It’s the colon cancer screen kit heavily advertised on television, and I had one delivered several days ago and it’s sitting there in my living room right now. I’ll probably send it back later this week. :o
Has anyone else done this, and what was your experience? Yeah, I’m a wimp and opted for this instead of a colonoscopy.
Reported for forum change.
Moderator Action
Since this is seeking personal experiences, let’s move it to IMHO (from GQ).
Never mind, misread the OP.
I haven’t used it, I’d like to try it but my doctor won’t let me.
My insurance company has sent me the test for the past two years.
I had the full test with a scope in 2009.
The current test takes a few seconds. Jam the plastic stick into the brown log. Put it in the holder and mail.
I’m waiting for this year’s results. I mailed it in three weeks ago.
I wouldn’t want to be the lab tech. 
Processing a few hundred of these a day wouldn’t be fun.
Just get over yourself and sign up for a colonoscopy. When you do, there are approximately one million threads on this board with pertinent advice. I’ve had three. No big deal. The doc does enough of them every day to pay for his/her vacation home in Vail, and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your ass.
Just my unsolicited advice.
If you have no family history of colorectal cancer, and your doctor is cool with it, then who am I to say no.
However, my mother died of colon cancer, which is about the biggest warning sign there is, so I’m not comfortable with any halfway measure.
Many insurance companies routinely send the test to their customers.
I never asked for it. It arrived in the mail last year. Then again this year.
I still intend to get another colonoscopy. I have GERD and they scoped both ends last time. I had a lot of irritation & scarring in my esophagus and stomach. The other end was fine. No polyps.
Meanwhile the simple poop on a stick test is reassuring.
Imagine being the UPS driver who has to deliver these. :o 
I need someone to help me understand my HMO’s protocol:
For several years, my HMO sent the DIY mail-order kit every year.
One year I had a major bout of prolonged constipation for no apparent reason, whereupon the doc ordered up a real colonoscopy. Results were basically good: Just two smallish polyps found, both removed. (From what I understand, that’s nothing. In the “bad” cases they would find a whole forest of them.)
And what has happened since? For whatever reason, once one has the REAL THING, they no longer do the mail-order tests, but instead tell me to have the full colonoscopy done again once every ten years.
Is it because you’re older now? The annual recommendation kicks in after you’re 40, as I recall.
No, they’re saying I now should get a real colonoscopy after TEN years, and no more annual DIY mail-order kits in the meantime.
One point the doctor mentioned is that these polyps grow really really slowly, so after taking out a few, there’s no real urgency to check again for another ten years. Okay, that makes sense enough.
But why no more annual DIY kits in the meantime? They certainly can’t be very expensive tests to run every year.
First off some are confusing the inexpensive annual fecal immunochemical test (FIT) with the newer, heavily advertised, and much more expensive Cologuard.
FIT is yearly, has a fairly low false positive rate, and done yearly will be not quite but almost as good as the gold standard of colonoscopy. Cologuard is tentatively every three years and has a higher false positive rate. Positives in either result in going to gold standard, colonoscopy, which is both screening and diagnostic. Cologuard will miss fewer than FIT as a one time test but testing is not a one time test. It is not clear that it every three years will miss fewer than annual FIT. It is likely to have more false positives.
Annual FITs once you’ve done the gold standard are more likely to result in false positives and an earlier than needed additional colonoscopy than a new true positive.
Someone at higher risk because of past polyps or family history really should go with gold standard.
There is no reason to believe that Cologuard every three adds any advantage over annual FITs. It does however cost much more. Many who start in either stool testing arm will shift over to colonoscopy due to the false positive rates.
I understand that Cologuard costs about $600, which in my case will be covered 100% by my insurance. 
If you’ve had a colonoscopy does the poop test add anything? Because I have had the former, but the lab still keeps giving me the latter. (And I just throw them away, and no one seems to care. Seems wasteful.)
Despite my screen name, IANAD IRL. That said, I do have experience with Cologuard and have done a substantial amount of research. I think the question is “Why do an invasive procedure of any kind when it’s not necessary?”
A good, well cited article on Cologuard at gastro.org says, in part:
In my age bracket there is a 6% chance of a false positive, in which case one schedules a colonoscopy. Conversely, 94% of the time the invasive procedure is not needed. YMMV.
My point is that you’re now ten years *older *than you were… um… ten years ago.
No! Say it ain’t so, ThelmaLou! 
I think, now, that DSeid’s post, above, must be the right answer. The DIY tests I had been given previously were those cheap FIT tests, not the double-plus-expensive thing. Once I had the genuine stick-it-up-my-rear test, they told me at the time that I should thereafter have a real colonoscopy once every ten years, and NOT continue to have the annual DIY FIT test in the meantime.
DSeid makes this intriguing remark, without further explanation:
Why would having a colonoscopy increase the false-positive rate of subsequent FIT tests?
Here’s my speculative interpretation. DSeid, am I on the right track?
I guess that, having had a full colonoscopy that finds nothing, or finds very little, then the likelihood of actually having a problem in the next ten years is much reduced. I take this to mean that subsequent FIT tests don’t have a greater chance of positive results, but only that those positive results have a greater chance of being false. Am I thinking a-right here?
I also found that line interesting. Is Senegoid on the right track?
Unfortunately, “What can BROWN do for you?” has been retired as the slogan. 