My 3rd in 15 years, plus a sigmoidoscopy 5 years before that. As usual, the day of starvation (I mean fasting) was the worst part for me. The prep solution and the results were only annoying. My results (3 quite small polyps, 3 years since the previous procedure) were light enough to give me another 3 years before the next one (I was hoping for better, but oh well). Possibly because I am 75, the doctor added the proviso “depending on how you feel at the time” which I think is to allow the possibility that I might be too feeble by then to withstand the process. I have mixed feelings about that – I don’t want to have to do it again, but I don’t want to be too feeble to withstand it either. If I can grow 3 polyps, even small ones, in 3 years, I had better be prepared to go through with it again.
When my husband picked me up, I had him stop at the nearest Burger King where I got a greasy breakfast sandwich and what they call hash browns. It was heaven.
Congratulations on your latest survival/accomplishment!
I had one that nearly did me in. They tore my colon and gave me peritonitis, which wasn’t diagnosed for more than a day. I needed emergency surgery and the doctors told my family it could go either way, “we’ll do our best”, etc etc.
My dad had his last one at 80 and was told that was his last one because the risk of tearing gets too high. Because of him, and my own polyps (fortunately only 1 each time), next year will be my third and I’m in my mid-50s.
Nope. It just happens in one in about 850 procedures. I do have an elevated risk of colon cancer, and my father’s father died from it. But this is reason to keep getting colonoscopies, not a reason why they might be prone to disaster.
I searched and went with this thread as the OP Roderick had done it before (as have I) and didn’t want to resurrect a zombie,
The first one I had in the USA in 2015 was under general anaesthesia: say the alphabet backwards from Z - “Z Y..” and suddenly I was ready to go. Not allowed to drive, so mom did.
Here. this time in the UK, I have two options: N20 (and soon as the nurse on the phone talked about whip-it’s I said I knew Nitrous from (Grateful Dead) concerts and either I’d find someone with a medical grade tank to fill balloons or forego. Whip-it’s (the little cartridges) gave me headaches.
Other option I had sounded like the other option I had for wisdom tooth removal. I needed to be able to drive so went with local and the apparent grass-to-cow-to-milk length of time for an empty CVS to produce like 8 vicodin pills. The other option - I can’t recall the common name of it - was probably a high dose of some strong diazepam as the people I saw who got it basically had to be tied to a string else they’d float away, marvelling at the clouds.
I dunno how much or if there’s enough Valium I could take to where you’d need to tie me to a string - yet no matter what exactly the other option is, I need to drive to Poole and I can hang around an hour or two yet will drive back. So it’s nitrous (or as I recall “sweet air”) from dentists (though never used it except from a balloon) or the cannot-drive-for-a-while drug option.
Anyone with experience with these options? And I assume I will be relatively okay (pain-free) to drive for an hour after perhaps a lunch and an hour or two?
The stuff didn’t particularly make me laugh, or happy, or like I could handle great pain. Yet that’s my only choice. Apparently I can have a mask and huff away at it. Is there a strategy for this? Lots to begin with and then easing off or hitting the stuff whenever there is discomfort?
It’s funny thing, I was looking like mad for this thread yesterday because I needed to know when I had this done (for a different medical procedure) and I couldn’t even remember that I had started my own thread. I did find it, finally.
Anyway, the results were better than I thought in the OP. The doctor called me the next day, and the three small polyps were of the definitely absolutely benign kind, and so he gave me 5 years for the next one instead of 3. And he still said “we’ll see” at that time about whether I should have that one done.
There are several threads on colonoscopies, I picked this one.
I had my first (long procrastinated) one Monday Sep 22.
My sister recently had rectal cancer found (thankfully stage 1) and that got me convinced to finally do it
Prep wasn’t as bad as I worried about. I had the “drink this big jug” (half Sunday night, half Monday morning) option. I added lemonade mix. Some chills Saturday night and plenty of bathroom trips but none were long or particularly stressful. My last solid food was Saturday at 6PM (I actually had until midnight – Saturday was restricted). I made lime jello and had chicken broth (heated up helped with chills). I did score a perfect 9 on the bowel prep assessment.
Luckily found a ex co-worker who works near the hospital to drive me. Could just drop me off and pick me up (written instructions said they had to be there but nurse said it was ok they way we did it)
One second I heard “medicine starting now, you may feel burning” Next thing I remember it was over.
One small (5mm) sessile polyp found – some diverticula and non bleeding hemorrhoids.
Based on the number, size, type and family history my next is scheduled in 5 years.