Endoscopy Warning

[Suthrngal]

Ok so for a colonoscopy...what are we supossed to use? What works?

[bunny]

Ok so for a colonoscopy...what are we supossed to use? What works?

I just had one last week 100% WITHOUT sedation. Not even an IV saline drip. Would I do it again without sedation? ABSOLUTELY. After I left there, I headed straight to work and put in a full day. I actually had more energy than I knew what to do with when I left, which was probably due to being up for 36+ hours straight.

Tips for this:

1) Find a GOOD GI doctor. The one I found was an absolute gem. Kind, gentle, soft-spoken, and most importantly -- he listened! HE was very concerned about my cardiac / POTS issues and we talked for a good 45+ minutes about ways to modify the procedure to have success without my heart acting up. He scheduled me as his last patient for the day (which was still 8:30am) thus he could take however much time was necessary.

2) Have them use a pediatric scope. Yes, they can still see what they need to. It's just a narrower field of view and takes a bit more time and skill to use it. They can still get the images they need.

3) Have them use water instead of air to inflate the colon. This will make a huge difference in your comfort level and it won't adversely affect their ability to see what's going on. If they say otherwise they're full of it. Unfortunately for me, this wasn't an option as we really weren't doing a colonoscopy but were instead doing a bacterial transplant to cure Clostridium difficile and the best way to get the new bacteria to where they need to be is a colonoscope. Same basic procedure as a regular colonoscopy overall though.

I won't say it was painless. In fact at two separate points it was rather bad -- BUT those points lasted for 5-15 seconds each and then I felt fine. I'd yelp, the doctor would pause, a nurse would rub and press on my stomach, and when the pain subsided we'd continue. They had a clock on the screen and I'd just start counting to 3 over & over again when in pain, figuring I can handle 3 seconds of anything. My doctor said using water instead of air would have made all the difference. Even at that, the entire procedure was far less unpleasant than I was expecting. If anything, the bowel prep was far harder on my body (and me) than the actual procedure.

There were two points where my BP/pulse/O2 sats dropped: 1) when they went to draw blood and put an IV access port in my hand. I was alright for about 60-90 seconds, then I started dropping. 2) When they finally reached "the end" with the colonoscope and had put more air in. Lots of pressure (and pain) then after 10 or so seconds the pain subsided but my vitals started dropping. I almost passed out but managed to hang in there. We had all basically planned on me passing out and the plan was to continue with me passed out unless my vitals really started to tank.

As far as the fecal bacterial transplant goes, to give you an idea of how effective it is: 15 minutes after the procedure they were asking me if I wanted anything for breakfast or lunch. After battling C.diff for 9 months, it was cured. I'm still in disbelief and still distrusting my body, but even after a week I'm still doing well. Just frustrates me how many doctors I had to go through before I found one which acknowledged it was C.diff and was willing to actually cure it rather than keep trying failed antibiotic after failed (expensive) antibiotic.

[gjensen]

I have had two procedure done with sedation and no problems. I was not as symptomatic as I am now.

I recently had the tube down my throat to test contractions and that was a very uncomfortable procedure. I thought about this thread when I had it.