipated now, once these things get irritated it can rebleed with any stool. With the bright blood the sigmoidoscopy will see anywhere that you would bleed from.

Try to remember with all the scary symptoms that the very common non-cancer thing is much more common than the cancer. Even if you were 75 when colon cancer is more common than in young adults.

You are taking the steps you need to do to deal with it so try to not freak out. If it sounded like a medical emergency the doc would have scheduled you for a scope much sooner (they can move your tests up if something really needs immediate treatment).


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