Be careful at the doctor's office!

[leehrat]

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.

I received the information on the procedure a week or two before the proctology appointment. It was scheduled for a morning. The last solid food or colored liquid I was allowed to consume was the night before the day before the appointment--no food for 36 hours. In the afternoon the day before, I had to drink an entire bottle of magnesium citrate laxative. It tasted vile, but I figure, what the hell, a good [censored] wouldn't hurt me. Little did I know the demons of hell that would be shooting out of my ass an hour later. It started with gurgling, then churning, then all out projectile ass-spewing. The walls of the toilet were painted brown. My eyes watered. It lasted for almost two hours. I crawled into bed and went to sleep. The next morning, before the appointment, I had to administer two fleet enemas to myself. If you've never done this, it's quite gay. The instructions on the box have you lay on the floor of your bathroom in the fetal position, then reach around and jam the thing up your ass, then slowly squeeze all the liquid into your rectum. Let it sit for a while, then stand up and "evacuate" in the crapper. I thought the sensation of the liquid entering my anus was upsetting and uncomfortable, and the resulting watery discharge somewhat horrifying. But I had no idea what was coming later that morning.

I arrived at the office and they quickly had me in a gown and in the room where the proceedure would occur. Doctor? Chick. Nurses? Two. Both chicks. I had to lie down on my side, again in the fetal position, facing a television screen. The one nurse then put a massive quantity of KY all over and into my ass. All the while they are telling me something that I can barely hear because my brain is shutting down from the humiliation. Something about bloating or air being injected into my lower GI. Suddenly the doctor approaches and I am violated. It's a tube, probably a half an inch thick, but it felt like [censored] King Dong. It has to be thick because the way it works is the end of the tube has a camera, a little jaw for taking tissue samples, a light, a water nozzle, suction, and an air nozzle. The air expands your intestine and then the light makes it all nice and visible, and then the camera puts the image of my insides on the TV four inches from my nose. Wow. Unfortunately, for whatever reason my laxative-enema combination was not administered very well, and the doctor lectured me for about five minutes on this topic while she used the water nozzle and suction to wash away residual poop from my insides. That was quite a show. And you've never had your ego bruised until you've been told that you can't even poop yourself empty right. Once I was nice and clean, she ran the tube up and down, all the while injecting more and more air into me. Eventually the gas pains were getting terrible, but I couldn't fart because she had the works plugged up. I felt like I'd eaten 40 pounds of beans. Finally, after finding nothing other than leftover [censored], after 15 minutes of probing, she calls it quits. The second she pulls the tube out, I let out a gigantic fart like you have never [censored] heard right at the doctor and the nurses. To their credit they didn't blink an eye. The doctor even said that was normal, and that I could go the adjoining bathroom to clean up and "get comfortable." No amount of time in that bathroom was going to make anything about this situation comfortable.

A few minutes later I had my clothes on and I was in the doctor's office. She again reminded me that I didn't do a good job of preparing (thanks), but thought that this was consistent with the symptom of blood on TP, and it was probably all due to chronic constipation. I said "I poop just fine, thanks," but she wasn't interested. She loaded me up with an armful of papers on what foods have fiber and what foods don't and she kicked me out the door.

It wasn't over. At this point I was starving. I went home and ate a huge pile of leftover pot roast from earlier in the week. I ate and ate and ate. Probably 3 pounds of the stuff, including vegetables and gravy. Turns out, something went wrong in the pot roast cooling and storage. Or maybe my body dind't react well. My body totally rejected it. I crapped and crapped for days after that, and it took almost a week before my guts were working right again.

So... all of you admits--be very very careful about what boxes you check when you get your physicals.

[Oski]

At least you had the common decency to not post pictures.

[TheBlueMonster]

I'm suddenly in the mood for a laxative. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[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.

[Rockatansky]

[ QUOTE ]
[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?