There was a recent news article on a new non-invasive procedure which uses some sort of imaging machine to peer into your nether regions.
And you thought you were surly *before * the procedure? 
Yes but as I understand it the prep is the same and that is the tough part. Also if they see polyps on the vertual colonoscopy the you have to come back another time for a real colonoscopy for polyp removal which means another prep.
I’ve had 8 colonoscopys in the last twelve years. Motivation is alot better when your Grandfather, Mother and cousin are all dead of colon cancer and on your first one at age 40 they find a mass too big to remove without surgery. Makes drinking that stuff much eaiser.
My Mom had a colonoscopy today..always a nerve wracking thing, since her father died of colon cancer. Happily, they found no polyps. Just some Diverticulosis. No symptoms, no treatment needed.
My GP tells me I’m the only patient he has who ASKS for a colonoscopy, but says even with my family history, I shouldn’t start until I hit 45.
He did tell me that if I reported blood in my stool, he would start at 40.
-D/a
Heh - I remember you once posting “trying to decide if I’ve seen blood or not ;)” or something like that.
Eh, I was surly before the procedure. After I woke up, I was in an excellent mood, as I wasn’t worried about it any more, and I knew that I could eat lunch.
My friend L. has had a few of these done. She said you don’t have to finish the entire jug of prep-nasty-crap. Not that she could finish it anyway, since it came back up the final time she tried to get it down.
Preach it.
The new internist today said that he’s extra vigilant about pushing them (where my old doc wasn’t), especially after going to the ER one time to see a patient with rectal bleeding. Huge mass, spread to liver… :(.
Yep…I still haven’t decided. 
I have a few months before I hit 40.
-D/a
I had mine yesterday.
The half-lytely solution was like Gatorade’s sickly second cousin twice-removed. I drank through a straw placed way back along the tongue, as advised, and it went down a little easier. Truly, drinking that stuff was the worst part of the whole thing.
The surgery center was staffed by nice nurses, and once I put on the hospital gown and laid down, my active part was over except for turning on my side. It was nice to rest after being up pooping all night! I vaguely remember the procedure the way you have vague memories of a dream the next day. I remember a little pain at one point, but nothing I haven’t felt before when I get a bit of intestinal cramping.
I only really picked up and looked at my discharge papers this morning. I see written on them: “redundant colon”. Dr. Google says it’s a normal anatomical variation. Anyone else have that?
I had one last Friday, and as everyone says, the prep was the worst part. And by prep, I mean the fasting and drinking that halflytely crapola. I was really, really hungry and all I could think about was food the whole damn day (and of course I woke up at 1:00am hungry the day of the fast). Also, if that was halflytely, og save me from wholelytely. The last couple of gallons of that stuff made me pretty gaggy and I had to really struggle not to barf it up. I didn’t mind the jet-assisted pooping - it only lasted a couple of hours and there was no cramping so no biggie.
The procedure was fun - I watched the pretty pictures on the screen and made smart-ass comments until my doctor got tired of the running commentary and said “Let’s do another 10 micrograms of Fentanyl” to the anesthesiologist and out I went.
My next stop was a breakfast place for bacon and pancakes.
At my last scheduling of a colonoscopy, the nurse gave me a choice of preps. I said I did NOT want the “GoLytely.” I detailed all the horror the first time I took that stuff.
I said I only got about 2/3 the carton down, before I started throwing up. I told the nurse it was my body saying, “NO MORE!”
The nurse patted me on the arm and said, “Honey, that stuff makes EVERYBODY throw up!”
Gahhhhh
~VOW
Golytely (wholelytely) is even worse than you suspect. Words cannot describe how bad it is. It’s not quite as bad as the barium stuff I had to drink once…but it is incredibly bad.
I described the taste of GoLytely to my husband thusly:
It’s like licking a galvanized bucket.
The barium glop, IMHO, was a picnic compared to GoLytely. I told myself it was like a big dose of Milk of Magnesia, or Mylanta.
The GoLytely? You have to keep going BACK to that huge carton, and it laughed in your face, saying, “You gotta drink ALL of this shit!”
~VOW
My question is: why the hell can’t they give you a combination of the electrolytes in a pill, plus the PEG + water mixture separately?
Everything I hear suggests that the Gatorade + Miralax mixture is more tolerable than GoLytely anyway - if they want you to have the electrolytes, they could just separate them further by letting you drink Miralax in some juice.
I’m on the low-fiber diet starting today (though I cheated - had Raisin Bran for breakfast… that plus adding some normal Miralax later today should reduce the “shit-a-brick” effect from the last time around). I’m seriously considering a make-your-own Gatorade replacement - as far as I can tell, Gatorade is just for the sugars, the salt, and the potassium, right? This site talks about how to replace that. Bad idea?
Just survived #3. I decided I wasn’t drinking no damn Gatorade this time, so I did a LOT of number crunching, and found several sites that described how to make your own sports drink (with salt, and salt substitute for the potassium - exactly the same chemical that’s in Gatorade).
The diluted-fruit-juice version wasn’t good - better than Gatorade (less cloying anyway), but tasted more metallic. The Propel Zero (flavored water with artificial sweetener) was better. It was hard to get little-enough potassium in that; even an eighth of a teaspoon is a bit too much for a 24-ounce bottle. Will have to work on that for the next time around. It might be easier to empty a few bottles of it into a larger jug and add the salt + potassium chloride to that.
I mentioned having done this, to the doctor, and he didn’t freak. So, at least I have a Gatorade alternative (and my version had more sodium than Gatorade, though admittedly less than Golytely and their ilk).
So, for folks looking at this delightful procedure, and given the Gatorade + Miralax (or Gatorade + Osmo-Prep) version, there are alternatives. Use your own judgment, and at your own risk.
As before… the effects hit me again AFTER the damn procedure. Note to self: when stopping at a restaurant for lunch on the way home… get takeout. A sudden rush to the bathroom, and cleanup accomplished with a handful of “ass gaskets” (toilet seat covers) due to the complete lack of TOILET PAPER. I complained about that (because on the way in, I stopped to wash up - and a staff member was in there restocking the ass gaskets in that cubicle but apparently she didn’t see the need to add toilet paper).
Upshot: I told the nurse that the doc could go ahead and order that yacht. More polyps this time around. Of the less-scary of the scary varieties, but I get to co back in 6 months. Happy Thanksgiving to me. :rolleyes::mad:.
Thank you for starting this thread. It’s unusually timely. I’m not having a colonoscopy, however I have an epic case of acute constipation. So far I’ve tried multiple glycerin suppositories and a maximum dosage of mineral oil. That didn’t work so I went to the doctor. Half a bottle of Magnesium Citrate later my gut is unmoved. Now in yummy lemon flavor!
The doctor says that the next step is the colonscopy prep stuff. Ducolax and Miralax, here I come.
Wowsers. You have my sympathies!!
You’ve tried the glycerin, but what about other “on the spot” treatments like Fleet’s enemas? I guess the doc has covered all this, but if things are truly stuck, I’d worry about putting what amounts to a jet engine upstream of the blockage.
At least you can mix it with not-green Gatorade!
Yikes. What’s your pain like? That sounds scarily like what my SO went through a couple of years ago, only his story ends, “…and when the CT scan came back, the surgeon came in at 2am to perform an emergency colostomy for a perforated colon.” 
If your pain increases or your abdomen gets hard like a board, please please please go to the ER. Don’t wait for your regular doctor.