@emilystewart30 - I hear ya. I think I always thought I was honest with my doctor. However, I found myself really hesitant to either know what was really going on or share what I'd seen at home in certain situations that were more embarrassing or serious in recent years. For example:

1. I had an unexpected diagnosis of a neuroendocrine tumor thought to be a polyp till it was tested in the lab in my very first colonoscopy. I had lots of scans and other tests after that to test for residual cancer. I think I just wanted to be fine, which sometimes caused me to do things like cry my eyes out during a scan, lest they find any more cancer. I just didn't want to hear that.

2. I took semaglutide (Wegovy), which caused me to have chronic diarrhea. It got so bad that I had a couple of incidents of fecal incontinence in my bed. I was humiliated and didn't want to tell even my sweet husband, cause that was horribly embarrassing. I didn't want to tell my primary care doctor, either. But I eventually told them both. Very humbling, yes. I was offered anal manometry by my doctor, which I declined, cause I knew it was only due to the medication. That turned out to be true.

3. I had to explain to my primary care doctor about some memory issues lately after my teenage son said to me multiple times, "You told me about that before, Mom," or some version of that. I didn't really want to go down the memory issues road and have to undergo testing, or forbid that I be told I had early dementia of some kind. Instead, my doctor said that the kind of memory issues I had at times were just "busy working mom brain."

So, I've basically forced myself to explain nerve-wracking, embarrassing things to my doctor, and undergone testing that could have had really scary results I didn't want to know. Not at all fun, but I do think ultimately good things came of it.

What are your feelings about talking with your doctor about your bowel issues at your upcoming appointment?