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Avatar universal

Anxiety and bowel movements

Hi I am a 22 year old male and I have been suffering from health anxiety for a few years now. I always find there to be something for my mind to focus on that could be potentially wrong with me (of course most of it is from googling symptoms and trying to match mine with whatever disease I found) but my question is does anxiety play a big role with your BMs? My bowel movements have been out of whack and it’s really the first time I’ve paid attention to them and I think they’re being triggered by my anxiety but I can’t really be sure. If anyone else goes through this any advice would be great, thank you.
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Avatar universal
i dont fully know what you mean by out of whack but im guessing you mean they arent constant? but anxiety can seriously effect your bms!! they can make you constipated or give you diarrhea. of course if you think something is wrong you should always reach out to your doctor! but to answer you question, yes! anxiety can do a lot of weird things, including messing with your bms
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i forgot to add if you have blood in your stool then that is not anxiety! blood in your stool can not be from anxiety
Avatar universal
It would be better if you specified what you mean by out of whack.  Sometimes our patterns change, if timing is what you mean.  Anxiety does very often affect digestion, and so do the meds people take to treat anxiety.  Stay off Google unless you already have a diagnosis and just want to check if your doctor seems to know what they're doing.  Symptoms can be a sign of a thousand things or nothing at all, so all that Googling is not only making you more anxious but it's not useful either.  
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Basically sometimes I’ll have normal BMs and sometimes I’m constipated but ive noticed that I’ve been going to the bathroom a little more frequently and my stools are sometimes regular brown and sometimes yellowish. I think they are yellow because my anxiety makes me go and speeds up my digestion process before my stool has the chance to turn brown.
Can I ask why you're studying your bowel movements?  Have you been diagnosed or have a family history of ulcers or colon cancer?  Because if you haven't any reason to suspect a problem, and you keep searching for one, that's anxiety.
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