Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are colonoscopies worth it?

asteriskmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 296 posts

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#141

Post by b800h »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #136
b800h wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the UK (you used "GP", so I'm guessing), then you absolutely can. Just go private. ( https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/nhs-services-and-... ). Don't bother with the NHS, it's a carwreck. See this, for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67239548 Last month, after years of waiting, I got a letter again delaying my assessment for a growth on my neck, for the foreseeable future. It's a good…

I'm in France, I used GP since that's the term that seems to be used in the Anglosphere. It also seems like a reasonable translation of the French term – médecin généraliste. I'm hearing bad things about UK's NHS, and while I don't have any firsthand experience with it, I do get the feeling that the French system is going down the same path. It's true that I don't usually think about going the private route. I'm not…

I was actually in France last year, and arrived having lost (in transit; baggage handlers) some medicine for my son which had been prescribed in the UK by our GP the previous day, as he'd had stomach symptoms.

I contacted the local French doctor, who brought us in that day, gave my son an actual examination (the UK GP didn't do this), asked if I was aware that he had an ear infection (I wasn't, the UK doctor didn't check), and revised the course of treatment which resolved the problem quickly.

I was extremely impressed by the French doctor; he was in a different league to the standard in the UK.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#142

Post by XorNot »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #114
surfsvammel wrote: post #106

I do regular colonoscopies because of a condition. People are worried about the procedure, as I was my first times. Here are some things that I wish someone had told me: - Taking the meds for cleaning out your system the day before is far worse than the procedure itself. - Have a lollipop to stick in your mouth after Each time you take a shot of the laxatives. It helps with the vile taste of it. - If you need relaxin…

> It only ever hurts if your colon are in bad shape. Colonoscopy doesn’t hurt if you are healthy (and even if it does, they have meds for the pain). Ha, the procedure itself was painless for me since I was out cold, but during the prep I distinctly remember thinking (between waves of cramps) "Damn, maybe I do have Crohn's..."

Was a total breeze for me for the same reason, except I felt great right before it because apparently one way to get IBS relief is to have nothing in your bowels at all.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#143

Post by XorNot »

dkarras wrote: post #137
hermitcrab wrote: post #120

>3. It’s irresponsible to call colonoscopies “invasive” (as CNN did) since that might make people think they are unpleasant and not do them. LOL. It hard to imagine anything much more invasive than having a metal tube (with light and camera) shoved up your arse. It is definitely unpleasant. I speak from personal experience. That said, it is less unpleasant than bowel cancer. So don't be put off if you really need to…

I have not had one but closely monitored people that had a colonoscopy. The prep looks like worse than the colonoscopy itself.

I was under general anaesthetic for mine. But also smart phones and bidet toilet seat made the prep no problem as well.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#144

Post by MrDresden »

huytersd wrote: post #33
shoelessone wrote: post #23

I have no first hand knowledge of this but I've heard that colonoscopies are very common in S. Korea, even starting at younger ages. Can anybody comment on this?

I have heard they have a massive drinking culture without the genes to handle it so stomach and colon cancers show up a lot.

I don't think genetics really play any part in handling alcohol's part in the forming of cancer.

If it did then Finland shouldn't really have the incident rates of alcohol caused cancers as they do.

The same probably goes for other nations where heavy alcohol consumption has been a norm for centuries.

Alcohol causes cancer, and there is no intake amount that is beneficial to the body.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#145

Post by tomohawk »

A family member was going to get screened, and the insurer would only pay for a sigmoidoscopy since there were no indications of any issues. He paid for the full deal, and they found cancer they would not have found otherwise. He paid because a coworker had died due to undetected cancer - undetected because they didn't do the whole colon.

A paper may talk about percentages, but that doesn't represent you - it represents what an insurer or provider might find interesting to lower costs. You either have cancer or you don't. If you want to find out, you need to check.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#146

Post by geosh »

hackandthink wrote: post #135
hackandthink wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would be an reduction of 37% in diagnoses if everyone would have accepted the treatment (but no data for mortality). How significant is reducing a small risk (1%) significantly? (Base rate fallacy) "The right graph compares those results to the observed outcomes for acceptors in our branch of the multiverse, where they did have colonoscopies. At the end of the trial, there’s a reduction of 37%. Unfortunately, d…

https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/04/you-re-invited... Actually I am confused by this graph (right side): 1% of refusers are diagnosed with CRC versus 1.4% of would be acceptors would be diagnosed with CRC. So refusing is better than accepting. I guess I am missing something.

It's in the article. You should read it.

tl;dr - healthy individual without family history could be more likely to refuse the screening (less refuses were diagnosed with CRC than the control). This is the reason the study can't omit refuser from calculations.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#147

Post by zelphirkalt »

wererabbits wrote: post #130
surfsvammel wrote: post #106

I do regular colonoscopies because of a condition. People are worried about the procedure, as I was my first times. Here are some things that I wish someone had told me: - Taking the meds for cleaning out your system the day before is far worse than the procedure itself. - Have a lollipop to stick in your mouth after Each time you take a shot of the laxatives. It helps with the vile taste of it. - If you need relaxin…

O man I did one of these last week and I so wish I had known that lollipop trick then. The cleaning out of my system the day before really was the worst part for me.

Depending on where you are and what the doctor prescribes, you might also have several days before that, on which you are not allowed to eat many simple things like tomatos, because their skin could linger in you digestive system for a longer time and make seeing things more confusing or difficult. Then after not having eaten properly for a few days, you top it off with that day or two before the actual thing.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#148

Post by timr »

riku_iki wrote: post #45
haldujai wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but procedural complications are actually quite rare, as alluded to in this article. Misses from operator error, suboptimal bowel prep, or inability to complete the examination are more common and where we have the most potential for benefit from novel screening tests.

> Sure but procedural complications are actually quite rare, as alluded to in this article. article actually says that perforation (requires emergency surgery as per article) is between 1 to 100 and 1 to 20000 base on some studies, which sounds very high if it is not mistake.

The high end of that range is much higher than the baseline rates of colon cancer (also mentioned in the article), which are 90/100,000 in the USA.

That's one thing that I wish the author had spent more time on.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#149

Post by [deleted] »

XorNot wrote: post #142
spondylosaurus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It only ever hurts if your colon are in bad shape. Colonoscopy doesn’t hurt if you are healthy (and even if it does, they have meds for the pain). Ha, the procedure itself was painless for me since I was out cold, but during the prep I distinctly remember thinking (between waves of cramps) "Damn, maybe I do have Crohn's..."

Was a total breeze for me for the same reason, except I felt great right before it because apparently one way to get IBS relief is to have nothing in your bowels at all.

[deleted]

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#150

Post by surfsvammel »

ramraj07 wrote: post #134
surfsvammel wrote: post #106

I do regular colonoscopies because of a condition. People are worried about the procedure, as I was my first times. Here are some things that I wish someone had told me: - Taking the meds for cleaning out your system the day before is far worse than the procedure itself. - Have a lollipop to stick in your mouth after Each time you take a shot of the laxatives. It helps with the vile taste of it. - If you need relaxin…

M&Ms work better. Just take a mouthful, chew a bit, and swallow, and then take another mouthful.

No. This is not a good idea. You are not supposed to eat stuff. The whole point is to empty out your system. It would not be great to be half way through the procedure when they say: “oh. Here is a bunch of M&Ms, we can’t see anything. We need to redo this procedure in a week. And this time don’t eat stuff…”
Post reply on HN