A few months ago I started having bowel movements that started as stuck together dark, hard pellets that transitioned into soft, normal stool after a couple inches. This was followed up with bleeding but the doctor found a fissure and two small internal hemorrhoids. I assume these are the causes but the doctor never specified. He basically listened to me for a minute, checked my back side and said he needed to do a colonoscopy to rule out a tumor because of my mixed stool as he pushed me out the door. He only mentioned IBS as a possibility after I told him I had health anxiety and wanted to know if I should be worried. He said not if I get a colonoscopy and that the odds were in my favor it was IBS.

Since the visit I've tried increasing my fiber which has slightly softened the hard pellets but now they are more mixed into the whole stool rather than just the first part. I cannot make them go away.

I'm trying to reason through this since the doctor was no help and the test is still weeks away. If it was a tumor blocking passage, wouldn't that probably lead to some full on constipation or pain from a backup? I still go the same number of times as usual, still pass the same amount, have no pain, no weight loss. Just the hard stools. But if it is IBS, why would only a few pellets be hard while everything else is soft?