Be careful at the doctor's office!

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
A little tale from another discussion board, take heed:


This is a note to all of you admits who will have to fill out your medical forms this summer. Be careful what little boxes you check off.

Last summer when I was getting my checkup, I was going through the endless checklist of symptoms, and for some reason I was feeling very thorough. When I got to "blood in stool," I thought hey, a couple times I think I've had a little blood on the TP, or something like that. So I checked the box. This became the subject of a 30 minute discussion with my GP. Once I realized that he was concerned I tried to do damage control, but it was too late. No amount of "it only happened once or twice that I can remember" and "it wasn't very much" made a difference. I walked out of the office with an appointment to see a proctologist and receive something called a flexible sigmoidoscopy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your doctor is practicing at least ten years out of date.
There is no good excuse for doing flexible sigmoidoscopy (in comparison to colonoscopy) today. A colonoscopy has the benefit that you will likely get midazolam for the procedure. This has the neat effect of allowing you to still be conscious during the procedure (important if repositioning is required), yet being unlikely to remember the experience. It temporarily prevents new memories from forming. You still have the horrible prep beforehand, hoewever.

If you are 50 years old (unlikely on this board) or older or have a family history of colon cancer, then scoping was probably the right suggestion from your doc.

[leehrat]

it wasn't my doc, thank god. there's no way in hell i would undergo this procedure even if my doctor suggested it. he can't force you too.

[jcx]

Pray you never get Inflammatory Bowel Disease dude. Your experience is a walk in the park in comparison with what those folks deal with. As a previous poster stated, if you face this proceedure again, insist on a colonoscopy. Much easier to deal with.

i laughed for five minutes straight. thanks.

[Blarg]

Sounds nasty. I don't look forward to being old enough to get tests of this sort done frequently or regularly.

[ddubois]

As an aside, your laxative story reminds me of those "colon-cleasing" products you can find advertised on shady websites and off-hours radio. Do you know if you pooped any long, worm-like parasites? I saw them on the Discovery channel, and I've always wondered if I have them and/or if it's worth trying to get rid of them.

[Blarg]

Those things show pics of people's pooped out casts of the inside of their guts, because there is clay in the powders and tablets that sets into those long creepy looking casts.

I did try an anti-worm pill from one of the most known ones called Paramil, and what do you know, for the first time in my life, I shat out a real live wriggly worm dancing around my toilet bowl. It was a small one, tiny, but that was good enough for me to be glad I bought the product. For what it's worth, I used to have much greater problems with pooping, bloating, irregularity, and such before I took it, probably because of the worms, and now I generally feel far better.

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
As an aside, your laxative story reminds me of those "colon-cleasing" products you can find advertised on shady websites and off-hours radio. Do you know if you pooped any long, worm-like parasites? I saw them on the Discovery channel, and I've always wondered if I have them and/or if it's worth trying to get rid of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a thread on this, with pics. You can search for it yourself, though... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[sarahbellum]

You think this is bad, try having a similar tube shoved up your nose and down your throat and into your stomach. NOT FUN.


p.s.
[ QUOTE ]
I don't look forward to being old enough to get tests of this sort done frequently or regularly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Age has nothing to do with the need for these tests.

[Blarg]

Aren't they routinely recommended once you hit a certain age?

As to the nose thing, I'm sure it's not fun, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as humiliating. I think I'd rather take the pain.