Ahira's Hangar

I already regard a 2-litre container of anything as being humongous. 4 litres of something that has to be consumed in one night is just WRONG.

They (whoever "they" are) seriously need to figure out a better, less-invasive way of going about this thing.

Well, I am home...

The cleansing process was absolutely terrible. The closest thing I can compare it to was having the Norwalk Virus.

They said I was lucky as hell that I had developed the other problems and came in 7 years early for the colonoscopy. They diagnosed the bleeding problem and gave me a prescription that will hopefully eventually take care of that - and they found what they think was a pre-cancerous 5mm polyp that they took out and sent to the lap for a biopsy. They said if I had waited until the usual age 50, I might have had bowel cancer.

The results of the biopsy should be back in a few days.

They gave me enough drugs that I did not feel what they were doing, but not enough to knock me out, so I could watch the monitor and see that they were seeing in my colon and talk to them as they were doing it.

The bowel cleasing was a million times worse than the actual procedure!

My husband made me a nice meal of barley vegetable soup, a toasted bagel, and some yogurt. And a bottle of gatoraid of a decent color/flavor. I am still woozy from the drugs, so am going to go take a nap now.

Hopefully this post makes sense (the drugs!).

Oh, because of the polyp thing, they said I will have to have one of these every five years for the rest of my life now.

Yeah, they found polyps in me, too, when looking for something else. In my case, diverticulitis. Mine turned out ok, likely because they happened upon them early because of the diverticulitis. I've gone back twice since then, every three years.

Fisty, is it normal to get a lower backache after one of these things? I can hardly walk or move today...

I do not believe that's normal. I certainly haven't had the slightest problem with any of my three.

Moving around during the day has helped, but just got back from taking a bunch of kids to the dollar movie, so now it is all stiff again.

Hot shower time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And more extra strength tylenol.

My back is a lot better today, so I cannot help but think it was soemthing to do with the procedure. I have no idea what, though.

Sorry about your back, duchess. Good grief, what did they do? Put you on the rack or something?

As far as I know they did not do anything to it. Before they take you in, they put some leads on your chest, so they can monitor your heart and breathing. They put an IV line into your arm. They put an automatic bloodpressure cuff on your other arm. They put little oxygen tubes in your nose. They put one of those little monitor clips on one of yoru fingers to also keep track of your heart rate, breathing rate, etc. Then when they take you back for the procedure, they shoot some controlled substances into your IV line to keep you from feeling the pain. They have you turn over so your are lying down on your left side and pull up your legs towards your chest. None of this has anything to with your back.

So I do not know what made my back so sore yesterday. But I was not lifting anything heavy or doing any strange movements or anything like that, which might have made my back hurt, either.

So, Duchess -- three weeks later, how's your back?

(Spoilers used to protect the queasy...)

I had one of these procedures a few years ago and had no problems. They actually checked me from both ends -- I had the colonoscopy and the endoscopy at the same time. And oh yeah, the GoLightly was a trip....

Luckily they found nothing, zip, zilch. Never really got a diagnosis -- but it seems like my problem goes away when I eat a lowfat diet. Right now I'm doing Weight Watchers, and I hardly ever have a problem.

Isn't the go-lightly as disgusting as anything you can imagine???

I googled and it turns out now that both of my kids will have to start having sigmoidoscopies/colonoscopies at age 40 rather than age 50 because the standards say people who have first degree relatives (parents or siblings) who have had either the precancerous polyps or colon cancer have to start the screening process at age 40 rather than the usual 50.

Yeah, that might be it... Actually, there may have been a precursor product that required one to drink an even larger volume of nasty-tasting liquid -- so Go-Lightly would be the "light" version.

My mom had colon cancer (tho she was in her 80s when diagnosed). I'm now 50, but so far nobody's recommended that I have this lovely procedure annually. (Sshhhh! Don't give them any ideas!)