[denton-scratch]

This is about colonoscopy screening. If you give a fecal sample and it comes up as suspicious, the next step will be a colonoscopy anyway.

A colonoscopy is quite unpleasant; you starve for a day, and take an enema. They may sedate you before the procedure. If they don't, then the procedure is quite uncomfortable; not exactly painful, but unpleasant.

Incidentally, if they find and remove a polyp, they will plant a tattoo inside your gut to mark the spot, for the benefit of future spelunking visitors.

[lm28469]

> you starve for a day

fast for a day, starvation is another thing and takes weeks to set in for the average westerner

[B1FF_PSUVM]

"Hungry is after three days" as I once heard it ...

[seanmcdirmid]

The enema is replaced with a laxative often. That is still really hard, I barely got half of mine down and was in a rough state the morning of the procedure.

I was sedated, so laxative was the hardest part of the ordeal, not the fasting or actual procedure.

[doliveira]

Wow, colonoscopy with no sedation must be extremely awful. Isn't sedation the default anywhere? I remember the papers I had to sign were really serious about advicing sedation.

[denton-scratch]

I couldn't be sedated, because I had no companion to take me home, and a taxi doesn't cut it.

I wouldn't describe it as "extremely awful". It was very uncomfortable; I'd compare it to 40 minutes of dental hygiening.

I think it's nuts that they use this procedure for screening. I'm screened for bowel cancer annually, using a fecal sample pack they send me through the post, and that I post back. No hospital visit, no treatment room, no expensive equipment, no nurses and doctors. The only reason I can think of for using colonoscopy as a screening technique is that it's costly.

[adam-a]

They can be very painful, in my experience. I would not opt for one without sedation again.

[denton-scratch]

Thanks for these corrections. Yes, I should have said "fast". And indeed for my recent colonoscopy, I was given laxative, not an enema, it's a sachet of powder that you dissolve in a litre of water; you then have to gulp that down as well as drinking lots of water. Years ago I had a sigmoidoscopy, and then they did give me an enema. That's the only time I've had an enema, and I didn't know what to expect. It was very rapid, and rather dramatic.