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There is a persistent taboo surrounding discussing bowel movements, but it hinders vital conversations with doctors, essential for early detection of serious health problems.
Bowel cancer remains one of the most common cancers in the UK, but public understanding of its symptoms and crucial screening procedures often lags behind.
One problem is that bowel cancer symptoms can often resemble less serious health problems, meaning patients may ignore the signs until it’s too late.
Mr Jeremy Clark, Consultant General Surgeon specializing in colorectal disease at Nuffield Health in Brighton, highlighted five critical warning signs that the public should recognise.
1. Blood in the stool
“Shedding blood when you go to the toilet is a worrying phenomenon that you should report to your GP,” says Clark.
The surgeon points out that the color can vary from bright red to almost black.
“If you’re bleeding from the beginning of your colon, it has to travel three or four feet before it comes out with your waste, so it will turn very dark black. But if you bleed from something further down the intestine, closer to your butt, it will come out bright red,” he explains.
“If you see blood in the stool, especially darker colored blood or blood actually mixed with the stool, just once and significantly, you should tell your doctor immediately. Don’t wait until it continues to happen.”
Persistent bright red blood should also not be ignored.
“If you see a little bright red blood on the toilet paper after going to the bathroom and you know you have hemorrhoids, it’s not that concerning,” says Clark. “However, if it lasts more than a week, it should be reported to your doctor if it has never been investigated before.”
2. Changes in the functioning of the intestines
“If your bowels are no longer working like clockwork once a day, and suddenly you’re going two or three times a day and the bowels are a little looser, that’s something that needs to be looked at,” says Clark.
“Becoming more constipated isn’t really a risk factor, but if it’s a sudden change and things don’t return to normal, that’s also something to consider.
“If your bowels only work for a day or two and then stabilize, there should be no cause for concern. But if you have a persistent change that lasts a few weeks, this should be reported.”
3. Abdominal pain
“Bowel cancers can cause abdominal pain,” Clark points out. “This tends to be a later feature, but it can also happen earlier.”
4. Bloating
“People often feel bloated if there is something wrong in the gut,” Clark adds.
5. Unexplained weight loss
“Bowel cancers can cause you to lose weight by impacting how your digestion works,” notes Clark.
Why do many people ignore these symptoms?
“There are a whole range of symptoms, but the problem is that they all overlap with other, less serious problems, such as hemorrhoids or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), so people are easily unaware or dismissive of these symptoms,” Clark acknowledges.
Reporting any unusual changes or incidents as early as possible is an essential factor in improving treatment outcomes and overall prognosis.
“We don’t want people to sit on their symptoms for a few months, wondering if anything will return to normal, because although bowel cancers usually progress slowly, sometimes they can be more aggressive,” says Clark.
“We like people to report these things as early as possible, because we’d rather investigate something and find out it’s nothing than look into things later and not be able to do much.”
What should people do if they have symptoms and are concerned?
If you have any of these symptoms or are concerned about the changes you notice, see your GP.
“GPs often give patients a FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test) kit, which has all the instructions. Basically a home kit to take a small sample of your stool which is then sent to the laboratory for testing,” explains Clark.
You will usually receive a letter informing you of the results within two weeks of sending your sample, according to the NHS website.
People aged 50 to 74 are also offered FIT kits every two years, regardless of their symptoms, as part of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.
“If the result is positive, that means there is blood in your stool that needs to be investigated,” Clark says.
“You will be referred to your local unit to discuss with the team the possibility of having a colonoscopy or scan to check and make sure there is nothing wrong with your bowel and that there are no signs of polyps or bowel cancer. By doing this we detect things much earlier and they become much more treatable and curable.”
Gn Health
