Physical Today, And I'm Sooo Glad It's Only Once A Year

[mrbigstuff]

spoiler alert next time!

[Dubya]

And that's just in the waiting room!



Seriously, get the colonoscopy. They'll give you enough drugs that you won't remember a thing. My father died of colon cancer. I have one every five years.

[Yoyodyne ArtWorks]

raz wrote: The prep is awful, but the procedure is nothing.

Trendoids pay a lot for fancy cleansing regimens, as well as expensive diets to lose weight. Your colo prep will make your innards sparkling clean, and you'll probably lose a few pounds...a true win-win!

[Rick-o]

cbelt3 wrote:
I refer to the prostate exam as "Playing Hand Puppet" ... "Squawk !"

I usually define playing as doing something fun. That exam was NOT fun.


And to all the folks urging I get a colonoscopy test, I know it is important, but I just start thinking about a perforated colon and lose all interest in having one done. Maybe some day.

[Rick-o]

mrbigstuff wrote:
spoiler alert next time!

miley-laughing001:

[mrlynn]

I'm scheduled for my third colonoscopy, in a few weeks—every three years, because of polyps.

Last time they had me drink gallons of the vilest liquid I've ever tasted, something like drinking cat poop. It was an all-nightmare.

This time the secretary gave me something called Prepopik, just a couple of small bottles, and (she says) pretty innocuous. She said it's expensive, but they had samples.

There are cases of colon perforation during colonoscopies, but they are fairly rare, and the benefits of catching colon cancer before it starts seriously outweigh the risks, IMO. Besides, I'm under orders.

/Mr Lynn

[stephen]

There is a virtual colonoscopy you can have at some teaching hospitals that uses advanced imaging. It is not as good as a real one but it is vastly better than your current course of action. The big downside is they can't take tissue samples, so you may still have to have one if they find something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_colonoscopy

[mattkime]

Rick-o wrote: but I just start thinking about a perforated colon and lose all interest in having one done. Maybe some day.

I can't help but mention that our fears line up very poorly with real world threats.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19251006 says you have 0.082% chance of it happening. If you're confident of hitting that then please go play the lotto.

[mspace]

I'm really trying hard to feel sympathy for a prostate check as compared to the yearly gyn visit. Truly, I am . . . :wiggle:

[Grateful11]

I've had two Colonscopies. The first was after I had my back surgery because I passed something that looked
like tissue. They found 4 or 5 flat polyps, I thought that would be a good but that's not the kind of polyp to find,
they're more likely to be cancerous.

I only got a 3 year reprieve and I stretched it out to almost 4 years. I had my second one about 2 months ago
this time they only found one tiny flat polyp and I got a 5 year reprieve. All checked out to be benign.

Now back to the colonoscopy itself there's nothing to it. You go in they put to sleep and you never know it's done, you
wake up and go home. Now for the bad part and that's the prep, it can be very let's say draining. The stuff I had to
take was called Suprep, it's a two part prep. One at 6pm and then one 3 -4 hours before the procedure. With this
stuff I suggest you take extra underwear and be ready to find a toilet as soon as you get there. Also when they say be there
at 7:45 make sure to ask them if the doors open at 7:45 or 8am. Sitting in the parking holding your bowels that are
filling with liquid for 15 minutes is no fun.