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What Causes Blood In Stool While On Culturelle Probiotics?
My mom who is in her late 70s has been taking Culturelle probiotics since Saturday morning(now it is Monday evening), she takes twice a day and she had no BM yesterday and today there is bright red blood in her stool both morning and evening. Is it something wrong? Should I take her to the doctors?
Fri, 21 Oct 2016
Short answer: Possible haemorrhoids (piles), you can wait and see.
Long answer:
Hi there,
It is unlikely that the probiotics contributed to the problem, and it is safe to carry on with it. It is likely that the lack of bowel movement caused her to have harder stool, which made an exisiting haemorrhoid bleed.
Other things that would suggest a haemorrhoid bleed would be having the blood only on the outside of the stool and not mixed in, bleeding only at the end of the bowel movement, or if she was prone to constipation in the past. Another possibility could be an anal fissure, but this is usually more painful and with less bleeding.
Make sure she has good bowel habits by not holding it in when she needs to go, taking enough fibre and fluids, and checking that any of her existing medication does not promote constipation. If she has ongoing issues with constipation, a simple laxative like lactulose which softens the stool would be good while waiting for the bleeding part to heal.
When to take her to the doctors:
1. Persistent bleeding after a day or two
2. Large amount of bleeding with clots
3. If there is a painful swelling at the anus (the haemorrhoid is protruding)
4. If the blood is mixed up all within the stool (which indicates possible bleeding further up in the large bowel and not a simple haemorrhoid)
5. Black coloured stool with foul smell (which indicates a bleeding higher up in the stomach)
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Dr. Teh
Long answer:
Hi there,
It is unlikely that the probiotics contributed to the problem, and it is safe to carry on with it. It is likely that the lack of bowel movement caused her to have harder stool, which made an exisiting haemorrhoid bleed.
Other things that would suggest a haemorrhoid bleed would be having the blood only on the outside of the stool and not mixed in, bleeding only at the end of the bowel movement, or if she was prone to constipation in the past. Another possibility could be an anal fissure, but this is usually more painful and with less bleeding.
Make sure she has good bowel habits by not holding it in when she needs to go, taking enough fibre and fluids, and checking that any of her existing medication does not promote constipation. If she has ongoing issues with constipation, a simple laxative like lactulose which softens the stool would be good while waiting for the bleeding part to heal.
When to take her to the doctors:
1. Persistent bleeding after a day or two
2. Large amount of bleeding with clots
3. If there is a painful swelling at the anus (the haemorrhoid is protruding)
4. If the blood is mixed up all within the stool (which indicates possible bleeding further up in the large bowel and not a simple haemorrhoid)
5. Black coloured stool with foul smell (which indicates a bleeding higher up in the stomach)
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Dr. Teh
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