Posted by Casey on 7/22/2005, 2:42 pm, in reply to "Re: My Recent Experience" However, if it took you 4 days to recover, it seems that the procedure seriously stressed your body. I was told that I absolutely could go back to work the very next day and could resume all heavy exercise, etc. I was also told there are "absolutely no after effects." Most of the people I know who have had this test were grateful they could find out whether or not they had cancerous or precancerous conditions. However, most of them needed from 2 to 7 days to actually feel well. (I ended up in an emergency room 36 hours later and was in pretty bad shape for about a week--all due to what doctors termed "an extremely aggressive colonoscopy technique.") So much for the medical community touting that this is "just a snap," as I was promised. Also, in another message, you noted that the pain level had you gritting your teeth. That's not a level of pain I want to experience, but if it worked better for you this way versus having any medications, that's great. It's interesting that men I know who have had this procedure have reported significantly lower pain thresholds than the women. Not only have the men most often received much higher pain med amounts than the women, but there are several medical research studies that report women experiencing higher and more sustained levels of pain. The studies attribute this to women actually having longer bowels--more to plow through. You also noted that you had 2 docs attending you. That is definitely a plus that most people don't report. Usually it is a doc and a nurse or nurse/anesthetist. In my case it was only the doc and a very young woman who sat across the room and watched my vitals flash on the machines--she was a records clerk. I was literally at the mercy of the doc who refused to administer additional meds even though I was in considerable pain, and it would have been impossible for the doc to take her hands from the endoscope to inject the drugs anyway. (I went to the only endocenter my clinic uses and it was a terrible place.) Reading your account and recalling mine, I'm again struck at the variance of experiences. You had a good facility and docs, and I unwittingly got a bad facility and doc.
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I'm glad that you had a positive experience, Dennis, and that your test showed no problems.
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