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Old 12-21-2005, 01:22 AM
Skipbidder Skipbidder is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Illinois
Posts: 415
Default Re: Be careful at the doctor\'s office!

I see. You were cross-posting about someone else's experience. Fair enough.

Not undergoing the procedure at all is very much -EV. Apart from not smoking (or quitting if you currently smoke), getting a colonoscopy is probably the biggest impact you can have on avoiding dying of cancer. (The impact is much much greater than mammograms for women.) Colon cancer is bad if you don't catch it early but very treatable if you do. The cancer tends to grow slowly enough that you have years in order to catch it (but doesn't tend to cause symptoms until late). If you don't have any family history of colon cancer, your doc won't be harping on you to get one until you are 50 years old or so. If that is clean, you won't need another for 10 years (although some argue for repeating them every 5 years).
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