I’ll try to make this as low-TMI as possible. I had a colonoscopy yesterday to rule out some issues. Thankfully, everything checked out okay and I don’t have to do this again for ten years. The thing is, the procedure hurt a lot. I thought the groovy IV drugs I was getting were supposed to make me fairly insensible, or at least provide some nice amnesia of the procedure, but uh, not so much. The description of the procedure in Yahoo health said, “You may have cramping or feel brief, sharp pain when the scope is advanced or air is blown into your colon.” Well, that “brief, sharp” pain was intense enough that I remember moaning and crying out a lot through the IV Versed and Fentanyl they gave me. I remember hearing the nurses telling me to take deep breaths.
Afterward, I asked the doctor if it was normal for me to have been fussing so during the procedure and he said that my colon had some difficult curves. They were pretty difficult from my position, too, Doc.
It’s not serious ongoing pain, but my abdomen and back are very sore (like muscle soreness) today. (My actual butt feels ok, though. )
All I can think is that my noted high tolerance for pain medication came into play here. I hate telling doctors about this because I’ve gotten the stank-eye-of-“potential-drug-seeker” before, but I guess I’m going to have to start doing it as a matter of course.
I tell ya, this experience has really been a disincentive to follow up on any nagging little health issue in future. I’m going to have to be bleeding out my eyes and coughing up a lung before I go to the doctor and ask if he thinks it might be a problem.
I don’t know what to say about your anesthesia problems, but if you’re bleeding out the eyes and coughing up a lung because of a problem with your ass, there’s probably not much a doctor can do for you anyway. Just sayin’…
I’ve had 2 or 3 colonoscopies and a spigmoidoscopy (much more unpleasant), they are a bit uncomfortable, but consider the alternative. They can easily save your life.
I think the most uncomfortable procedure I’ve ever had was a lower GI series (do the still do those?), they pump you full, from the bottom up, of a radioactive substance and you have to hold it in while they take about a thousand xrays (OK, it seems like a thousand) while you fight the cramping and the mother of all urges to hit the toilet.
No, it should not. I recently had a colonoscopy, part of a follow-up I do every few years as part of my treatment for IBD, and while I would not say it’s pleasant, it is by no means painful. In fact, I usually get the memory-loss effect and don’t remember it at all. However the one time they didn’t use the memory-loss drugs, I remember feeling odd sensations and a litle discomfort, but not pain.
My friend has had one–though I don’t know why; she is only 40 and I thought women didn’t need to have them routinely until age 50…Can someone clarify?
She said it was extremely painful and she doesn’t want to go through it again.
I had a flex sig at 21 or 22 because I have (to put it delicately) a “sensitive tummy.” Eventual diagnosis was Irritable Bowl Syndrome, but they wanted to rule out cancer.
I was chronically constipated – on one memorable occasion for three weeks until magnesium citrate was ordered – and bleeding a lot when I did manage to poop. With a family history of colorectal cancer, that was enough for my doctor to recommend a colonoscopy at age 39 years, 10 months.
I believe you mean sigmoidoscopy. We call it a “flex sig”–for flexible sigmoidoscopy.
Here, I believe you mean a barium enema. Barium is not radioactive. It is radiopaque. In other words, it blocks x-rays. With your colon full of barium, the radiologists can see what it looks like.
There are two basic types of barium enemas: A Full Column (a “full”) or an Air Contrast Barium Enema (ACBE). In the former, a barium solution in introduced in an amount sufficient to completely fill the colon. In the second, approximately 500 ml’s of a different type of barium solution are introduced, and air is used to ‘push’ it along in order to coat the inside of the colon.
The ACBE is usually the more uncomfortable of the two because of the amount of air used to push the barium along as well as to distend the colon, but it does provide better pictures.
My procedure was called a routine colonoscopy and I didn’t feel a thing, didn’t remember a thing, and had no residual discomfort whatsoever. I was as good as dead throughout the procedure. I think you need more drugs. Or better drugs. Or more better drugs.
My dad’s procedure yielded the same results, except he had a polyp removed. No residual pain from that, either.
I had one last year and I was totally out and felt nothing. I do remember, as they were getting ready to put me under, they told me I wouldn’t feel anything and that this was some kind of new kind of anaesthesia. At the time, I thought they said it just to reassure me. But maybe something really has changed recently re: the way they anesthetize people for this procedure. If you have to have it done again, you can probably check with your regular doctor and find out which colonoscopy doctors use better medication.
From what I understand, there are a number of different ways to anesthetize the patient during a colonoscopy. These range from a bit of IV valium to much deeper anesthesia using something like propofol.
The deeper levels of anesthesia require an anesthesiologist or a nurse anesthetist to be present, because maintaining them safely is a specialized and full-time job. If they’re not present, you can’t fully knock the patient out, and a conscious colonoscopy is quite unpleasant to some people.
Did you have an anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist present?
I have mine scheduled for January 30th, and because I am having some issues with heartburn, they are also going to do an EGD (go down my esophagus and have a looksee).
Two things I will insist on:
No general anesthesia (if I don’t come out of it, it’s the equivalent of a lethal injection)
Change the damn tube. :eek:
I’m 56, and my doc has been trying to get me to have this done for three years, but I guess I’m like most guys: too chicken to find out if something is wrong.
My first colonoscopy procedure, following bloody stools and a quick sigmoidoscopy, was painless and they fortunately snipped and removed two precancerous polyps. I was conscious enough at the end of it to watch the 'scope’s view of the last couple of feet of my colon on the wall monitor. It looked just like Katie Couric’s, BTW. They even gave me color photos of the two polyps, pre-removal.
But when I went home and went to bed that night, I awoke to the most painful abdomen that I had ever had. I could not even bend to get off the bed to go to the bathroom, but I did, eventually, make that move.
(There may still be a more detailed narration of that job in the SDMB archives of a couple of years ago. It got at least one “WOW!”, as I remember.)
Prior to the second one, I told the (different) proctologist about that and he felt that that had probably been caused by the air that is blown into the colon to expand it. No pain or polyps resulted from the second or third oscopies. The last one, though, involved a self-administered enema as part of the purging. That was interesting, never having had one before that I remember.
I’ll have no problem about having future scopings when the need or schedule arises. The first one probably saved my life 11 years ago.
I suppose it was a nurse-anesthesiologist? It was the same nurse or assistant* who did my intake and wheeled me into the room who injected the drug into the IV port in my hand. She was also the one who helped reposition me during the procedure, so I guess she was monitoring my vitals and such, but I don’t know that she had special anesthesiology training.
I didn’t see her nameplate, so I don’t even know for sure that she was a RN. She administered the Versed and Fentanyl, but the IV port was placed by someone else before I went to the procedure room. His nameplate did specifically say RN.
I think the important thing I’ve learned from this is that I need more drugs.
I’ve had the sigmoid-thing and a colonoscopy (with polyp removal) and neither were painful. I think all our colons have “sharp curves”. How else could 30 feet of guts fit into our bodies?
I’ve had a colonoscopy and so has the boyfriend. Neither one of us remembers a thing about the procedure. When I had mine done, I had no idea it had happened and neither did he. I remember looking up and seeing him and asking, “when the hell are they goin’ to do this” only to have him tell me it was over and when he had his, he said pretty much the same thing to me only to have me tell him it was over.
The pig out at the Chinese buffet afterwards both of us remember.
That wouldn’t have been a CRNA (certified registered nurse anethistist). A CRNA wouldn’t have done intake or repositioned you - just done the IV and monitored you during surgery.
Yup. Sounds like the OP had light sedation, as opposed to true anesthesia. Also, the skill of the doctor matters a lot. I’ve had the opportunity to shadow a very skilled gastroenterologist while he was doing procedures, and he could do a full colonoscopy in ten minutes flat, with minimal discomfort to the patient. (He had a nurse anesthetist in the theater with him at all times, so all colonoscopies were done under true anesthesia. He also had a few little things that he did to make it much more comfortable for the patient, such as pumping out the gas used to expand the colon before removing the scope.)
On the other hand, a resident still trying to learn the skill can take over an hour to do the procedure. And it’s not going to be pleasant.
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