I'm a little wary of self-diagnosing, but my mom and mother in law have me a little freaked out.
I'm 22 years old, never been diagnosed with hemmroids or anything. For the past three months or so, I've been having painful bowel movements with rectal bleeding. No blood in my stool, just bright red blood when I wipe. It's sometimes a little, sometimes quite a lot. I have been taking a stool softener every day for the past two months now (started with two a day, now one a day) and I think it helps a little with the pain. Sometimes it still hurts really bad, but I can have at least one every week or so that doesn't hurt too bad. It hurts if I have a bowel movement too close after another (like when you think you're done and you're not) and it also itches a lot all day. I have not tried Preparation H or anything like that because I'm scared it will burn when I put it on.
My mom said even young people can get colon cancer, so I'm making an appointment with my OBGYN, but the nurse I spoke to didn't seem to think much of it, and said it's probably a tear or hemmroid. I guess it just worries me that even with a stool softener it hasn't gotten better. I also spoke to a family friend (a couple months ago when it started) and she said that as long as it's bright red blood, it's not anything too bad because internal bleeding would be darker or brownish. I just don't know what to think at all...
Any help would be greatly appreciated.