Colonoscopy - What to Expect, Before, During and After

Granted, having a doctor stick a camera up your butt doesn't sound like much fun, but its really not as bad as you think its going to be. In fact, once its over, you'll wonder what you were making such a big fuss over.

My doctor is young and idealistic. She is under the impression that everyone would want to know if there is something wrong with them. She's just getting to know me, so she was sort of taken aback when she suggested to me that because I am 55 it is time for me to have a colonoscopy and I said no. She is young, but she is also pretty slick.

She said that as part of my routine pap test, she would be doing a rectal exam and if it turned up anything unusual I would have to go for a colonoscopy. I agreed. So, she did the rectal exam, smeared some of my fecal matter on a little square slide, held it up to the light and said, "Yep, you're going for a colonoscopy because I might see blood on this."

She didn't fool me for a minute, but, as it turned out, it was a good thing she did put that down as the reason for the colonoscopy because my insurance would not have covered it had it been just a routine screening.

So, off to a pre-colonoscopy appointment I went. The doctor explained the procedure to me, much to my growing horror. He said the colon and intestine is cleaned out the night before and the day of the test, I would be sedated and he would then insert a small camera into my colon and "look around". I stopped him and asked what he meant by "sedated" because I was under the impression that I would be knocked unconscious and sedated doesn't necessarily mean unconscious. He informed me that the medicine that would be used would not put me completely out because they need the patient to be conscious enough to be able to follow directions and to move if need be. He said that most patients do not remember any of the procedure at all, some remember some of it and a few remember all of it.