If you notice blood clots and mucus in your stool, it's important to seek medical attention immediately.
Larger amounts of mucus in stool, associated with diarrhea, may be caused by certain intestinal infections. Bloody mucus in stool, or mucus accompanied by abdominal pain, can represent more serious conditions — Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and even cancer.
Bloody mucus in stool may be due to hemorrhoids, anal fissures, polyps, gastroenteritis, angiodysplasia (caused by weakened blood vessels in the gut), or, less often, cancer. See your healthcare provider.
Seek immediate medical attention
Have someone drive you to an emergency room if rectal bleeding is: Continuous or heavy. Accompanied by severe abdominal pain or cramping.
The commonest symptom of colorectal cancer is a change of bowel habits. There may be increasing constipation, or perhaps alternating bouts of constipation and diarrhoea. There may be blood or mucus in the stools.
Blood from higher up in the bowel doesn't look bright red. It goes dark red or black and can make your poo look like tar. This type of bleeding can be a sign of cancer higher up the bowel.
Most colon cancers bleed, usually slowly. The stool may be streaked or mixed with blood, but often the blood cannot be seen.
Rectal bleeding is a symptom of conditions like hemorrhoids, anal fissures, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcers and colorectal cancer.
No amount of blood in the stool is normal, but some causes may be more dangerous than others. Sometimes there is blood in such small amounts that it can't be seen with the eye. In these cases, it must be identified with a test called a fecal occult test.
If you notice blood in the stool, it warrants a call to your physician. Red blood in the stool and rectal bleeding are associated with many diseases and conditions of the digestive tract, including colon and rectal cancer, diverticular disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), among others.
Treatment for mucus in stool
If mucus in the stool is related to diet, a doctor might recommend drinking more water, increasing fiber intake, or taking probiotics. Treatment might include prescription medication and lifestyle changes for long-term conditions such as Crohn's, UC, and IBS.
Dysentery is an infection of the intestines that causes diarrhoea containing blood or mucus. Other symptoms of dysentery can include: painful stomach cramps. feeling sick or being sick (vomiting)
Shigellosis is a bowel infection caused by bacteria from the Shigella family. Other names for shigellosis include Shigella infection, Shigella enteritis and bacillary dysentery. Common symptoms include diarrhoea that may contain blood, mucus or pus, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting.
Causes of anal discharge
Mucus-based discharge may be caused by: Infection due to food-poisoning, bacteria or parasites. An abscess due to infection or an anal fistula – a channel that can develop between the end of your bowel and anus after an abscess.
It's important to note that aside from shape and texture, the presence of white or cloudy mucus in your stool may also point to IBS. But here's what's not associated with IBS: Blood in your stool. IBS-like symptoms accompanied by a fever.
People with Crohn's disease may produce stools containing mucus, blood and/or undigested fats, whereas stool samples from people with ulcerative colitis are more likely to contain only mucus and/or blood.
The blood color can range from bright red to maroon, with or without blood clots. This symptom often accompanies lower abdominal pain and the urgent need to defecate. Blood from the rectum and large intestine is usually bright red. If blood is a darker color, it may be coming from higher up the gastrointestinal tract.
“Sometimes blood in the stool can be caused by benign conditions such as hemorrhoids, a small fissure after constipation or an infection and can resolve on its own,” he says. “However, bleeding from cancer or inflammatory bowel disease can also be intermittent, and so any bleeding needs to be investigated.”
Blood found in your feces (stool), on toilet paper or in the toilet after a bowel movement is often times is harmless, but can signal a serious health condition. Blood in your stool is also sometimes discovered in routine diagnostic tests.
Causes. The color of the blood in the stools can indicate the source of bleeding. Black or tarry stools may be due to bleeding in the upper part of the GI (gastrointestinal) tract, such as the esophagus, stomach, or the first part of the small intestine.
Rectal bleeding is a relatively common symptom encountered in primary care. Although the risk of colorectal cancer is believed to be low, this rarely has been studied in patients presenting to primary care physicians. Four studies in European countries reported cancer rates of 2.4 to 7.0 percent.
Primary gastrointestinal cancer showed a significantly greater association with bleeding risk compared with other cancer types, and this was true across anticoagulants. Among gastrointestinal cancers, luminal malignancies typically showed the greatest association with bleeding risk (P <. 001 for each anticoagulant).