Does this sound like it could be leukemia?

[JRCarr]

Okay, really flipping out here. I'm a 22 year old guy whose been having some weird symptoms for a while. It started with finding blood on my toilet paper three months back, accompanied with sharp pain with passing a stool. That seemed like a textbook fissure, and wouldn't you know, the blood on the toilet paper went away. But the stool still looks, usually, a mix of a dark-brown (maybe maroonish) and light red/orange-tan. No blood in the toilet. I eat spaghetti often, if that explains the red color, but otherwise it seems bloody to me.

Starting a few days ago I started getting really nervous. I was talking with a friend of mine who's a doctor about some joint pain I was having; cracking them is a nervous tick, and I had overcracked them in the span of an hour, but some fingers I wasn't really excessively trying to crack starting aching too. Possibly psychosomatic, I don't know. Two days ago, I could feel a few (three; one on each lower side of my neck and one in the middle of the left) lymph nodes, but my friend said if none are larger than a centimeter/half-an-inch they're nothing to worry about; none are. Yesterday I started having pains in my right shoulder, the shoulderblade, and just that whole area around it. I slept on it and put pressure on it laying on my bed (on my laptop) most of that day, but it seemed disproportionately painful to me. It hurt when I strained on the toilet (I weirdly developed pretty heavy constipation after, on my friend's advice, upping the fiber), or even so much as yawned or sneezed. Today I woke up with a slight sore throat and have had recurring slight, dull pains in my lower-left stomach/side, my upper-left leg, and my lower-right (and to a lesser extent lower-left) ribcage.

I've had no fever recently, no weight loss whatsoever, not really much loss of appetite.

I should add that, in terms of family history: my maternal grandpa has had skin cancer before in his late 70s, and a paternal uncle of mine struggled with cancer (no idea what kind) recently in his early 50s.

IBS seems like it may match the symptoms better, but the bone aching does worry me.

[JRCarr]

I should add: 1) I had recurring nosebleeds around the same time as the blood with my stool, though it seems to go along with overblowing and drying out my nose. 2) No headaches either, really. No more than usual at least.

[Ken_PA]

Hi, if you are worried that lymphoma is causing your bleeding, you can get a CBC blood test to see if your platelet count is very low. When a blood cancer gets into the marrow, it can crowd out the production of platelets.

But you probably don't have lymphoma.

Do you take fish oil, vitamin E or other blood thinners?

Since you also mention cracking joints, maybe you have a Connective Tissue Disorder. Any relatives who are double jointed? Or history of hernias?

[Ken_PA]

Leukemia results in bleeding in the same way as lymphoma.

And yes the red is most likely blood.

Bone pain from blood cancers is usually when it has metastasized to bone  - that is not an early effect.

[Hospice_MA]

Get a CBC, also talk to your personal physician and have him order a colonoscopy. I know your young, but being safe is better than sorry. Ken has addressed all other issues.