Hello all, I think this is a good place to post this, if not I'm sorry.
I'm a 20 year old relatively healthy male; when I was 16, I had my appendix removed, and I feel like ever since then my bowels have been weird. 80% or so of my stools are soft, and the rest are sometimes very hard (borderline constipation I'd say). A side note, they said that there was a very, very small mass on my appendix that was noncancerous, and could have become so if I had not gotten appendicitis.
For maybe two years or so, I've gotten mucus on my stool. Sometimes clear, sometimes yellow, so my family and I just assumed that it's IBS up to this point due to me having quite a bit of anxiety (since about 6th grade) and we read that mucus and abdominal pain are common symptoms, so I've just kind of not paid attention to it. It's never debilitating pain, rather a dull ache that's usually on the bottom left abdomen, and sometimes on the bottom right.
For a while, I've been getting a lot of urges to use the bathroom, but it's either a very small amount, or rather nothing at all. Sorry if this is gross, but I also sometimes release a lot of gas and mucus instead of actually defecating.
A few months ago, I noticed a lot of pain (like a stinging pain) and a small amount of blood when going to the bathroom. I decided to hover over a mirror and noticed that I had an anal fissure, and I've been getting these off and on for a few months. Stinging feelings weren't very new to me; as a child I had a lot of constipation issues. When I was hovering over this mirror however, I also noticed something inside my rectum; very red "bumps" so to speak, but they were rather large, and I personally think that they are hemorrhoids; they secrete a lot of mucus sometimes, so I usually have to wipe a lot. I've told my parents, but they insist on waiting since I'm not keeling over.
Fast forward to maybe a month or two ago, and I notice that occasionally (maybe once or twice a month) I get blood mixed in with the mucus attached to my stools. This usually happens a few days after a very bad anal fissure bleed for me, or so I think, so it's not stressing me out too bad. Today, I noticed it again, and decided to use a cotton swab to take it off the stool and put it on some toilet paper. The blood was pretty much the same color as the blood I get off of my bad anal fissure bleeds sometimes. I took a picture, but I doubt anybody wants to see this.
Can anybody provide some reassurance that this isn't like, bowel cancer or something, until I'm able to go to a doctor? I'm not losing weight, I don't feel dizzy or lightheaded, things like that. Right now it's just the lower left dull aching and the occasional bleeds.
Thanks in advance.