in my experiance, there was a mild normalization.reduction of symptoms, but then my symptoms quickly worsened to now affect the small intestine. i think the fasting and the exposure of the intestine to oxygen kills some of the bacteria and reduced symptoms a bit, but also, the air they use to dilate the colon so it can be viewed, forces open the ileo-cecal valve in certain patients, and may spread bacterial pathogens further up into the small intestine, especially if the bowel contents are not fully flushed out with lavage like miralax/dulcolax. at one time i was researching the history of the colonoscope and wondered if the very procedure itself could have made my disease worse somehow, and i believe it had, but i found out that only AFTER the invention of the colonoscope and the colonoscopy did they "discover" crohns could affect the small intestine. what they may have discovered is that the procedure simply made some patients worse off, by spreading some unknown pathogen into the small intestine.
I would like them to study the nature of peoples symptoms before and after a colonoscopy to see if the rate of small intestinal involvement in crohn's would be lower in the group that did not have a any colonoscopy, that would produce some pretty good evidence of my theory. but this is paradoxal as the only way one can be diagnosed with crohns, is to have a colonoscopy. it would be unknowable to science until their is an alternate method if diagnosis to a colonoscopy.
i suppose their is something to say for anecdotal claims then, like my own, and maybe limiting our knowledge to only scientific methods is, well, limiting. but the solution is to advance science, rather then denounce it for its limitations, and simply, make it better.
anecdotal claims is one way science begins.
