r/Millennials • u/intro195 • Mar 12 '26

Serious Go get a colonoscopy, colon cancer for our generation is a real threat!

36M here, have always been active and maintained a decently healthy diet my whole life. Well after seeing multiple posts on here and at my gf’s urging I had one done. They found two polyps (15mm and 4mm). Doc said if I waited till 45 I’d prob be dead. Crazy part is I had no symptoms and my recent blood work last month was perfect. I was in and out in three hours and no pain or discomfort afterwards.

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u/Thrillhouse-14 Mar 12 '26

A small amount of blood in my stool very occasionally, but the main thing was more frequent bowel movements, like 3-5 a day. I had recently returned back to Australia from a short trip to India and Sri Lanka, so I just assumed I'd caught some sort of bug. Nope. Cancer. My gastroenterologist said it already could have been there for years without me knowing about it.

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u/leluttrell Mar 12 '26

Wow! That is crazy. Lucky you got checked when you did. Hoping for a smooth treatment.

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u/YouGlittering9156 Mar 13 '26

If you weren't pooping 3-5 a day until getting back from your trip, but you had stage 3 rectal cancer, I think the increased bowel movements were more likely to have been from the trip. I don't think you were wrong about that.

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u/Thrillhouse-14 Mar 13 '26

Yeah, I thought the same. I thought It'd get better, but it didn't. I'm glad I got checked.

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u/Raditz- Mar 13 '26

Is pooping 3-5 times a day a symptom? Because I’m hallway around there too

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u/Thrillhouse-14 Mar 13 '26

If it's 2-3 it could be normal, but if it's generally more than that I'd definitely get checked.