I’m due a colonoscopy soon, is it embarrassing?

Hello I’m due a colonoscopy soon never had one I know roughly was going to be done is it embarrassing?

I am very sorry to hear that. There is nothing to worry about and the medical people who do it have done it many times before so they know what they are doing. Nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about and I hope the results prove negative.

Just lie back and enjoy. No pain just pleasure.

Thank you

I have had one every 5 years for a while now. My Dr. put me to sleep so I don't know anything about it. It's not painful that I can tell. No aftereffects.

I’ve had a half dozen (or more) colonoscopies. The procedure is not painful — nor embarrassing. My last one involved being sedated with IV Propofol which was very quick and pleasant. I had no drowsiness upon awakening 15-20 minutes later. The day or two before your appointment can be somewhat inconvenient as you will be prescribed laxatives to clean out your innards. You will be spending considerable time on the toilet blasting away. Just have your iPad or a good book available as your hiney will be very busy for extended periods of time.

As Bill Clinton might say that depends on what you consider embarrassing. For me the worst part is the prep: drinking a gallon of laxative and spending a whole day crapping your brains out. The procedure itself is painless: you’ll be sedated with either general anesthesia or twilight sleep, and lasts all of 20 minutes. The only embarrassment, if this should concern you, is that while you are “under” all your vital signs have to be constantly monitored, usually by a separate nurse or med-tech, and usually all women. That means a small audience will be present as the doctor rams a tube up your butt. But you’ll be oblivious to all of it. Good luck.

I've had a few colonoscopies, all with gas and air available on tap.

For me parts of it were painful, as it was post op and some of my pathways had been compromised.

Embarrassing, not at all. I was used to being unclothed for the medical staff.

You are turned in side with your butt covered and then the give you the drug to put you to sleep (conscious sedation) becayse you are asleep but still breathing on your own, then expose the butt and insert the scope into the colon, look around to make sure there is nothing abnormal with the colon and the procedure is done. You wake up on your own, given juice and crackers and you are discharged to your driver. Rest that day and it’s over

You are braver than I, the whole thought of it turns my stomach. I can’t even think of even doing the self kit. Makes me shudder.

First thing, don't worry about embarrassment, the techs and the doctor see dozens of anuses, rectums, and colons every week. I had an interesting occurrence, waited for 70 yrs for my first colonoscopy. On "the day", I get there and they realize they scheduled me for a different doctor, who I never met before in this large group, many of whom have similar last names beginning with "S". If you don't want "Dr Smith, you can reschedule it for another day, when your Dr Schmidt is here." I said "I don't care who it is,, just DO IT". I wasn't going to go through all the prep again. Dr Smith was just fine, they only found a couple of benign polyps, and we all had a good laugh about the mix-up, including my Doctor who was off that day.

I've had a few colonoscopies and have to say did not encounter any embarrassment. However, I'm not all that fond of the prep which is not necessarily painful but it could be chalked up to being an ordeal. For me had to start taking a couple of laxative pills and then about 6 hours later drinking Miralax powder mixed with Gatorade. You start by downing a half gallon of that stuff and letting it flush you out. Then at some crazy middle of the night hour (I had a first appt in the morning) had to drink another half gallon. If you aren't totally flushed out by this point I'd be amazed. Once you show up for the appt everything else is easy and no big deal. Now all of that said, I don't think I'll ever have kind thoughts about lemon-lime Gatorade again!

No embarrassment at all with gas I was out like a light and got up without any memory of the experience.

My last one I got sceptic blood poisoning which hit me around 30 hours after. The Doctor's best guess was that maybe the lining was torn which started the blood poisoning. I didn't know what to think when I first fell in the bath tub I could not get back up until 20 minutes of resting on the floor. Then around an hour later I got up off of the toilet and fell again and could not get up and my GF called for an ambulance. My family Doctor said that I was lucky because sceptic blood poisoning causes most patients an untimely death.

The preparation for it is grueling. But the procedure itself was fine! Great, enthusiastic doctor. She told me to go left sideline on the table. I was facing the computer which had an image of my colon as it was being scoped. I was about halfway anesthetized. No pain but a good awareness of what was going on. No seeming ability to move or speak. And a feeling of being plugged up, because I was. That was a new experience because I am not anal erotic, but it wasn't at all uncomfortable.

At the end, my family was advising me to expect recovery room time, but I was brought back to normal alertness right on the procedure table. Discharge was immediate.

Is a colonoscopy embarassing? Depends on the persons sense of modesty and embarrassment “threshold”. Most doctors, nurses and technicicians are pretty indifferent to the exposure, but I’d bet there are some who get arise seeing someone’s ass or predicament of being exposed.

With the IV sedation drugs, you won’t be aware of anything from the time they wheel you away until you wake up and ask when they’re going to start the procedure and they tell you they’re already done and could you please quickly change from their immodest, ill-fitting paper garments back into your clothes so another paying customer can use the room. You won’t have a clue that they snaked a 28-foot (8.5 m) black flexible pipe up your caboose and three times around your insides, until you get home and notice in your in your knickers, panties, undies, boxers, or briefs that they left a little smear of lubrication to remind you of their handiwork. Well, there’s that, and the bill for $2,373.99.

For years, providers liquored patients up with a IV mixture of fentanyl for pain and versed for amnesia, but more recently many providers have switched to propofol because it is fast acting and allows patients to wake up quickly in 10 to 15 minutes without the grogginess and craziness of the fentanyl/versed cocktail. Just watch a few YouTube videos to see the bizarre behavior of patients waking up from fentanyl and versed after having their wisdom-teeth removed—very entertaining stuff.

Had many over the years I don't have sedation so can chat with doc doing it and watch on screen saves going back for chat about results get it all straight away that way can drive to appointment and back much quicker and easier if not sadated

I'm in Vinni's camp. I've had five colonoscopies all without sedation. The first bend in the road going in I would give a 3-4 on a 10 scale of pain but everyone is wound different and have different pain thresholds. If your practictioner has switched to CO2 for inflation vs. air you avoid the post test flatulence as the CO2 just absorbs into the system. The video is interesting and the ability to drive yourself and go on with your day is a big plus. The pretest cleanse is the real shits of the deal.

Here are a couple previous topics discussing this...

https://en.zity.biz/index.php?mx=forum;ox=display;msg=14439

https://en.zity.biz/index.php?mx=forum;ox=display;msg=344689

I get them every 5 years or so because of polyps. The procedure itself isn't bad. It's usually done under "twilight sedation." The prep is the real hardship, although even that has gotten easier over the years

Not at all. You’re asleep for everything anyways. It’s such a quick in and out procedure

I would say it all depends on what you consider embarrassing.

Walking into the pre-examination area and being asked by the nurse to undress is embarrassing even though no one watches me get undressed. It's just that everyone knows what is going to happen.

Right before the procedure starts, I have to roll onto my side (it's a lot easier to get me to move myself rather than having the staff try to move me after I'm out). I don't think they pulled up the sheet to expose my butt until after I'm out.

I've seen other patients get colonoscopies before. It doesn't even take 10 seconds to get the scope in. Once it's in, all eyes are on the video monitors - no one is looking at your butt.

Beyond that - everyone in the room probably sees 10 - 12 colonoscopies a day. They really couldn't care any less about seeing someone's butt.

I will comment that I'm not really easily embarassed now, but it didn't seem that embarassing.

The waiting room was probably the worst at the beginning. You know everyone has a pretty good idea why you are there, but then I rapidly realized that I didn't think poorly of anyone else there, so why would they? It was early and I hadn't exactly slept well the night before so I was tired as well. Also worried they'd find a bunch of crap in me still*

Changing was in a curtained nook, though the nurse did specify to take everything off including underpants. I guess maybe some people don't. I had a cloth gown which could be wrapped around me. They put an IV just in case, I met the doctor, then got a mobile bed ride to the endo suite through a surprisingly long maze of corridors.

Three people plus me in the suite. Doc goes over basics, then roll on side in Sims, bend legs. Butt exposed but genitals mostly covered. Spread buttocks for quick lube and about ~1 sec DRE to check for how the anal canal goes, then a quick insertion of the scope and after that no one was looking at my butt, it was all on the screen. Going in I was a bit worried of whether the pressure on the prostate would cause an erection, but there wasn't much and even if there had been it would have been hidden by my legs (and no one was looking there anyway). I looked for a very experienced doc, things went quickly and there were some parts that felt odd and a twinge of discomfort but no pain (he used liquid inflation to advance the scope, which causes less cramping. Also the most expensive "enema" of my life - though they used the suction to clean out the liquid as the scope went up. TBH that was something I was a bit worried about - would I spray the water everywhere. But I didn't.

Was thinking I could tell everyone I had done the colonoscopy and things were good and I wasn't going back but then the doc found polyps... neat to see how they did everything, but now I do get to go back much more frequently. On the plus side the doc is good and they do have a drug-free option so I am actually OK with it, beats CRC (seen that a couple times). Was sort of planning that this one would be clean and I'd do a barium enema for the next. Ah well - that would probably be more embarassing really. Note that I'm not saying you gotta do it drug free, I just don't tolerate drugs well and also would rather know what's going on, so this worked for me and drugs would not have.

*yeah, the prep is not fun. I'm slow and unpredictable bowels so the simple things were out. I had to not eat berries and many fruits for 2 weeks in the height of summer... not gonna make that mistake again. Then a two day prep with mag citrate and the 4L jug of awful liquid that almost made me vomit - and it was still mucky at 4:00 in the morning, so I rushed out the enema bag and frantically took 3. It got to "OK prep" but next time I will leave myself more time and plan on the enemas.

Having (a) seen the studies showing the need and (b) had them find polyps before 50 I'm now in the "go and do it. Just do it... it can prevent cancer."

That and check your skin regularly.

I just had my second endoscopy/colonoscopy procedure in mid February spent 2 days inpatient for prep had the procedure discharged home the following day , here's were it gets crazy I was home about 3 hours and developed hypokalemia and malnutrition in those 3 hours and ended up in ICU for 2 weeks followed by 4 weeks in Nursing /rehab home . To get back to baseline poor health!

Don't be intimidated you will sleep right thru it, the hardest part is the toilet time.

I have one coming up soon as well, it will be my first