Have you noticed tiny red dots against the toilet bowl after a bowel movement or urine output and wondered what’s wrong?

Imagine turning towards the toilet to look inside after having a bowel movement or releasing some urine, and on the inner portion of the toilet bowl you see a few red dots, spots or specks.

This will make you think you just released some blood. And that may very well be the case — until you use a tissue to wipe at the red spots to get a closer look—and realize that they won’t come off the porcelain.

This is what happened to me. At the gym I stood to wipe myself after urinating, and noticed two dark red tiny spots against the part of the toilet that’s under the water. They looked like little droplets of blood.

Toilet paper in hand, I wiped at one so that I could examine it on the paper. It didn’t budge; it didn’t even smear.

Blood that just come out of me would have easily transferred to the tissue paper.

I flushed the toilet. The tiny red spot, and the other one, remained in place, not budging or breaking up. I flushed the toilet again and they remained fixed on the porcelain.

Conclusion

They were there before I entered the stall and had nothing to do with my body.

Specks of blood coming out of your anus, urethra or vagina will not firmly plant themselves against porcelain like tiny specks of paint will. They’ll come right off with tissue paper and smear on it.

So next time you use a toilet, make sure it’s free of paper and get a good look at the porcelain to see if there are any pre-existing red specks or anything else that might fool you into thinking it’s your blood or other worrisome discharge.

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.