Cool, cool. Well done.
Cool flex bro
I’m happy for you, really. As I’ve said upthread, if you’re lucky, you’ll get through life without developing colon cancer and you’ll die of some less unpleasant cause instead. But if you’re unlucky, you’ll get colon cancer, and won’t know it until it’s incurable. And at that point, you’re locked in for several months of terrible suffering. Best of luck - I hope your choices work out well for you.
I’ll be honest - I’m 60 and haven’t had one yet. I have done a Cologard twice.
You’d think that me being a breast cancer survivor (and I do not miss my annual mammogram) would make me more likely to do it, but I just haven’t. Maybe it soured me on invasive procedures, IDK. I know I should.
Anyway, every doctor and every patient is different.
Several years ago, my dad, who died last year aged 90 but not from anything like this, thought he was constipated and took some milk of magnesia. He didn’t think it was working well enough, so he bought a bottle of cherry-flavored magnesium citrate AND DRANK THE WHOLE THING. He ended up having very severe diarrhea for a couple of days, which my mom seemed to think was funny, but I sure didn’t! I told both of them that this could have had disastrous results; it’s the senior equivalent, I guess, of lacing brownies with Ex-Lax. I told them that if they ever did that again, to mix a spoonful with some juice like I would tell parents of young children to do at the grocery store if their pediatrician recommended this.
Dad was also hesitant about flu shots for many years, because he was in the Army in 1957 and has always believed that he got influenza from the flu shots that were available at the time. Later on, he realized they were safe and got his every year, and always told us kids to do it too. My brother wasn’t going to get a COVID vaccine, but his employer required it (unless you had a medical exemption) because they had a contract with the Federal government, so he folded.
Why not? Despite all the complaining we do about colonoscopies, they’re really no big deal. Colon cancer is a big deal. Every colon cancer tumor begins as a polyp. Polyps get removed during the colonoscopy. So avoiding coloscopies to avoid learning about having colon cancer is mistaken; colonoscopies can prevent colon cancer.
I failed the flush test this time around and was told I’d have to repeat in 6 months. I refused. I have a real problem choking down the prep and was unable to get it all down me in the time given (this was my second go-around, last one was fine 14 years ago). I watched the screen so I know what the doc was talking about. However, he used water to move the problem out of the way so he could get a good view. I can’t afford a redo.
It’s easier to drink a cup of poison than a gallon of it.
Yes, you need to drink a similar total volume of fluid, but which would you rather drink: Tea/coffee/Sprite/ginger ale/Gatorade/broth? or salty seawater? I did recommend to my friend that she use a straw, which I gather did help.
And one “benefit” I’d thought of with the high volume prep was that it was pretty idiot-proof, as your instructions basically boil down to “drink it all”.
But with split-dosing, you have to measure it out, for the first dose. So it’s a bit less idiot-proof.
I’m looking at some surgery in the nearish future where at least in some hospitals, they basically have you do a colonoscopy prep beforehand. However, from what I can tell, it’s Gatorade/Miralax. And since it’s not COLON surgery, I could in theory have less-vile flavors of Gatorade.
Not that lemon-lime Gatorade isn’t preferable to GoLytely, but I don’t personally like lemon-lime stuff, so…
I met with a PA at my gastro’s office and she said that I’d likely be given mag citrate ON TOP OF the ClenPiq. I said “I didn’t have that the last time”. She said “But you weren’t on Ozempic them!”. I said “Oh yes I was. Is there any indication that my prep was inadequate?”. She shut up.
Ah - but you HAVE had colon screening.
Presumably you are not considered high risk for colon cancer (family history or whatever). In your case, Cologard, or FIT or whatever, is an acceptable alternative, and MUCH easier than a colonoscopy. I’m quite jealous, by the way!
And you (with mammograms) are like me with the colonoscopies: I’m diligent about them. I’d been quite cavalier about mammograms too (no family history)… until I found out I was had a bad BRCA1 mutation a little while back. I won’t be careless in the future!! In fact I’ve got an MRI with contrast scheduled for this Thursday. Just gadolinium - no Hulk superpowers will ensue, darn it.
BTW, with your breast cancer history, have they suggested genetic testing? Me being BRCA1 apparently DOES increase my risk of colon cancer; might partially explain my tendency to grow large polyps quickly. I guess everyone has their own innate talent, sigh…
The first time, they let me dissolve the poison in a gallon of whatever clear fluid i wanted. (I used some ginger ale, and some water. I decided I’d be sick if i drank a gallon of gingerale, even without the poison.) The second time, they told me to use half regular Gatorade and half sugar-free Gatorade. My guess is that i could have requested other fluids, but didn’t care enough to bother. Even though i think Gatorade is vile.
I had the BRCA test after my diagnosis. My sister also had one, back when it was investigational, because our mother is a BC survivor (40 years, no less!). Both of us were negative. (ETA: I did tell the surgeon that we are full biological siblings.)
One branch of our family tree has a gene for ovarian cancer. Thankfully, we didn’t sprout from it.
My fellow volunteer’s scope was normal. Woo hoo! (She’d had to have a 5-year check because of something suspicious in the last one.)
I remember dispensing one of those gallon jugs at the grocery store pharmacy to an elderly Italian woman, and she kept saying, “Mama Mia!” More recently, I saw a man at the grocery store up the road, which does not have a pharmacy, buying Dulcolax tablets and a 2-pack of Fleet’s Enemas, and I thought, “I know what you’re going to be doing.”
If you mean a colonoscopy , maybe not. I had that prep twice, but not for colonoscopies. One time it was for a barium enema and the other was for a hemorrhoid procedure.
My point was that at some time in the near future, he was going to be pooping A LOT.
We would have people come in who had a KUB (kidneys, ureters, bladder) scan scheduled, and asked why they had to take laxatives for this. We told them, “Intestinal contents show up on x-ray” but it sure was tempting to quote someone on “Jackass” who cracked his tailbone and said, “You can see my crap on an x-ray?”
When we were pursuing a diagnosis of encopresis for Dweezil, decades ago, part of the testing involved an abdominal x-ray. I guess it showed up!
The hospital where I used to work had a pediatric GI doctor who came in once a month or so, and this seems to mostly be what they did. The night before, these kids would be admitted to the hospital and given Golytely via NG tube, and then a scope the next day.
From what I heard, the thorough clean-out usually took care of the problem.
“the problem” being encopresis? Yeah, sort of. It gets rid of the backlog, but you have to continue training the kid, or it’ll just happen all over again. Dweezil was on a low dose of a laxative (initially lactulose, then Miralax) for at least 4 years. We had to do the cleanout at home - once with an enema, then when things recurred, we gave him a slightly larger dose of Miralax as a starter, as the enema was pretty upsetting for the poor kid.
Amusingly, when I first took him to the doctor for this, I explained that he was going to see the “tushie doctor”. I said this in front of the doctor, who glared at me and said “We won’t be inviting YOU back again!” (he was joking… I think).
Had my colonoscopy on Monday morning. As usual, the prep is worse than the scope although low volume prep is significantly better.
Good news, no polyps at all this time! Given I had one last time and a crappy family history, they want to do a repeat in 3 years and if that one is clear go to a 5 year repeat.
Odd - there haven’t been any bumps to this thread, or other threads on the topic, in MONTHS… so here I go (or rather, there I went, and went, and went…).
Had my upper and lower GI last Monday. This was number 11 (translating that from Roman numerals, it was Number 2, ha). I was semi-worried about “lucky number 11” meaning my “precancerous” stuff was gonna turn out to be the wrong kind of luck, and be higher grade.
And… NO polyps whatsoever. In 10 previous scopes, I have ALWAYS had at least one.
Next followup is in 3 years.
Did you have barium studies in both areas? That’s what UGI and LGI tests usually mean. Or was it the scope above and below? I suspect the latter, and congrats on the results.
Nobody got buried (bury 'em. geddit?) - just upper GI endoscopy and colonoscopy - all bog-standard.
Always happy to see good news!
I’ll give a non-interesting update. I got a call last week from my gastro, saying it was time to schedule my next colonoscopy. I did some quick thinking, and told them that they probably had an automated reminder based on my 2020 procedure, but hadn’t updated it based on
- my Mom’s colon cancer diagnosis, which further increased my risk profile, putting me on the 3 year plan instead of the 5 year plan
and - my 2024 colonoscopy.
The lady calling took a note on my response, and after a little back and forth with the office staff, it was confirmed that I’m not due until 2027.
Coincidentally, I just did the fecal stool test as part of my physical. As far as I can tell, the language of it being only appropriate for those of average risk really means it shouldn’t be the “only” screening. There’s still potential value in it in “off years”. I’d be interested to know if anyone has any data or thoughts on that, though.