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Are colonoscopies worth it?

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Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#211

Post by riley_dog »

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…

> Don’t be embarrassed, the hospital staff do this all the time. They don’t really care about the things you are worried that they might care about.

Facts. My mom was an Endo nurse for 40 years, and it's true that they don't care. That said, the single most important thing you can do is just be a nice person. They see a lot of people at their worst, and a nice, kind person will put a smile on their faces.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#212

Post by csours »

haldujai wrote: post #25
csours wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with medical interventions, especially tests, is that they sometimes work. There will always be success stories. The big question is: are those success stories worth it, and are there other paths to those same success stories.

> The problem with medical interventions, especially tests, is that they sometimes work. There will always be success stories. Do you prefer medical interventions that never work? > are there other paths to those same success stories. Yes, in the US other options include high sensitivity FOBT, FIT, sDNA-FIT and CT colonography.

> Do you prefer medical interventions that never work?

Are there medical interventions that never work - aside from bad faith hypotheticals? Even placebo works pretty often.

The article under discussion is all about teasing apart confusing and conflicting data in medical studies. The comment I replied to asks why they have been directed to do something useless.

>> are there other paths to those same success stories.

> Yes, in the US other options include high sensitivity FOBT, FIT, sDNA-FIT and CT colonography.

Statistically, yes - but individual humans don't really think in statistics, we think in stories. My buddy won big at the casino, maybe I will too. I'm sure my dear fellows on this website will never be so stupid as to be motivated by a story about winning at a casino, but it is very EXPENSIVE to apply this level of rational rigor to every part of your life.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#213

Post by bluGill »

kuboble wrote: post #117
hackandthink wrote: post #64

This is about people between 55 and 64 years old at the start of the study. After 10 years: The risk of getting colorectal cancer is about 1%. The risk of dying because of colorectal cancer is about 0.3%. Getting an invitation the study does not change much. Actually getting a colonoscopy helps more (37% reduction in getting the cancer, no data for dying).

If you read the article thoroughly it explains exactly why your reasoning is incorrect. Tldr; comparing control group to acceptors group is not right because who accepts and who doesn't isn't random. We don't know the exact bias introduced but the author theorizes that people who are at higher risk are more likely to accept the invitation(e.g. someone with a colon cancer in family, someone having weird feeling about…

You are both right. The study at only 10 years didn't run long enough for us to expect to see much. That is one reason medical studies are hard, we are often interested in changes we could make today that won't matter for decades.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#214

Post by credit_guy »

Expez wrote: post #85

The article doesn't cover this, but it's worth pointing out why the study asks this particular question. With a single-payer system the Nordic countries want to know what the ROI is if we sent letters out to everyone above a certain age offering a free colonoscopy. The study is well-designed to answer that question. The study does a poor job of helping an individual asking a similar but different question: Is it wort…

I did a colonoscopy last year, and it was covered by my insurance (in the US). I was referred by my primary care physician. My insurance is nothing special, it's the standard type of insurance people have access to when they get a corporate job.

The type of question "are colonoscopies worth it" is not actually people should ask themselves. This is a question your primary care physician should answer, and you should follow their advice. If you don't trust them, just go find another one.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#215

Post by kalium-xyz »

Aeolun wrote: post #155
szundi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advice too simplistic, end of colon can emit blood also and then it’s brighter

“Recurrent bleeding from colon is bad, go see a doctor.” Is a fairly simple rule.

IMHO depends on the amount. If you are severely dehydrated and you notice your stool physically hurt coming out. A small amount of blood might honestly not be unexpected.

Edit: To be clear “severely dehydrated” is kinda an important factor here. Point being that if the cause is obvious I dont see why you’d get a colonoscopy. Please correct me if im wrong instead of just downvoting for anyone who knows more about this thx ^^

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#216

Post by downut »

Here's another me too. When I turned 55 my GP started to nag me to get a colonoscopy, and my wife too. But in the small western town that we lived, there's only a very small number of specialists and for 1.5 years "they" kept accusing us of not submitting the paper work. (We did, each time). It all sounded unpleasant and I was riding fast times in centuries so how bad could it be? Finally the GP needed a colonoscopy and the specialists did to her what they did to us and she got pissed off and forced the issue. And her nagging was effective and got us through the procedure. My wife was fine. I was Stage IIa. I did not get the IIa diagnosis until after 10+ weeks, including 4 weeks after the 18" resection. Only thing anyone would say is "your diagnosis is unknown, could be Stage 4". Which, you know, kinda sucks, and I can tell you it might suck harder for your life partner, than yourself. You'll be gone, and they go on alone.

So I get (used to get) colonoscopies every six months and the very good surgeon down in Phoenix chops out the polyps. Weirdly he can fit me in on a couple of weeks notice. But COVID fucked all that up. And then we moved across the country. So now I'm starting all over with the fact that we can't find anyone local to do the colonoscopies. But it MUST GET DONE. (Reminding myself).

So yes indeed it's annoying but if you've got cramps or occasional blood in the stool or are over 55 and never had one do not avoid the colonoscopy. Everyone who loves you will appreciate it.

BTW I started riding centuries again about six months later and the next year I set my life record in the Tour de Tuscon. I tell people the resection was my weight loss plan. I get weird looks. I enjoy it.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#217

Post by greedo »

denton-scratch wrote: post #188
youngtaff wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeh, the prep is the worst… Might be the skill of the surgeon who did my three colonoscopies (and the fentanyl sedation) but I didn’t fund the actual procedure too bad It’s quite interesting seeing you own insides and the colonoscope they used for me had a transmitter the the head so you could see it’s shape as it snaked through the colon

I find the prep really hard to take. It doesn't taste nice, and it involves drinking much more fluid than I'm used to. I had a sigmoidoscopy about 20 years ago; instead of laxatives, they gave me an enema, whose effects I found surprisingly swift and violent. An enema won't work for a colonoscopy, because it only cleans out the sigmoid colon. The colonoscopy is also extremely unpleasant; not exactly painful, but it m…

I had rectal cancer 18 years ago, and part of my followup was annual colonoscopies for the first decade. So I'm pretty familiar with the procedure, at least how my thoracic surgeon performed them.

Yes, the prep can be unpleasant. I tolerated it because of how close I had come to dying, and really didn't want my ticket punched. But the procedure itself was never unpleasant. When you say you weren't allowed sedatives because "I drink a lot;" were you referring to alcohol? My surgeon typically used propofol to induce twilight sedation. It was the best sleep I've ever had, though I understand that I never lost consciousness. The colonoscopy has NEVER been painful for me.

I would recommend finding a new doctor. Doing a colonoscopy without sedation sounds barbaric.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#218

Post by bluGill »

PeterStuer wrote: post #83

Here a colonoscopy is adviced by my doctor for anyone aged 50. She told me the free screening kits for bowel cancer the government sends out is mostly an awareness campaign as those tests are extremely unreliable.

Those kits if run every few years (not sure which they are running, different kits have different schedules) are pretty good and a lot cheaper than colonoscopies every ten. In single payer systems cost effective matters differently and so they may choose to use them instead.

You can debate if they have the correct numbers when.counting cost effective.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#219

Post by greedo »

rocqua wrote: post #82
ChrisCinelli wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is RED blood, it is a vein that breaks when the your stool passes. Most likely hemorrhoids. The problem is when you have BLACK blood in the stool. That may be an internal bleeding.

Red blood consistently still deserves to be checked out.

ANY blood deserves to be checked out.

Re: Are colonoscopies worth it?

#220

Post by tptacek »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #61
all2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what this means. Can you expand on your statement? Who is this person? What would we be farther forward to ?

Doctors used to perform procedures with their bare hands, sometimes immediately after performing necropsies on dead bodies. This guy made the connection that such contamination was causing post-birth complications such as infections. He had his medical students wash their hands in an antiseptic solution, compiled statistics which showed lower mortality rates, was ignored, started publicly denouncing the negligence of…

Doctors routinely washed their hands before Semmelweis, whose innovation was chlorinated hand washing; he ended up in a sanatorium because he went crazy (he likely had an advanced case of syphilis); the connection he made was that "cadaveric particles" were causing illness in hospitals, which is problematic because the phenomenon occurred in circumstances where no cadavers availed, but he was apparently absolutely hung up on the cadaveric nature of the threat.

He's a complicated dude.

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