I had a colonoscopy done in 2011,and dr found polyps he removed. One was malignant. In 2012 did a repeat and dr said didn’t find anything. He said I could come back to do in ten years. But I read that with polyps I’m supposed to do it every 5 years!? I’ve not seen him since then, and I’ve only gone to local clinics these past yrs when I got cold/etc. so I don’t have a primary dr I’d seen in last 3yrs. Any thoughts?
My doc says every five years, and my polyps were benign.
My mother died from colon cancer, so I’m a little sensitive about this question.
How many polyps? Here’s what I’ve read: If just a few polyps, that’s common and not to worry about. (But if they actually biopsied one and found it malignant, I’d worry.) But in some cases, they find a whole forest of polyps, and those are the cases to worry about.
So I’ve read somewhere.
But here’s something that I find confusing:
They have a screening test where they take a small fecal sample and test it for traces of blood. (Which means that if you have a hemorrhoid, you probably get a positive.) They did this every year.
One year, it came back positive. So then they scheduled me for a full colonoscopy. They found a few polyps and took them out.
Now here’s what confused me: After that, they said I didn’t need to have another colonoscopy for another ten years AND they didn’t need to do those annual screenings any more either.
I’d have thought, once they find some polyps, they would want to do at least that screening every year. But they didn’t. Go figure.
The thoughts are that you should be seeing a primary care doctor.
One thing is to check with your insurance company to see what restrictions they have on how frequently they will pay.
Age 46, 0.6mm benign polyp, told to go back after 5 years.
Grandfather had bowel cancer and my father had/has polyps, and he also started screenings early, on a 5 year schedule. He’s about to age out of screening since the screening becomes more risky than the disease. He’ll be very elderly in a few years.
So I think it’s a combination of your family history and your situation.
Ok thanks for input🙂 I will call insurance too I forgotten about asking about coverage
I had one 8 years ago and they found a few benign polyps, no cancer. Was told to come back in 10 years. I was just in the hospital for an unrelated incident so my insurance maxed out for the year so I asked my primary care physician if I could get a colonoscopy this year since I had polyps last time and the recommendation used to be five years. He told me to contact the surgeon who performed the colonospony last time and ask him. The surgeon told me that he could not justify it with the insurance because I did not have a cancerous one last time. So if I were you I’d ask the surgeon who performed the last one.
What was the precise pathology? I’m certain the report says more than just ‘malignant’. Get that info, along with the number of polyps, the precise pathology on each one, any previous colonoscopy hx with details, family hx for colon cancer in your primary relatives, then maybe we can cone in on things.
Had my first one last year. They found a couple polyps and removed them (I do not remember the details). Anyway, they said to come back in 5 years so that’s what I am going to do.
That’s me, exactly.
Had a routine phone review with my GP today, and he’s listed me for a repeat colonoscopy: it’s been five years. It may take many months to get in, because of Covid and the backlog.
But I’m at home in the UK, so no worries about insurance etc.
So: year 0 you had a malignant polyp removed, year 1 you had a clean followup, and doc said “10 years” after that?
That’s not what I would have expected.
I had a couple of precancerous polyps removed back in 2010 and was told to do a followup in 1-2 years. That time around they found even more of the same sort - I wound up having 3 procedures that year as some of them were large enough that they couldn’t remove them entirely the first attempt - plus I kept growing more of them.
After that I was on a 1-year schedule, then a 2-year schedule, now it’s every 3 years.
My older brother had one a few weeks after my first one. His was clean - but just based on family history (“Thanks, sis!”) he was told his repeat schedule was bumped up to every 7 years vs 10.
So - I’m really surprised by the 10 year period you were given, Maybe there was something specific about your case that they were not worried about a recurrence, but I’d definitely be asking questions.
Fortunately, I’ve never run into any issues with insurance. In fact usually it’s 100% covered as a preventive procedure - I guess they don’t look at their records and say “this is too often, treat it as a regular thing vs preventive care”.
Having a doctor say to me “I wouldn’t have wanted to see you go 5 years without having that treated” (when talking about the prognosis of someone NOT having those polyps yanked when I did) was rather sobering.
Also, it depends a lot on your lifestyle. If you are someone who smokes, drinks, eats a lot of red meat or processed meat, you will have a lot more need for colonoscopies than someone who doesn’t, since your colon-cancer risk will be significantly higher.
I had my first one nine years ago and they found nothing. They said to have another one in 5 years.
Last year (four years later) I had to have one when I was in the hospital for internal bleeding (caused by a bad reaction with my blood thinners and a steroid I was prescribed for poison ivy). So after I had been off the blood thinners for five days, they did the endoscope thing down the throat, and then two days later the colonoscopy.
Actually it should have been the day after but they had decided I wasn’t clean enough inside after drinking that nasty gallon of stuff the previous night, so I had to drink that stuff AGAIN the next night. Let me tell you, one gallon is hard enough, but to have to drink it again the next night? I was almost in tears 
Anyway–came back clean and no polyps or anything. So they said I was set for 10 years.
Thanks for the input. I am going to call the gasterontologist’s office. He is still working there with his team and hadn’t retired yet. And I don’t even know if I’m still in his database. As an aside I called my insurance and they said it wouldn’t be screening anymore, and would be considered diagnostic, even if I had polyps 9yrs ago. So that meant insurance wouldn’t pay out 100%. Anyways, next step was to check w/my dr.
Yup, the gallon of nasty stuff is the worst part of it. Here it’s called ‘Klear-prep’. Isn’t there a pleasanter alternative?
This will be my fifth five-yearly colonoscopy: never a particularly unpleasant procedure, though it IS a PITA.
We also get the annual shit-on-a-stick screening (past age 60). Never had a bad result, though, but it feels strange to put the envelope in the mail!
For anyone who is apprehensive and hesitant to do the whole colonoscopy thing, there is a simple kit that you can get from your doctor to test for blood in your stool. The thing about colorectal cancers is that they bleed. You cannot really tell by looking at your poop, unless it is already bad.
So you get the kit. Take a poop. Swish the little test tab around in the water before flushing, and mail it off. The test can usually tell if there is blood present in your poop. If there is, then you get the colonoscopy. If not, test again next year or so.
Not the annual screening test we get!
- Poo on a piece of toilet paper.
- Dab one end of the poo with the stick.
- Wipe it on the patch on the the card, and fold the tab over.
- Repeat 2 and 3 on the other end of the poo with a second stick,
- On second and third days repeat the process.
- Seal it up and put it in the post box.
- Wait five days for the result.
DONT use poo that’s been in the water!
Think your job is bad? How’d you like the be the person at the lab who gets to open all those mailed-in poo samples?
I had one 5 years ago. They found 3 polyps, two benign and one that had the potential of becoming malignant. They scheduled me for another colonoscopy in five years. That will be next Wednesday. Like others have said, its not the procedure that is so bad, it’s the drinking of all that clean-you-out fluid and resulting cramps, etc. that is so unpleasant. Sigh.
I assume I will be having one every 5 years.