WOW!! My condolences!!
(Ha ha. I assume you’re a medical professional of some sort.)
RVM - I put off my colonoscopy until I was 62. Fortunately, it was fine and I’m good for 10 years. My reasons for putting it off were similar to yours. I had a bad experience with anesthesia 28 years ago, and didn’t trust what others told me about propofol. I did fine with it - no issues while I was under and I felt fine afterward. I also had concerns about the prep, but I survived it. Now that I’ve been through it, I feel stupid for having put it off for so long.
“I have no family history of colon cancer and no symptoms. Am I making sense or being foolish?”
I would recommend that you go ahead and have the colonoscopy. It is really not that bad.
One thing that I didn’t realize until I had my first: If they find something really small, then they can fix it right there at the time during the colonoscopy. In the long run it is a LOT less bothersome to catch a precancerous polyp when it is very small and can be easily removed during the colonoscopy, compared to NOT catching the small precancerous polyp and letting it continue to progress.
“Now that I’ve been through it, I feel stupid for having put it off for so long.”
Yup, my feeling also. I am very glad that I went ahead and did it.
Ask my 45-year-old friend, a serious runner and bicyclist, if she wishes she had had a colonoscopy sooner! She is now undergoing treatment for stage III colon cancer. MUCH MUCH WORSE experience than a simple colonoscopy! Chemo, radiation, and having part of her intestines removed. I’m sorry, I just do not understand why anyone would fail to get such a simple test done. My running partner lost both her parents to colon cancer. So pointless. 
Just as an aside, DH had last year - and it was supposed to be fully covered by insurance. During procedure, they found and removed polyp. And that changed the way the insurance characterized it - went from covered diagnostic procedure to a medical procedure with a deductible - we ended up with a $1400 bill.
I also recently read a story about a Texas paramedic - rescuer in Harvey - had colonoscopy 3 years ago - polyp removed - all good - told to come back in 3 years for another one - he does so - gets diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer. So, I remain very skeptical that this procedure is of much benefit.
@rockvillemom, a situation such as you describe (stage 4 cancer 3 years after polyp) is very rare. What happens on a daily basis at my center is that pre-cancerous polyps are removed and do not have a chance to grow into cancers (which they likely would if left alone). Subsequent follow ups continue to stop these lesions in their tracks, thus actually preventing cancer in these susceptible individuals. I could not disagree with your last statement any more.
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<p>Same thing happened to me, and I wasn’t thrilled about it. But it was a hell of a lot cheaper than my husband’s chemo, radiation, and surgeries.</p>
<p>When I had a colonoscopy they found and removed a polyp. They didn’t change the insurance coding.</p>
<p>My Mum was diagnosed with co!on cancer at 84. They said it was s!ow growing and had probably started 10-15 years before. I very much wish she had had a colonoscopy. It would have saved her so much suffering. She survived the cancer but it was the beginning of a downward spiral as major surgery in an older person can be. It really changed her life.</p>
<p>My polyp was large and required a special instrument to remove. I was pretty annoyed at the time, though. It seemed really expensive for what was done, but I am very glad it’s gone. </p>
<p>I really appreciate the input. I just have such a hard time with situations where a person feels fine and everything is good, and then they undergo some type of procedure meant to help, and bad things follow. I just cannot imagine what it would be like to have a colonoscopy - and find something is actually wrong. I want to believe that if I feel fine, I am fine.</p>
<p>Any thoughts on the cologuard stool test instead? Even if I have to pay for it, I might be more likely to try that.</p>
https://www.cologuardtest.com/what-is-cologuard/how-effective-is-cologuard
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“In a 10,000-patient clinical study, Cologuard found 92% of colon cancers.1 It also found 69% of high-risk precancers (high-grade dysplasia), those most likely to develop into cancer.
Both false positives and false negatives do occur. In a clinical study of Cologuard, 13% of people without cancer or precancer tested positive.”
As described above it is not 100%, do you want to take the chance OF BEING THAT 8%, 31% OR THE 13%? On cc, we normally call those 10% admit rate schools “lottery schools”, what should we call “Cologuard”?
I don’t know about your insurance coverage, but I think most of insurance cover the cost of colonoscopy after the age of 50.
Okay, but the colonoscopy did not cause the bad outcome you described. No matter the procedure or treatment, some patients will not follow the normal pattern and will not benefit.
When DH was diagnosed, he kept saying he couldn’t understand it because “I don’t feel sick.” If he had put off his colonoscopy much longer, he would be dead now.
My understanding is that the cologuard is designed to detect cancer cells. With colonoscopy, the potential cancer can be removed BEFORE it becomes cancer. Also, the cologuard test can result in false positives (13% IIRC) and false negatives.
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So you accept some random anecdote on the internet, but you won’t accept multiple anecdotes from people <em>in this thread</em> whose lives or spouse’s lives were saved due to detection via colonoscopy.</p>
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This is not rational.</p>
<p>You are not being rational.</p>
<p>I’m not sure exactly what your fear is, but you need to get over it. If not for yourself, for your family and loved ones.</p>
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<p>Do you have this same feeling about mammograms? Meaning, you don’t want to get bad news, so as long as you don’t feel a lump, you can convince yourself that you couldn’t have breast cancer and so don’t need to have a mammo?</p>
<p>I’m not criticizing, just trying to figure out where you’re coming from.</p>
<p>“I very much wish she had had a colonoscopy. It would have saved her so much suffering.”</p>
<p>I am very sorry to hear of your Mother’s suffering. I have known at least one person who went through something similar. </p>
<p>To be honest, I didn’t have my colonoscopies in the hope that it would save my life or to avoid dying. I had the colonoscopy in order to avoid the suffering of what it takes to treat advanced colon cancer. Thus to me a stool test that detects cancer isn’t what I am looking for. I want something that can remove a polyp (pre-cancer) early, before it becomes cancer. Of course this is exactly what happened in my case, and having a small polyp removed was really easy. </p>
<p>I do understand that this does not guarantee freedom from colon cancer. From what I have read a colonoscopy improves the odds by quite a bit. </p>
@rockvillemom – there is an easier stool test that your insurance will cover. The colonguard has been heaviliy advertised; is a DNA test - and cost $$.
But FIT is simply a test for blood, is very easy to do, and very inexpensive. Insurance will pay because it has been around long enough to be established.
Amazon even sells a home kit for $28 - https://www.amazon.com/Second-Generation-Immunochemical-Colorectal-Cancer/dp/B00ICK0ZPK – but as I said, the insurance will pay --the cost to insurers is generally around $15.
If you look at the government recommendations, it is:
FIT is a form of fecal occult blood testing.
American Cancer Society recommendations are consistent with that -
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html
(Obviously these are recommendations for people with average or low risk)
And here is the info on the CDC website:
The downside is that (a) it needs to be done every year; (b) any sort of blood in the stool can cause a false positive,which would need to be followed up by a colonoscopy – and if that happens the insurance might not pay.
Here’s a link to some science (published research journal article): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016510716306253
This is an article published in January 2017 - it has full text and lots of numbers – here is their recommendation:
Here’s a random controlled study published in the New England Journal of Medicine – great chart on the fifth page of the article:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1108895
Basically, cancer detection rate is the same or perhaps even slightly better with FIT (though that could be because of higher participation rates); colonoscopy group about twice as likely to suffer adverse complications (but still a very tiny fraction); and colonoscopy’s detected at least double the number of polyps. But not all polyps are cancerous. (“Fewer than 10% of all adenomas become cancerous, however, more than 95% of colorectal cancers develop from adenomas” - from http://www.hopkinscoloncancercenter.org/CMS/CMS_Page.aspx?CurrentUDV=59&CMS_Page_ID=0B34E9BE-5DE6-4CB4-B387-4158CC924084)
If you lived in Canada with their wonderful free health care for everyone, you wouldn’t be getting a colonoscopy. They’d offer you either a sigmoidoscopy, GFOBT, or FIT.
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2016/02/22/cmaj.151125.full.pdf
And yet another article looking at the evidence, this one more readable (basically while everyone thinks colonoscopy is better, there’s not as yet any statitistical evidence to back that up in terms of cancer diagnosis or mortality rates):
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-could-skip-your-colonoscopy-if-youre-willing-to-collect-your-poop/
There is a long-term clinical trial going on but that won’t be complete until 2028:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT01239082
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So do what you are comfortable doing. So far the evidence seems to be that statistically, there is no difference in cancer detection rates between FIT testing and colonoscopy.
The most effective test is the one that you will actually get. So since you are having your physical in 2 weeks - ask for the FIT test then. The doctor or lab will give you a take home kit. Having a FIT test doesn’t prevent you from biting the bullet and getting the colonoscopy next year. (Insurance will probably onliy pay for one test per year).
<p>@rockvillemom - making this a separate post becaue my post #1319 is so long --</p>
<p>I just want to say, don’t let anyone shame you or push you. You should get a test - and I personally don’t know why anyone would choose $$$$ Cologuard over FIT, if you opt for a stool test. </p>
<p>But the problem with people telling you the horror stories about relatives with cancer is simply that the data doesn’t show any difference in overall diagnosis rate. There may well be – but there’s no data as of yet to support that. </p>
<p>I appreciate the varying opinions. The FIT test is intruiging - I will defintely ask about that next week. I am inclined to do something rather than nothing, so I guess that is progress.</p>
<p>@Nrdsb4 - I do have mammograms - but I admit my thought process is the same - I feel fine so nothing could possibly be wrong. So far, so good.</p>
<p>I admit my thought process on this topic is less than ideal. I just don’t like doctors, medical procedures, etc. I want to rely on healthy eating and exercise. I don’t particularly trust medical advice - since guidelines frequently change. I do think the medical community is prone to ordering too many tests and writing too many prescriptions. </p>
Even as a nurse, I have to agree with your last sentence. But not all tests and not all prescriptions are bad. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, people who eat well and exercise end up with health issues. It’s a very good thing to do for your body, but it is by no means any kind of guarantee that you will never get sick. What I can guarantee is that you would feel the same way as my husband did after his diagnosis: “WHY WHY WHY didn’t I do that colonoscopy sooner?” Please don’t let that be you. One of the stool tests would be better than nothing, but colonoscopy remains the gold star diagnostic tool. It’s not just a cancer screening test-its true purpose is to find currently non cancerous polyps and remove them so that you don’t have to depend on a future test to detect that they have become cancer.
@rockvillemom - my Mum was always very healthy and ate healthily and walked a lot (with her dog). After she was diagnosed she kept asking “why me?”. She really did not think she should have got it because she was so good about what she ate and was never overweight (unlike me).