Bloody diarrhea Assessment Questionnaire

Questions Your Doctor May Ask - and Why!

During a consultation, your doctor will use various techniques to assess the symptom: Bloody diarrhea. These will include a physical examination and possibly diagnostic tests. (Note: A physical exam is always done, diagnostic tests may or may not be performed depending on the suspected condition) Your doctor will ask several questions when assessing your condition. It is important to openly share any pertinent information to help your doctor make an accurate diagnosis.

It is also very important to bring an up-to-date list of all of your all medical conditions, medications including dosages, and names of numbers of any specialist you see.

Create your printable checklist by answering questions that your doctor may ask below:

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How long have you been having the bloody diarrhea?
Why: to establish if acute or chronic.
What is the nature of the diarrhea?
Why: e.g. large volume suggests small bowel disease; small volume suggests large bowel disease.
What is the frequency of the diarrhea?
Is it severe bright red bleeding?
Why: presence of severe rectal bleeding with diarrhea would suggest diverticulitis, colon cancer, amebic dysentery, bacillary dysentery.
Have you had any previous attacks?
Why: may suggest inflammatory bowel disease.
Food intake in the last 72hrs?
Why: may help differentiate between acute gastroenteritis and food poisoning.
Have any other people you know had the same problem recently, especially meal sharers
Recent travel overseas?
Why: e.g. less developed countries such as India - may suggest travelers diarrhea especially amoebiasis or Enterohemorrhagic E.Coli (EHEC).
Past medical history?
Why: e.g. ischemic colitis occurs in the setting of widespread peripheral vascular disease or cardiac disease.
Family history?
Why: colon or rectal cancer; inflammatory bowel disease.
Have you taken or are you taking antibiotics?
Why: may indicate Clostridium difficile infection as a complication of certain antibiotics.
Mucous or pus
Why: would suggest ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, amebic dysentery or bacterial dysentery (e.g. shigella, salmonella, campylobacter jejuni, yersinia enterocolitica, enteroinvasive and enterohemorrhagic E.Coli).
Vomiting
Why: suggests gastroenteritis or food poisoning.
Abdominal pain?
Why: may suggest bacterial dysentery, amebic dysentery, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease or ischemic colitis. Central colicky abdominal pain indicates involvement of the small bowel e.g. gastroenteritis, while lower abdominal pain points to the large bowel e.g. inflammatory bowel disease.
Fever?
Why: may suggest bacterial dysentery, amebic dysentery, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis.
Weight loss?
Why: may suggest colon cancer, Crohn's disease.
Anal itch?
Why: diarrhea can causing anal irritation.
Other Symptoms of Inflammatory bowel disease e.g. painful joints, low back pain, eye problems, skin lesions
Symptoms of iron deficiency anemia?
Why: e.g. lethargy, dizziness, depression, shortness of breath or angina.

Conditions listing medical symptoms: Bloody diarrhea:

The following list of conditions have 'Bloody diarrhea' or similar listed as a symptom in our database. This computer-generated list may be inaccurate or incomplete. Always seek prompt professional medical advice about the cause of any symptom.

Select from the following alphabetical view of conditions which include a symptom of Bloody diarrhea or choose View All.

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