world doctors
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3 Things You Don’t Want to Find in Your Poop
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The greatest international website of world doctors :
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A lot of guys say they do their best thinking when they’re on the toilet. But there’s one thing
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you probably don’t want to ponder when you’re pooping: the actual contents of your crap.
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Is it gross? Yeah, of course. Important? You bet. The stuff at the bottom of the bowl can tell
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you a whole lot about your body, so don’t flush away the evidence without taking a look.
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Mucus
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Your digestive tract is lined with mucus to help food pass smoothly. If you frequently go #2,
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your colon contracts more often—so it’s normal for people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
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to see mucus in their stools, says Robert Burakoff, M.D., chief of gastroenterology, hepatology,
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and endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
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Blood
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Bright red blood in the bowl usually means hemorrhoids, which are swollen veins in your rectum
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or anus that bleed when you strain, says Dr. Burakoff. But it could also signal serious conditions
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like inflammatory bowel disorders (IBD), or even colon cancer.
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NSAIDs like ibuprofen and aspirin can also cause recurrent bleeding anywhere in the gut,
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making your stools look almost black. A Spanish study found that people who regularly took
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NSAIDs were 72 percent more likely to experience upper gastrointestinal bleeding than those
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who weren’t on the meds.
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Best-case scenario: Black, tarry looking stools could just stem from something you’re
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consuming, like Pepto-Bismol, iron supplements, and some foods like spinach.
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When to worry: We’re stating the obvious, but anytime you see blood in your poop, you need
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to high-tail it to your doctor.
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He or she may recommend a colonoscopy or a flexible sigmoidoscopy—a less invasive
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examination of the lower colon—to check for IBD, hemorrhoids, or colon cancer.
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Worms
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It’s the stuff of nightmares: You look down into the toilet bowl and see small, white, thread-like
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worms (called pinworms) or long, flat, white strands (tapeworms) wiggling around your poop.
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Rectal itching—especially at night, when pinworms lay their eggs around the anus—can point
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to worms, too.
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