Coping with BOWEL POLYPS

These are small growths on the inner lining of the large intestine (colon) or rectum

owel polyps are very common, affecting around one in four people aged 50 or over, and occurring in slightly more men than women. The exact cause of bowel polyps isn’t known. It’s thought they result from the body producing too many cells in the lining of the bowel. These extra cells then form into a bump, which is the polyp. You’re at increased risk of polyps if a member of your family has had bowel polyps or bowel cancer, if you have conditions that affect your gut (such as colitis or Crohn’s disease), if you’re overweight or if you smoke.

While some people develop just one polyp, others may have a few or many.

Symptoms

Bowel polyps don’t usually cause any symptoms, especially when small, so most people don’t know they have them unless they are found during bowel cancer screening, such as by faecal blood testing or a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) or, rarely, colonoscopy. However, sometimes if a polyp is large, it may cause small amounts of slime (mucus) or blood in your stools, diarrhoea or constipation, abdominal pain or discomfort when opening your bowels.

Most polyps don’t turn into cancer, but there is a small risk of some types (called adenomas) eventually becoming cancerous if not removed. Very few will, however, and they can take years to change. It’s believed that most bowel

cancers develop from adenomas. So if you have polyps, your doctor will always recommend getting them treated and then having more regular colonoscopies to check for new growths.

If you see a specialist, they may look with a flexible endoscopic camera passed up into the rectum and sigmoid colon during a sigmoidoscopy, or give you a colonoscopy under sedation – using a larger endoscopic camera to view the whole of the large bowel and remove any