Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[brieyourbest]

I am soooo very worried. I'm away from home (Atlanta) because my Grandma just had a hysterectomy for her endometrial cancer... Yikes. (she is doing better) But there has been more and more blood in my stool and today it was too much to even look at. My mom is in charge of taking care of my Grandma this week but I think I might need to go to the hospital.

Question: Would you go to the hospital for severe abdominal pain and blood in your stool?

 

[tiloah]

Can you call your GI office for whoever is on call? Maybe they can tell you if you should go to the ER or not. They might just need to make some adjustments to your medication (like slowering your Pred taper or increasing the Pred temporarily). Is the blood bright red or dark black? Where is your inflammation?

Sorry to hear about your grandma's hysterectomy by the way. I hope therapeutically it does what they want it to do for her. All the best.

 

[Jer's Girl]

I'm so sorry about your Grandma. I hope she has a speedy recovery.

Blood in your stool is scary, but I would talk to my Dr before I got too worried. This used to happen to me all of the time. Huge blood clots in it too, and my Dr never really seemed worried. How severe is the abdominal pain though? If you feel like you need to go to the ER, you probably do. Trust your gut (no pun intended). Better safe than sorry! Keep us posted!

 

[Jennifer]

Everyone is different so I'd never tell someone to not go to the ER if they were even slightly entertaining the idea. For me though a lot of pain and blood in my stool means that I'm in a really bad flare that needs immediate treatment (I've already had surgery once and don't want to do it again). Getting an appointment with a GI takes FOREVER where I am and going to the ER speeds up the treatment process. The ER even prescribes meds like Prednisone to try and get the flare under control and they also run tests that can be sent directly to your GI doc. For me going to the ER is a win win situation and there's no reason not to go.

 

[Terriernut]

Can I say....ditto, ditto, ditto dittooooooo to what crabby just said. If you go to ER, pronto treatment. Ive been put off seeing my GI for 4 months now, and I just had SURGERY in Dec. (he had to go and be a dad...him..not me!) And anyway, if you need to be seen the ER is the best place for fast fast fast!

Misty

 

[Crohn'sFor Life]

If you GI is normally quick to respond, call your GI first. You will get an even quicker response at the ER if your GI tells them to expect you.

 

[shamrock15]

If you have suitable insurance, I would err on the side of caution. If there has been constant bleeding, you could also be getting anemic.

Pain levels seem to vary with each of us here. You sort of get to know when it is "normal" and when it isn't. For me, if the pain came with bleeding, even the stubborn old hockey player (raised in "play through pain" culture") in me says it's time to go to the hospital.

Sorry about your Thrashers, but we will welcome here in Winnipeg!

 

[brieyourbest]

Hey All!

I ended up going to the ER. They admitted me to the hospital but the talk around the hospital is that I will be released tomorrow. Yay! They just bumped my steroids back up and have been monitoring the pain.

 

[Jennifer]

Did they do any tests? What were the results? I'm glad you went in and got treated and I wish you a speedy recovery.

 

[brieyourbest]

Did they do any tests? What were the results? I'm glad you went in and got treated and I wish you a speedy recovery.

They just did a CT Scan and saw that there was inflammation by the ileum...

So they are talking about surgery if this second round of steroids fail BUT I am out of town so they are leaving that all up to my primary GI.

 

[Jennifer]

Well good luck to you. I hope it does work. Surgery isn't fun I know. Keep us posted.