Major Reasons to Go for a Stool Test for Occult Blood

The doctor may prescribe you with a fecal stool test for occult blood to detect the presence of invisible or microscopic blood in the stool. Presence of microscopic blood in the stool can be a symptom of great ailment in your digestive system. It is because, such a situation occurs if there is an inflammatory growth, polyp, or cancer in the rectum or colon of the body. Before you visit a doctor for further treatment process, it is essential for you to know about various reasons of occurrence of such a disease.

Reasons for Blood to Appear in Stool

Blood may occur in the stool due to prevalence of one or more conditions, such as follows:

1.       Hemorrhoids – It is situation of swollen blood vessels near the lower rectum or anus that can breach leading to bleeding.

2.       Intestinal infections that trigger inflammation

3.       Ulcers

4.       Malignant (cancerous) or Benign (non-cancerous) polyps or growths of the colon

5.       Cracks or splits in the lining of the opening in the anal

6.       Diverticular disease, which is caused because of outpouchings of the wall of the colon

7.       Occurrence of abnormalities of the blood vessels in the large intestine

8.       Crohn’s ailment

9.       Ulcerative colitis

10.   Onset of Meckel diverticulum, that is mainly found in young adults and children

The process of taking a stool test for occult blood

For the test procedure to begin, you may have to provide the health practitioner with three stool samples. The stool sample must belong to different days, as the bleed may happen from time to time, and not consistently. You can even perform the test at home with help of home-test kits available at the pharmacy stores. There are specific instructions listed on the kit, which you may follow to have a hassle-free testing experience.

Now once you are done with the test, the next step is to evaluate its result. If the test results positive then it is symbol of internal bleeding within the body parts, such as stomach, or intestine. Based on further evaluation, the doctor will then suggest you with adequate medication and treatment process. If the situation is worse, then your doctor might suggest you to go for some more tests to examine the reason and type of the ailment.