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Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

This is about colonoscopy screening. If you give a fecal sample and it comes up as suspicious, the next step will be a colonoscopy anyway.

A colonoscopy is quite unpleasant; you starve for a day, and take an enema. They may sedate you before the procedure. If they don't, then the procedure is quite uncomfortable; not exactly painful, but unpleasant.

Incidentally, if they find and remove a polyp, they will plant a tattoo inside your gut to mark the spot, for the benefit of future spelunking visitors.

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> you starve for a day

fast for a day, starvation is another thing and takes weeks to set in for the average westerner

"Hungry is after three days" as I once heard it ...

The enema is replaced with a laxative often. That is still really hard, I barely got half of mine down and was in a rough state the morning of the procedure.

I was sedated, so laxative was the hardest part of the ordeal, not the fasting or actual procedure.

Wow, colonoscopy with no sedation must be extremely awful. Isn't sedation the default anywhere? I remember the papers I had to sign were really serious about advicing sedation.

I couldn't be sedated, because I had no companion to take me home, and a taxi doesn't cut it.

I wouldn't describe it as "extremely awful". It was very uncomfortable; I'd compare it to 40 minutes of dental hygiening.

I think it's nuts that they use this procedure for screening. I'm screened for bowel cancer annually, using a fecal sample pack they send me through the post, and that I post back. No hospital visit, no treatment room, no expensive equipment, no nurses and doctors. The only reason I can think of for using colonoscopy as a screening technique is that it's costly.

They can be very painful, in my experience. I would not opt for one without sedation again.

Thanks for these corrections. Yes, I should have said "fast". And indeed for my recent colonoscopy, I was given laxative, not an enema, it's a sachet of powder that you dissolve in a litre of water; you then have to gulp that down as well as drinking lots of water. Years ago I had a sigmoidoscopy, and then they did give me an enema. That's the only time I've had an enema, and I didn't know what to expect. It was very rapid, and rather dramatic.

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