Having a colonoscopy.
- Thread starter DanTheMan
- Start date
.I hated it. I could barely drink the stuff they gave me to "clear your bowel"; it made me want to vomit.
Are you having it under general or local? My first one (back home in Australia) was under general, but my second (at Solihull Hospital) was under local (cheapskates!)
The one done under local was extremely unpleasant, and quite painful at times!
Yeah, this picolax stuff doesn't help matters as the small amounts of food that did manage to stay in me are slowly being flushed out with a vengeance.
I'm only having a sedation this time, I just had the sedation last time but they must have given me a mega dosage as I don't remember any of it. Let's hope the same thing happens tomorrow.
On a serious note, can you post it? Would be really interesting to see.
Have a look on Wikipedia, type in 'ulcerative colitis' and you'll see a few pictures.
It's really not that nice at all, imagine how it feels having open wounds where your poo passes through
.I wasn't aware that you could ask for seconds.
You're allowed quite a few shots of the stuff. I remember feeling like I was about to burst and they gave me another dose which knocked me right out, next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room.
Damn, I wish they'd told me. I had to spend all that time with a garden hose up my backside and some numpty waving it about like a semaphore flag, poking and prodding all the most uncomfortable places he could reach.
Do you have to put it like that when I'm having it done tomorrow?
How is your UC now mate? I've just spent 3 weeks in hospital with an unbelievably bad flare up but it seems to be back to normal now, let's hope it stays that way for more than a year this time.
It's a fairly common disease, apparently around 1 in every 1000 people have some form of intestinal disease. I personally know of 4 other people with UC and that's just family/friends/work colleagues.
Most people only end up getting diagnosed with it after being admitted to hospital with severe abdominal cramps and constantly feeling the need to go to the toilet.
Once you've had a camera up the bum to confirm it's UC, they put you on a short course of steroids to get the inflammation down and then depends on the severity, you'll be put on anti inflammatory drugs that aren't steroids such as Sulfazine or Mesalazine for an indefinate period of time, most probably for the rest of your life.
The thing with UC is that it's a disease for life but for most people it stays in remission for long periods of time so you can get along fine 90% of the time, it's just the other 10% of the time when it flares up that you end up in hospital and/or in agony.
There's plenty of worse things out there to have.
Sorry!
I had a minor flare up about a month ago, but nothing significant since then. I've actually been off my medication for just over three months now.
My wife and I are trying for a kid, but it turns out that I'm sterile. Initial investigations by our GP & consultant suggested that my anti-inflammatories were responsible (I take Sulphasalazine/Salazopyrin, which is known to affect male fertility). So I was advised to kick the meds for three months, and then see if I could get the missus up the duff (hasn't happened yet).
Due for a checkup appointment in about a month's time, at which the specialist will check my fertility rate again and see if the medication-free regime has had any effect. If it hasn't, he'll put me on a new medication and seek alternative reasons for my sterility.
At the moment I am regulating my condition by means of a careful diet. It's not ideal, but it seems to be working for the moment. This is the longest I have ever gone without medication, and it's a bit scary. But it's all I can do if we want a kid (and we do want a kid).
Glad to hear it's not too bad at the moment, just a shame about the side effects of the tablets. Has your doctor mentioned anything about mesalazine to you? It's an alternative to sulfazine with less side effects/less potency.
I've had to radically change my diet too, no alcohol or milk/cheese for me and anything with seeds in such as tomatoes are a big no-no.
.Well I'm alive 
.
The colonoscopy itself went fine, I remember all of it as I wasn't that sedated and luckily it wasn't too uncomfortable. The only bad news is they've confirmed that I've got UC of the whole colon and not just the left side as I first thought.
To answer the question of why I had to have one in the first place, it's because this time last year I was rushed into hospital because I was in absolute agony and felt like my organs were trying to escape from my body, that was my first flare up of UC.
.The colonoscopy itself went fine, I remember all of it as I wasn't that sedated and luckily it wasn't too uncomfortable. The only bad news is they've confirmed that I've got UC of the whole colon and not just the left side as I first thought.
To answer the question of why I had to have one in the first place, it's because this time last year I was rushed into hospital because I was in absolute agony and felt like my organs were trying to escape from my body, that was my first flare up of UC.