Some people are very frightened when they see blood dripping from the stool or when they flush the stool, and they do not know what is going on, or even suspect that they have intestinal cancer. Blood in stool belongs to lower gastrointestinal tract bleeding. The lower gastrointestinal tract of the human body refers to the jejunum, ileum, colon, rectum, anal canal and anus. Many diseases that occur in these areas can cause bleeding. The color of the blood in the stool can generally determine the site of bleeding and the associated disease. If the blood is fresh in the stool or dripping after the stool, most of the lesions are in the rectal, anal canal, and anal areas. For example, hemorrhoids (external, internal and mixed), anal fissures, anal fistulas, proctitis, rectal polyps, etc., are more likely to occur after eating spicy and irritating foods, and these account for most of the lower gastrointestinal bleeding. If the blood in the stool is slightly dark red in color and mixed with the stool, it indicates a high bleeding site, which can be ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, intestinal mucosal vascular malformation, etc., or in a few cases, intestinal cancer or mesenchymal tumor. If it is mucus blood and slightly darker in color, it may be a tumor of the rectum, which should be given high priority, but its incidence is not too high. Dripping blood is not terrible, and bleeding will stop after using hemorrhoid suppositories (such as tainted suppositories) or eating less spicy and irritating food. For blood and stool mixed especially mucus blood stool, you should do fiberoptic colonoscopy to exclude intestinal tumor to avoid delaying the treatment. Clinically, we find that many people mistakenly believe that they have dysentery with blood in the stool, and the treatment is delayed.
The amount of bleeding in the lower gastrointestinal tract is small and rarely causes heavy bleeding. Therefore, there is no need to panic after finding blood in the stool, but it is correct to pay high attention to it and go to the hospital as soon as possible.