My Colonoscopy Blog

[Dazzaschofield]

Hi All,

I am a firm member of the undiagnosed amongst us and this could all change tomorrow. While it is good news that in 30 odd hours I could have an answer for all my symptoms I have one hurdle to cross...............The Dreaded Colonoscopy :devil::devil:

Now I have had a flexi sig before and that wasn't the most pleasant experience of my life but I am going into this with as much as a fresh mind as possible. I have seen on this forum and many others that people fear having this procedure so it is my intention to treat this thread like a little blog and give you all and anyone worried about this a 'play by play' account of my experience in as light as a tone as possible...so lets start

11:45 - I had my 'last supper' so to speak. I was given until 12:00 today to eat off the 'low res' sheet so I had a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches with a packet of space raiders.

12:17 - Although I wasn't bothered with the 'no food' thing 17 minuets ago, I now find that as I'm now officially not allowed solid food for at least another 27 hours that I am slightly panicking that I'm going wither and die of starvation before I even get to the medical centre!:sign0085:someone please bring me an inhaleable cheeseburger! On a better note I have my chicken bovril ready for some substenance, baby wipes ready for the ring sting and some electrolite filled drinks because it sounds like the sort of thing I should be drinking.

PS apologies for the spelling mistakes so far...I blame it on the deleriam caused by my lack of food for the past 18 mins!

 

[Dazzaschofield]

14:00 - Well it's one hour until the lovely prep starts....i've got a nice bottle of orange sports drink in the fridge cooling ready and a packet of baby wipes on standby. Just seeing what I can download to watch for the next 12 hours.

I shall return once I have consumed my first packet of clean prep around 15:00.:cheerss:

 

[Dazzaschofield]

15:05 - just made the first sachet and drank 3/4 of a pint (1pint to go out of he first of 4 sachets!!)

The stuff is god awful...not only is the taste an appalling vanilla (I tried to cover this up with summer fruit juice...but the ingredients must set as it has a slightly thick texture to it...god knows how I'm going to manage the rest!!

 

[Dazzaschofield]

16:00 - had 4 glasses now....I bet Adam Richmond of Man vs Food would struggle with this challenge...vile!

No colonic explosions so far. Second sachet mixed and ready to go.

 

[Dazzaschofield]

17:00 - nothing had happened by this point so is stopped taking the prep as per the instructions which was a great relif as I was going to throw up!

17:30 - lots of tummy noises, sounded like a jacuzzi in my gut!

17:45 - Bowel hell broke loose. I won't go into gory details but I went once....went to make the third sachet of prep and barely made it upstairs before diving into the toilet!

 

[Dazzaschofield]

18:49 - Been to the toilet about 7 times now...might as well be weeing out of my backside!

People talking about cramping etc during these preps but I've not experienced any. The worse thing about this is the vile tasting prep!

 

[Amy2]

I've alway found colonoscopies to be about the least offensive procedure out there. I think I even place it above getting my teeth cleaned. :ylol:

Prep isn't fun though...

 

[Rockyroo19]

I'm half way through second sachet and nothing but feeling really bloated feel like I'm going to pop :-( hope something happened soon :-( xxx

 

[Dazzaschofield]

7:18 - well now that the day is here I'm a little worried. Mainly because when I went to the toilet this morning it was not completely clear. There was a bit if green/brown sludge still in there!

I took 3 1/3 sachets of the prep and was running like water last night!

Just hope they can still get a decent picture of everything.

 

[Rockyroo19]

Just finished all my prep :-( feel sick xxx

 

[UnXmas]

7:18 - well now that the day is here I'm a little worried. Mainly because when I went to the toilet this morning it was not completely clear. There was a bit if green/brown sludge still in there!

I took 3 1/3 sachets of the prep and was running like water last night!

Just hope they can still get a decent picture of everything.

I don't think you have to worry too much. I was still having to go to the loo when I'd already arrived at the hospital. They made some comments on my results sheet that the bowel was not completely empty but they could "get an adequate picture". So I don't think you have to be completely empty, just the more empty the better.

I don't have to have any more colonoscopies (no colon anymore!), but I still have to do preps and follow no-eating rules for other tests and surgeries. But I've had some bowel surgeries where there's been no prep, no enema, and a normal diet right up 'til the day of the surgery - and I don't understand why all tests and surgeries can't be like that!

You've done the worst part. The colonoscopy is far better than the prep!

You'll probably have some short term memory loss and feel drowsy from the drugs for the rest of the day, but by tomorrow you'll be back to normal, and hopefully will have got some answers, or at least ruled out some possible causes of your symptoms.

 

[Dazzaschofield]

Well I'm back. Apologies for the lack of updates but it's over and done with now. I'll give a rough timeline of events.

Last night - finished the prep and finally stopped going to the loo at around 11ish.

7:00 - woke up, toilet again with mushy stuff coming out. Was worried they wouldn't be able to do anything.

9:30 - was extremely dizzy, massive headache and felt really sick (due to not eating) couldn't take any painkillers so I dumped myself under a freezing cold shower, it eased the headache a bit but didnt get rid.

10:30-11:00 - vomited what was obviously bile as there was nothing on my stomach. After this got another shower.

14:00 turned up ready for my procedure. Was taken to get changed ready. Did the consent forms etc and waited.

14:35 - went in for procedure.

14:40 - the exact moment the scope entered. Although not the best feeling in the world it wasn't half as bad as I'd expected. I did not take any sedative just some painkiller (fenadryl) or something like that. There was a bit of pain during the corners but the headache was still the worse of the two.

14:58 - exactly 18 minuets after he went in, took ten biopsies from throughout the bowel and it was over.

15:00 - back in recover for 5 minuets, they then brought me a sandwich and a cup of tea took my BP a few times and the at 16:00 was free to leave.

I know everyone is different but I agree with a large portion of people that day the prep is the worst part. I would much rather have the colonoscopy over the prep and resulting headache any day of the week!

 

[UnXmas]

Glad you got it done. Did they give you any idea of the findings or do you have to wait for biopsy results?

 

[Dazzaschofield]

Well the guys words exactly were "there's nothing to worry about, I don't think".

I watched the entire procedure on the monitor and didn't have any sedation so was pretty Lucid throughout and through through the large bowel I didn't see anything, all completely normal pink looking colon.

When he got to the Terminal Illium. It's changed to quite dark crusty looking stuff, almost looked scabby or like it was covered in dark feces. It's also looked to me like there were a few ulcers and a bit of blood but he never mentioned anything to me. To be honest he seemed in quite a rush, he did 4 procedures (endoscopy and colo) in the 1 hr 30 mins I was there so he didn't really want to wait around.

I'll wait for the biopsies before I rule anything out.

 

[UnXmas]

Well the guys words exactly were "there's nothing to worry about, I don't think".

I watched the entire procedure on the monitor and didn't have any sedation so was pretty Lucid throughout and through through the large bowel I didn't see anything, all completely normal pink looking colon.

When he got to the Terminal Illium. It's changed to quite dark crusty looking stuff, almost looked scabby or like it was covered in dark feces. It's also looked to me like there were a few ulcers and a bit of blood but he never mentioned anything to me. To be honest he seemed in quite a rush, he did 4 procedures (endoscopy and colo) in the 1 hr 30 mins I was there so he didn't really want to wait around.

I'll wait for the biopsies before I rule anything out.

You're very brave to do it without sedation! I was fast asleep through mine so I don't have any idea what the inside is supposed to look like, but if he told you not to worry hopefully you can rule out anything really serious. I know you were hoping for answers though, but don't feel too despondent if it's looking like you haven't got any. A colonoscopy is still a very important test as even if it's normal then that information narrows down possible diagnoses (or, if you do have Crohn's, narrows down which parts of the digestive tracts it's in). What other tests have you had so far?

 

[Rockyroo19]

How do you feel Dazza? I've had constant pain since :-( can't eat xxx

 

[Dazzaschofield]

Hey Roc, no pain so far (apart from the normal pains I'm being tested for) and had no problems eating so far.

Unx -I've never been worried about anything fatally serious as this has been ongoing for around 4 years ad I'm still here with no ominous symptoms so that doesn't worry me too much.

I've had tonnes of tests in the past but the doctors hasn't really concentrated on my GI Tracy until recently. They started off looking at my kidneys and when they were I had an IVU, CT of abdomen (not sure if they just looked at kidneys or entire abdomen) Flexi sig, and a specialist kidney scan where they pump nuclear die in you and watch it pass through the kidneys. All came back clear.

I had an endoscopy a few months ago which showed inflammation of the duodenum and I was DX with duodenitis and had biopsies to check for H Pylori which were negative (no explanation given as to what caused this if not HPy).

I was then referred to GI and the first test the GI wanted to do was this colonoscopy so I'll wait to see where he wants to go next.

I kind of knew the colonoscopy would be clear (at least the large bowel bit) as given my symptoms (don't have much diareeah but do have some malabsorption symptoms, undigested food, slightly greasy stools occasionally) I've always assumed that I have Crohn's in the small intestines and not large bowel.

Anyway I'm sure time will tell, and you'll all be the first to know when I do.