Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are at risk, do the mail in test.

Exactly. Cologuard or something like it. How old are you and do you have a hisotry of colon cancer in your family? Otherwise, no way in hell would I do a colonoscopy when there are other options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi, OP. Did you read this thread? There is lots of good advice about the Miralax and Gatorade approach. I posted about it and others did as well. Read and see if it might work for you. There is a link that more fully outlines the approach. It is highly effective.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1009321.page#21111416

The person in that thread drinks orange gatorade which is a no-no (no reds)- no idea otherwise re that prep approach but in 30 years of cxolonoscopies I’ve never had that approach suggested.

The miralex/gatorade instructions are what I got for my medstar/Georgetown colonoscopy, and the instructions say orange gatorade is fine -- only red/blue/purple are bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they determine you weren't completely cleaned out?

My friend had the unfortunate experience of throwing up the dratted liquid all night (she tried to contact their office without success to let them know), then being placed under in the morning, explored, etc, only to be told the results were inconclusive because she wasn't cleaned out enough, and she'd have to redo the entire thing soon.

Consider yourself lucky you escaped general anesthesia.

There are many people who don't do well with the prep, and research is ongoing to find better ways of exploring intestines. Contact the doctor to discuss a different prep.

Sorry for the TMI, but the nurse asked about my poop when I arrived and said if it was anything except clear or yellow I needed to use the bathroom and let her look at it. It was kind of embarrassing, but I am glad I didn't go through with a useless procedure. She also got a second opinion from the charge nurse.

The problem with contacting the doctor directly is that I tried to get in touch with her before the procedure (about timing of migraine meds) and she never responded. Unless the person who does scheduling is adept at discussing options, I'm feeling like there isn't a good way to get information from them about what will work better. Hence my idea to try to figure it out on my own and then make a specific request when I call to schedule.

Go find another doctor. During initial consultation, your doctor should've given you different options and the recommendation.

There is no initial consultation. My primary care doc refers, then the office calls me to schedule. I am not in DC, but near two major medical centers and they both seem to work this way. My primary care doc is great but I've never been able to speak to a specialist with whom I didn't already have an established relationship, and I doubt primary care doc will be able to advise on this.

That.Really.Sucks.

I still think you are missing a step here somewhere. Going straight from your primary to surgery table doesn't seem right to me. I had one hour long appt with my GI doc who worked on me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi, OP. Did you read this thread? There is lots of good advice about the Miralax and Gatorade approach. I posted about it and others did as well. Read and see if it might work for you. There is a link that more fully outlines the approach. It is highly effective.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1009321.page#21111416

The person in that thread drinks orange gatorade which is a no-no (no reds)- no idea otherwise re that prep approach but in 30 years of cxolonoscopies I’ve never had that approach suggested.

Anonymous wrote:Hi, OP. Did you read this thread? There is lots of good advice about the Miralax and Gatorade approach. I posted about it and others did as well. Read and see if it might work for you. There is a link that more fully outlines the approach. It is highly effective.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1009321.page#21111416

Anonymous wrote:I was given movenprep and did not get fully cleaned out. I was panicked. The nurses told me that they basically spray up there to clean you out a bit anyway during the procedure and that the doctor would proceed with the procedure. It went fine but I’ll ask
For a different prep next time

Anonymous wrote:How did they determine you weren't completely cleaned out?

My friend had the unfortunate experience of throwing up the dratted liquid all night (she tried to contact their office without success to let them know), then being placed under in the morning, explored, etc, only to be told the results were inconclusive because she wasn't cleaned out enough, and she'd have to redo the entire thing soon.

Consider yourself lucky you escaped general anesthesia.

There are many people who don't do well with the prep, and research is ongoing to find better ways of exploring intestines. Contact the doctor to discuss a different prep.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I've done every single prep mentioned above at least once. I'm 43, and I've been having colonoscopies about every 2 years since I was 20. I haven't done the Go-lightly in about 15 years. It's definitely the worst of the preps, and I'm always surprised when i see it behind the counter at the pharmacy. The go-lightly prep and the miralax prep both made me vomit. My last prep was the Sutab, which I was excited about trying because I thought it would be easier. It didn't work AT ALL. I ended up having to rush out to the pharmacy to get a bottle of magnesium citrate and redo the whole prep the morning of my procedure. The easiest preps for me are the ones with the two small bottles of liquid followed by multiple cups of water. Suprep, Prepopik, Clenpiq. The "flavor" has gotten better over the last 10 years, but none are great. If nausea is an issue, definitely ask your Dr for an antiemetic.

Anyway. OP - you need to call the office of the dr who is doing the procedure and tell them you want a different prep than what you had before. And if they won't talk to you about it, or they won't give you something else, then you need to call your primary physician and tell them that they need to refer you to someone else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone just posted on here how a friend or neighbor just died of colon cancer and he said he had done the poop in a box thing and it missed his cancer. Poop in a box won't catch precancerous polyps as I understand it.

Color guard only detects blood in the sample. Precancerous polyps don’t bleed. Slow growing, relatively large, cancerous tumors sometimes bleed. The colonoscopy removes the polyps, some pre-cancerous, before blood is present in a sample and before it can become cancerous.
I do not understand how Colorguard gives any peace of mind (unless you only want to know when you have a big ole bleeding tumor).

It's called Cologuard, not colorguard. Color guard is a flag ceremony.

Secondly it has nothing to do with blood at all. It picks up cancerous DNA, not blood. What it doesn't do is detect precancerous polyps, which can turn into cancer. It's repeatee every 3 to 5 years, unlike a colonoscopy, which is every 10.

Yes, most insurances pay for a colonoscopy if Cologuard finds something.

You just made a lot of cr@p up here, pardon the pun.

Yep. I just received my cologuard and my doctor told me if I pooped in the box I'd get a test in 3 years and if I did the colonoscopy it would be 10. I'm only 45 and have no risk. I think I'm going to poop in the box.
Did recommend getting colonoscopy when I turn 50 however just to be safe

I had no symptoms, no family history and no cancer marker in blood tests and still colon cancer found at my first screening colonoscopy. I thank god I didn’t fall for the cologuard. But most people aren’t so unlucky.

Why do you think Cololguard wouldn't have picked it up? You didn't use it, so why do you think that? Cologuard does pick up cancer DNA.