I agree about the fasting— hate it. Drinking the prep, not so much! During my last colonoscopy this past October, I went without any sedation. (During my last screening, the nausea I experienced from the sedative was awful.) The doctor and nurse(s) were very supportive going without sedative. They were evidently supposed to IV me beforehand but didn’t. When they rolled me in to the screening room the doctor was very nonchalant about it and just said let me know if you are too uncomfortable and want to be sedated at any time during the procedure. I would say going sedation-free is uncomfortable (especially when making those hairpin turns) BUT is not painful, except for some cramping which can be controlled to some extent by breathing. You get so much more information from the doctor when you are totally awake. It was a nonstop, 20-25 minute narrative that was quite fascinating!
In my experience, that is true for some and completely UNTRUE for some. Pain thresholds vary significantly from person to person. I’ve had patients say it was a piece of cake and others have said “don’t EVER let me do that again.” The good thing if you have an IV in is that if you decide it is too uncomfortable, you can be sedated immediately. Not the case if you don’t have IV access.
I finally rescheduled my colonoscopy for the 4th time, for tomorrow. Did a low residue diet for a week, got everything worked out with my schedule. Just before I started the prep, my dad called me in a panic. Can’t stand the possibility of my mom driving me in a little bit of snow (my husband is working). Even though I said I would drive. Cancelled it. All that for nothing. 
No neighbors? No other friends?
That is one reason I opted for FIT all these years. With my kids grown and living in other states, there is no one to drive me to the a facility where I would get the procedure. So in my case, it is not only me who would need to be inconvenienced… I would also need to impose on someone else.
I think that is one factor that medical professionals overlook. It is not so easy for everyone to find someone to act in the role of both driver and support companion.
Given the high cost of the procedure, I wonder if any of the outpatient surgery centers also provide some sort of in-house transit service.
My facility only required that the patient have a ride home. They weren’t required to provide evidence of companionship for the rest of the day.
Our facility did not provide for transportation; however, if one didn’t have a family member/friend to drive them home, they were allowed to hire a taxi, uber, or other car service. But if they chose that option, they had to recover for 30 extra minutes, and the driver had to come into the waiting area to retrieve them.
What if the patient wanted to walk home or take public transportation?
^At Kaiser, they would not allow you to do either. Also, at Kaiser, your driver must check in when the patient arrives so they can verify your ride BEFOREHAND.
Only have a few neighbors…two are elderly, two are always gone. Friends work, so not going to call them on a Sunday night to drive in the snow, stay there for two hours. It’s at least 5 hour ordeal with driving, way too last minute to ask anyone.
Glad I cancelled it. Snow was bad, roads terrible, cars stranded. My Subaru was great, but I’d have to pull over every 30 min to go to the bathroom for a probable 90 min drive there. And walking up the steep hill by myself to clean off my snow coated car, would have been tough when I’m weak. Turned out to be a blessing, and God forbid I did that and the medical team cancelled!
bus, I’m glad it worked out best for you
We have a local outpatient clinic that charges $18 for drivers to and from. The man who,picked me up came 1/2 hour early. Both men were very pleasant. I wish more clinics had this service. It helps the patients and the drivers.
Facilities around here also seem to have the requirement that the driver must check in when the patient arrives (for verification ahead of time); AND that there be a driver who is a family member/friend to take the person home. Perhaps it’s a liability concern? (California is a very litigious state!) I haven’t called around to verify that every single local facility has this requirement – before this year I would have been restricted to my insurance plan network, though now that I am on regular Medicare I may have more options in the future.
In any case now that I’ve got a pretty solid history of annual negative FIT tests over multiple years I’m happy to just stay on that protocol – but of course if a FIT test were to come back positive - or I developed other symptoms of a bowel problem – then I would need to schedule and deal with the transportation problem one way or another.
I’m glad to know that at least some facilities will provide a driver or allow patients to take a taxi or uber — but that could also be a barrier to a lower income person. There is risk/benefit analysis and there is also a cost/benefit analysis. “Cost” is not only the out-of-pocket that a person pays if they don’t have adequate insurance – it is also the cost of missed work and costs for transportation. Even the cost for an uber could be a barrier for people at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
My hospital says someone needs to check in and stay with you, and take you home. You could probably use Uber or a taxi if that person was with you, but they insist you can’t go it alone.
I have to admit that had I done this in terrible driving conditions, with me driving, it could have been awful.
Fortunate for those of you who get a clean bill of health. Here’s hoping for all of us!
Just found this thread and stopping into say hi. It seems appropriate as I am leaving in 2 hours for my colonoscopy. The prep hasn’t been terrible but wow does the liquid taste awful. Hoping for clear results. I had polyps in the past so I am a big fan of regular colonoscopies. Best wishes to everyone.
No walking alone after anesthesia. And we don’t have great public transportation-they would have to walk to get to a bus stop, so no.
Every once in a while a patient will insist on walking or driving after the procedure. They are told, fine, but it will be done with no anesthesia or sedation whatsoever.
I totally understand why the patient should be taken home by a friend or relative. IME, I’m woozy, vague, not totally with the program. I certainly couldn’t drive myself. My facility doesn’t allow a taxi (or, I assume, an Uber), which I’m OK with. A taxi or Uber driver could easily take advantage in some way of a patient in a woozy state.
My facility doesn’t require that the patient’s driver stay at the facility. The last time I did this, DH dropped me off and Friend picked me up. (DH had to work at the pick-up time.) The facility required that I give them the name and number of the person who was to pick me up, and they called her at the appropriate time.
Okay, I just got back. I had eight polyps. The doctor thinks two were precancerous, though we won’t know for sure until the lab results come back.
My last colonoscopy, which was clear, was 5 years ago. Wow. I’m so glad I went in. I encourage everyone to get screened!
Wow! When do you need to do this again? Three years, I’d assume.
Harking back to ucbalumnus’s post on comparative risk, I cannot imagine what possible “harms” could arise from a stool sample test!
@calla1, good for you for being on top of it. I’m glad the polyps could be removed!
The potential harms are not from the test itself, but from any follow-up colonoscopy that may be done. However, since such a follow-up colonoscopy is done under conditions where there is known increased risk of colorectal cancer (due to the finding of blood in the stool), the comparison of benefits of colonoscopy versus the harms tilts more in favor of doing the colonoscopy in this situation compared to the situation of using colonscopy as primary screening.
If a stool test comes back positive, then the person will need to follow up with a colonoscopy. The risk tables at the USPSTF website are projections which factor in the number of colonoscopies that will be given to persons who pre-screen with stool testing.
A small fraction of individuals who have positive stool test results will have false positives, so for that group, in hindsight, the colonoscopy will have been unnecessary.
A true positive stool test result does not mean the person has cancer, but does mean that the person probably has polyps that should be removed. The risk of harms from the colonoscopy itself are higher when the procedure includes polyp removal, so overall the prescreened group probably are also more at risk of complications. I don’t know if that is factored into the risk calculation. But obviously the risk of not removing a bleeding, precancerous polyp far outweighs the risk of injury during the removal procedure.
Any person who has had polyps in the past would be considered to have higher than average risk. So that history would favor use of more frequent colonoscopies rather than stool testing.