5 ms·

Thank you for sharing. I'll share a story to help destigmatize. A few months ago I was taken completely out of commission by GI symptoms, just hours and hours

Thank you for sharing. I'll share a story to help destigmatize. A few months ago I was taken completely out of commission by GI symptoms, just hours and hours of pain and vomiting. It turned out I had an infection, but the infection caused there to be shapes on my intestine that apparently looked vaguely like Crohn's disease on the MRI (or something, I'm not a radiologist, my understanding is pretty vague. There were bubbles in my intestine from bacterial respiration). So I got a colonoscopy. And it turns out I'm fine. Drinking the prep isn't my favorite thing, but it's a task that gets done. If two gallons of salt water and a trip to the doctor is all that stands between you and seeing your daughter's wedding, make it happen and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Everybody poops and everybody gets a colonoscopy. I got hemorrhoids afterwards too. Cutting corn kernels (if you know, you know) out of my diet made them go away. Afterwards I could eat them again. Life is strange.

Zircom 3y ago
The prep is even easier these days, my last colonoscopy earlier this year it was a few pills and then just drinking a lot of normal water.
- hef19898 3y ago
  I vividly remember the old "disgusting powder downed with 4-5 litres of water in two hours" followed by thebsame time on the toilette. Nowadys, while still not delicious, the stuff is acceptable taste-wise, takes all of 1 litre of liquid and after three trips to the bathroom you're good. No idea ehy people are so afraid of that. Ifbyou have nothong, fine. If you do, it migjt very well save your live or very serious surgery down the road. After all, whatever it is, it wont go away just because it remains undiagnosed. After all, a falling tree in the woods without anyone next to it still makes the same noise.
youngtaff 3y ago
Yeh, the prep is the worst… Might be the skill of the surgeon who did my three colonoscopies (and the fentanyl sedation) but I didn’t fund the actual procedure too bad It’s quite interesting seeing you own insides and the colonoscope they used for me had a transmitter the the head so you could see it’s shape as it snaked through the colon
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I find the prep really hard to take. It doesn't taste nice, and it involves drinking much more fluid than I'm used to. I had a sigmoidoscopy about 20 years ago; instead of laxatives, they gave me an enema, whose effects I found surprisingly swift and violent. An enema won't work for a colonoscopy, because it only cleans out the sigmoid colon. The colonoscopy is also extremely unpleasant; not exactly painful, but it made me groan repeatedly. The procedure lasts about an hour. I wasn't allowed sedatives, because I drink a lot; and no gas either, because something something, like I was going home under my own steam. I've had three colonoscopies in the last five years, two last year (the second was to check up on the sites of the plaque removals from the first. They're threatening to send me for another check in January. I'm not yet sure if I will comply - I'm feeling overtreated. I was sent for these procedures as a result of the self-administered fecal blood test, that everyone over (I think) 60 gets on the NHS. These were not screening tests. > Might be the skill of the surgeon My procedures were performed by a specialist colonoscopist, supported by a roomful of nurses and technicians (about 5 of them, I think). Plaque removal might be termed "surgery", but it's quite a long way from the scalpels-and-forceps type. The machine is very cool, and probably very expensive; in addition to the camera, it carries a wire loop for removing plaques, and another device for tattooing the sites of removed plaques. And they track the location of the tube with a continuous X-ray. But I guess most of the cost is the staff.
  - greedo 3y ago
    I had rectal cancer 18 years ago, and part of my followup was annual colonoscopies for the first decade. So I'm pretty familiar with the procedure, at least how my thoracic surgeon performed them. Yes, the prep can be unpleasant. I tolerated it because of how close I had come to dying, and really didn't want my ticket punched. But the procedure itself was never unpleasant. When you say you weren't allowed sedatives because "I drink a lot;" were you referring to alcohol? My surgeon typically used propofol to induce twilight sedation. It was the best sleep I've ever had, though I understand that I never lost consciousness. The colonoscopy has NEVER been painful for me. I would recommend finding a new doctor. Doing a colonoscopy without sedation sounds barbaric.

Zircom 3y ago

The prep is even easier these days, my last colonoscopy earlier this year it was a few pills and then just drinking a lot of normal water.

hef19898 3y ago
I vividly remember the old "disgusting powder downed with 4-5 litres of water in two hours" followed by thebsame time on the toilette. Nowadys, while still not delicious, the stuff is acceptable taste-wise, takes all of 1 litre of liquid and after three trips to the bathroom you're good. No idea ehy people are so afraid of that. Ifbyou have nothong, fine. If you do, it migjt very well save your live or very serious surgery down the road. After all, whatever it is, it wont go away just because it remains undiagnosed. After all, a falling tree in the woods without anyone next to it still makes the same noise.

youngtaff 3y ago

Yeh, the prep is the worst… Might be the skill of the surgeon who did my three colonoscopies (and the fentanyl sedation) but I didn’t fund the actual procedure too bad It’s quite interesting seeing you own insides and the colonoscope they used for me had a transmitter the the head so you could see it’s shape as it snaked through the colon

denton-scratch 3y ago
I find the prep really hard to take. It doesn't taste nice, and it involves drinking much more fluid than I'm used to. I had a sigmoidoscopy about 20 years ago; instead of laxatives, they gave me an enema, whose effects I found surprisingly swift and violent. An enema won't work for a colonoscopy, because it only cleans out the sigmoid colon. The colonoscopy is also extremely unpleasant; not exactly painful, but it made me groan repeatedly. The procedure lasts about an hour. I wasn't allowed sedatives, because I drink a lot; and no gas either, because something something, like I was going home under my own steam. I've had three colonoscopies in the last five years, two last year (the second was to check up on the sites of the plaque removals from the first. They're threatening to send me for another check in January. I'm not yet sure if I will comply - I'm feeling overtreated. I was sent for these procedures as a result of the self-administered fecal blood test, that everyone over (I think) 60 gets on the NHS. These were not screening tests. > Might be the skill of the surgeon My procedures were performed by a specialist colonoscopist, supported by a roomful of nurses and technicians (about 5 of them, I think). Plaque removal might be termed "surgery", but it's quite a long way from the scalpels-and-forceps type. The machine is very cool, and probably very expensive; in addition to the camera, it carries a wire loop for removing plaques, and another device for tattooing the sites of removed plaques. And they track the location of the tube with a continuous X-ray. But I guess most of the cost is the staff.
- greedo 3y ago
  I had rectal cancer 18 years ago, and part of my followup was annual colonoscopies for the first decade. So I'm pretty familiar with the procedure, at least how my thoracic surgeon performed them. Yes, the prep can be unpleasant. I tolerated it because of how close I had come to dying, and really didn't want my ticket punched. But the procedure itself was never unpleasant. When you say you weren't allowed sedatives because "I drink a lot;" were you referring to alcohol? My surgeon typically used propofol to induce twilight sedation. It was the best sleep I've ever had, though I understand that I never lost consciousness. The colonoscopy has NEVER been painful for me. I would recommend finding a new doctor. Doing a colonoscopy without sedation sounds barbaric.