I always taught med students and residents that when doing rectal procedures, they use the amount of lube that THEY would want used on them when they have the procedure.
I got to watch cows being examined for artificial insemination. The veterinarian would go in rectally and palpate the ovaries through the wall of the colon. I asked him if it was painful for the cow. He told me he was taught to palpate the ovary with his right hand while simultaneously palpating his own testicle with his left, squeezing no harder with his right than he cared to with his left.
My last one (this past December), my diet change was:
48 hours previous: Meat, potatoes, pasta, bread and dairy products.
Then the day before, the liquid diet.
I’m not a big meat or dairy consumer, so I was fine with potatoes and pasta.
my instructions have, always said no fiber supplements at all, so psyllium would seem to be verboten - but honestly, it’ll all get washed away in the deluge. I try to be fairly strictly compliant, given my risk factors, so I personally wouldn’t push it.
Newer recommendations in the US are to start some sort of screening at age 45. The friend who was diagnosed at 49 might have had a different outcome. Ditto Doper @Maggie_the_Ocelot , and my kids’ high school principal.
Rates of colon cancer have been increasing in younger people, hence the changing recomendation.
It basically is.
It will be decent for me in managed care when I get there, I will have both an urostomy and my current colostomy - no dirty diapers =) Only messing in the bed is if I roll over when one of the bags is really full. [I have done that, poopcapolypse is definitely the word for a full bag of almost diarrhea from the antibiotics I was eating like candy post op. Probably half a liter/a pint of poop *spreads* The nurse was cool about it, I went and grabbed a shower while she changed hte bedding.]
One big issue withe the Poop in a Bag tests is that if they find anything, you then have to go get a colonoscopy. A screening colonoscopy is covered 100% by insurance, but a diagnostic colonoscopy is not, and can be quite expensive.
Furthermore, colonoscopies can take a long time to schedule. Its not fun to find out you might have cancer, but yes, 2 months till we can check.
My husband did Cologuard, and that meant we had to pay $1500 for a colonoscopy, which turned into a lot more for the colectomy when they discovered a “carpet” of polyps, one of which had some isolated cancer cells. So i guess it worked, but starting woth the colonoscopy would have been much easier.
Some people find it very painful when the scope is rounding the various flexures, and also when the colon is filled with air. That’s a main reason why it’s usually done with sedation.
Back in the day when barium enemas were more commonly done, I heard over and over that being “blow up” with air was the worst thing about THAT procedure.
Hugs to you. Keep us posted on what they find.
I remember when a rectal exam was a routine part of a pelvic exam for women. Last time I had a Pap and pelvic, in 2017 (as part of the medical screening that was long overdue for me when my sister got her cancer diagnosis) my doctor wanted to do a rectal exam on me, and I gave permission because I was, like, already exposed anyway. I swear, he used half the tube on his finger. It was messy, but not uncomfortable.
Mammograms aren’t the nightmares they once were. Get those too if you need one.
Sorry. That was a typo. I agree with you 100%.
This is another one of those realities that make me want UHC. I’m on Medicare. If you need a diagnostic colonoscopy, you’ll pay up to 15% of the cost. Medicare covers the rest. The most I’d pay would be $225. It’s beyond ridiculous that you and your husband had to pay the whole cost of his colonoscopy when Medicare recipients don’t. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the whole bill.
I’ve heard about advances in mammograms, but haven’t seen any changes in the places near me that do them. And yes, they are pretty nightmarish. Ouch.
Oh, that wasn’t the whole bill. It was the $1200 deductible w hadn’t yet met and then 20% of the remaining.
I think the whole bill, even at the negotiated rate, was many thousands.
Once again I feel so lucky to be living in Canada. My last colonoscopy cost exactly $0. Annual FIT screening costs exactly $0. So does any other medical procedure or lab test.
A few years ago I spent a week in the hospital and received three cardiac stents. Cost: $0.
My wife had to pay for parking AND the Starbucks latte she brought me! I’m demanding change!
I’m in California and the one I had 4.5 years ago was free with my admittedly very good insurance through my employer. It only makes sense for them to pay for it because it’s a lot cheaper than covering cancer treatment.
Now I’m retired and on ObamaCare. I’ll let you know what it costs in six months.
LOL … my ex would probably tell you that parking is a legitimate gripe! When I was having chest pains for a few days, I drove myself to the ER and parked in the immediately adjacent ER parking lot, imagining that I would be diagnosed with indigestion or something. I had actually left some cheese and a glass of wine on the cutting board, expecting to be home in an hour or two.
But no, I was informed that I was having a heart attack and my blood pressure was through the roof. I didn’t emerge until nearly a week later after all kinds of tests had been run and the PCI operation performed.
After that, I was medically prohibited from driving for two weeks, so my son drove me home and my ex picked up my car and had to extricate it from the parking lot. The ER lot is intended for short-term parking and the fees raise money for the hospital, so they’re not cheap. The ex was not pleased that she had to pay over $100 in parking fees, but she was stoic about it and refused to let me to pay her back, but she did demand that I just shut up about the whole thing. 
ETA: If I had called an ambulance instead, under our UHC system the nominal cost is $40, billed through the hospital, but the fee is waived under a long list of exemptions, so the cost there is often $0 as well.
To clarify–because this is important:
Screening colonoscopies (to see if you have cancer) are always free under any US insurance program. That’s according to a regulation that requires all insures to cover a set of screenings, including mammograms and colonoscopies.
Diagnostic colonoscopies–the sort you get because there is an indication that there might be a problem–are NOT covered under the law that requires insurance to cover certain screenings. It’s just a medical procedure, and probably covered like any other procedure, with some possibility that it won’t be covered if your insurance decides your symptoms don’t justify it (but they probably will cover it). So if you have great insurance, it still won’t be much, but if you have a high deductible and haven’t had other bills, it can easily be thousands.
If you do a “home screening”, the insurance covers it. One reason they are so eager for you to do that is that it only costs them $500 or whatever, and then if it finds any sign or possibility of cancer (and there’s a pretty high false-positive rate), YOU have to pay for the colonoscopy, because it’s not a screening colonoscopy any more. It’s diagnostic. Also, home screenings do nothing to prevent colon cancer. Colonoscopies do.
It also follows that if you are having any symptoms that are worrying you and you are eligible for a screening colonoscopy, make sure you get a screening colonoscopy and not a diagnostic one. Like, make it clear to your doctor which they should order.
What I have heard, to put the cherry on the shit sundae, is that if you go in for a screening scope, and they find and remove a polyp or three, is that now the entire procedure is billed as a regular procedure, rather than the mandated preventive care.
Which utterly and completely sucks.
I can see them billing for anything incremental - e.g. a colonoscopy is 1K, 100 per removed polyp, so you pay the hundred bucks or whatever.
I recall one of mine shortly after the newer laws went in mandating preventinve care (but after I’d join the high risk club) is that on that occasion, they covered the procedure as preventive, which was a surprise to me. IIRC, that may also have been the first one under a different insurer - so part of it may have been that they didn’t KNOW I’d already had a screening scope. I don’t think others since then have been treated that way - but I’m not doing a regular screening one anyway, so I can’t really argue.