Can’t believe its 10 years ago I started this thread. It is time for another one in a few days.
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Five years since my last one. Next one in two weeks.
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Thanks for starting this thread. 
It has been instrumental in helping me straighten out HS kids wandering into the Cafe and wondering why we talk about things not related to college admissions. 
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I had my second at the beginning of January. I had a benign polyp that “can” be a precursor to cancer - so I will be back on the table in 5 years, rather than 10, next time. I absolutely hate the prep, and I hope that they come up with something better in 5 years. Sleeping on the bathroom floor is not my idea of a good time!
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H was part of a trial testing a blood test (comparing it to his colonoscopy results). Hopefully that will prove to be good and folks can reliably avoid basic colonoscopies in 5 years. Time will tell.
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My husband and I are back in 3 years, the way I see it, if they found something that’s good news. They told us we did a very clean prep, it must mean some people didn’t.
I was part of a similar study. Fingers crossed!
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They found a large pre-cancerous polyp my very first time, a few weeks after I turned 50. I had to go back at 53 and 56. I have a hard time getting cleaned out, even though I follow all the instructions religiously. The last time, I asked for a tougher prep procedure to avoid that problem, and it went better. I will go again when I’m 61.
As much as I hate the prep, I would go back every year if they told me to. I have a 45-year-old friend who was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. She went through hell to get treated. She’s actually doing very well right now, but she’s still suffering after-effects from chemo.
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My cousin died at 49, so everyone in my family takes this colonoscopy seriously.
My husband originally didn’t want to do, but I suggested to do one at 70 and no more, now he’s glad to be back in 3 years.
I hate the prep is that the week before the day of doing colonoscopy I have to eat mushy food, no fiber kind of food. This is one of the few times I make meatloaf to eat. We have to eat canned fruit. Food I rarely eat normally.
The goal would be for it to be better than yearly FIT (which is already quite good) for this purpose, while also not being too expensive (sDNA-FIT (Cologuard) is too expensive to be used yearly, but doing it every three years is less effective than FIT).
Of course, any non- or minimally invasive test like FIT or the blood test under investigation would have to be followed by colonoscopy after a finding, although it would on average result in fewer colonoscopies than using colonoscopy as primary screening.
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One thing that I have wondered about both the blood test and Cologuard is whether or not they detect precancerous polyps. Having had precancerous polyps removed, I am glad that I had the colonoscopies before they got larger (all were what they call “small”).
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Done! Done! Done! for the rest of my life. I got a clean bill and it says:
Nothing found and will not require a follow-up even in 10 years, as I am over 70.
The prep is nothing to sneeze about. I was sitting on the bowl for two hours from 5-7am on the morning of the procedure. They told me to take one Gas-x before final prep at 5am and take one Gas-x after the completion of the prep, three hours before the procedure. Has anyone else had Gas-x? I was wondering why?
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They called me to see if I want to be in the blood test group and I agreed. But I never received the consent form to sign, so I did not get the blood taken before the procedure.
So it’s time for me to undergo this procedure again. Last time I had the Prepopik prep and it wasn’t too bad. I recall reading here that people thought that was an easier prep.
My instructions this time are for the Miralax prep. In reading about this, the Miralax is a PEG based prep and the Prepopik is saline based. It seems like there are more cons to the saline based, and I have a history of heart PVCs so perhaps this is why they chose it? (Preparing for Your Colonoscopy: Types of Kits & Instructions)
Anyway, I am not looking forward to this prep as I have to get up in the middle of the night and drink an ungodly amount of prep and liquid. Plus, we have moved houses since the last time and no longer have a guest room, so trying to figure out where I will park myself for the night is no fun!
I did okay drinking the stuff. However, I had to sleep on the bathroom floor … it was not an easy prep for me.
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Any prep is better than colon cancer. I don’t mind it at all.
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I had my latest in October. Prep was SuTab, Miralax, and Ducolax. My procedure was scheduled for noon so the prep wasn’t as bad as it could have been - coffee was allowed early in the am.
SuTab is two sets of 12 large pills. Miralax was mixed with cold lemon soda/seltzer. It seemed more was allowed as far as what I could drink, and even the diet wasn’t as difficult as 5 years ago. Either that, or I shut it all out, haha.
It seems to me that the SuTab plus magnesium citrate prep worked better, but this one was bad at all.
@zeebamom, I think there is a shut it out effect the same way you shut out the pain of childbirth when you choose to have another baby 
I just had #6 on the 16th and had chicken broth for lunch and dinner on prep day and the warm broth seemed to lessen my hunger pains. My procedure wasn’t until 1 pm and it was difficult to not have anything but a sip of water with meds that morning, but I made my mantra “follow the instructions” for that part of prep. I am not so good about following instructions when it comes to drinking all the prep and have never consumed all of it in 6 procedures because I become nauseous and can’t keep it down. To compensate for that, I’m fastidious about the limited diet. New doc in new city and I told him at pre-procedure appointment that was my situation and he said on procedure day that I was adequately cleaned out. Hope that in 5 years there will be a more tolerable prep for my gag reflex - we’ll see. I absolutely hate doing the prep, but it feels good to be on the other side when you get a good report.
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Not sure if mentioned upthread - but one thing to be aware of is caffeine consumption if you drink a lot of caffeinated coffee w/milk sugar (I did).
You can’t have the milk/sugar during prep - so I skipped the usual coffee and got a wicked caffeine withdrawal headache (such that had to postpone procedure). Learned to drink some diet mountain dew or other clear caffeinated beverage to avoid that aspect…
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Such a great tip! I have one coming up and will definitely use that.
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