Well due to my father going through (and beating) Leukemia in 1998, I have become a bit of a hypochonriac (sp?). I took notice of my stools being more flat than cylindrical and worried big time about it. I eventually went to the doctor and she told me that my problems were anxiety related and that the stress will cause the problems I was having, and that if I ever have a cylindrical stool...then I don't have bowel cancer as it is a condition that forms over time and does not allow "normal" stools.That leads me to tonight...and thank god I found a wonderful site like this. Google has to be the worst thing to ever happen to someone who is even a little bit of a hypochondriac (sp?). Either way....I had a BM and noticed that one stool (cylindrical) was mostly medium to light brown and neither hard nor soft, but on one end it was much darker brown and seemed harder. It wasn't black and tarry, but I am curious as to whether or not it is a common occurance to have multi-coloured stools.
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Multi-Coloured Stool
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Welcome to A2A, razz. Yes, that's quite common. The colour of stools depends on your diet, so as you eat different foods at different times, they go through the bowel after each other, and you can get stool from one meal followed by stool from the next.Also, as they go through the colon water is removed and they get firmer and sometimes darker. The first stool you pass has been in the colon longest and it's followed by stuff that has been there less time and is therefore softer.
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Thanks for the quick reply. Just for clarification...you don't mean two different stools do you? The case that I am talking about is one stool that is two different colours and textures. 80% medium brown and neither soft nor hard and 20% really dark brown and somewhat harder.Thanks
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It doesn't really matter, because they go through the intestines and get divided into separate stools late in the process, without reference to any change in composition.