Colonoscopy

Hello,

I need to have a colonoscopy next month to check for endo inside my bowel. Please could any ladies who have had this procedure let me know how they found it, any tips etc? Xxx

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I had one on my route to diagnosis. It's not fun and I won't pretend it is, but it will be fine. I don't know if you've had to use bowel prep before, but they may ask you to use something like picolax or moviprep. You should follow 3 days of a low residue (no fibre) diet, then the day before the procedure, you have to drink a couple of litres of prep to clear you out. It helps if you are not constipated so if the low residue diet has this effect, make sure you take senna/lactulose etc to keep things moving as the less you have in you when you do the prep, the easier it will be. They will give you timings to take the prep but it's fine if you want to start it earlier - I have done 3 preps and always found it took at least 2 hours to start to work so you may want to factor that in as the first time I did it, I followed the timings and got no sleep because I was still going to the loo until 6 in the morning. If they tell you to do a split prep (and drink some of the day of the procedure) then it's really important that you do this as it will ensure that the bowel is clear. Also recommend wet toilet wipes and sudocrem as you will get sore. Some forums say to chill the mix - I personally didn't bother as the taste didn't bother me - and you can drink it at your own speed, not at the sprint the instructions suggest.

After the prep you will feel very tired and shaky and dehydrated, this is normal. I had a sigmoidscopy (so they only went half way round) and didn't have a sedative or any pain relief for it. It took less than 10 minutes. It wasn't pleasant, and it was quite painful when they went round the corner of the bowel up under my ribs, but they told me to just breathe through it. The room itself was quite dark and smelled like disinfectant, and the equipment looks like lots of finger width black pipes hanging from a stand. They will ask you to lie on your side with your knees up and you should have a nurse to hold your hand and talk you through it. They let me watch on the screen, which was quite interesting. I was then able to leave the hospital very quickly after the procedure because I'd not had any sedation.

I hope this answers all your questions - please ask if you've got any more.

[Geordie-Girl78]

Hi Janine33 I found the bowel prep beforehand the worst, make sure you have plenty of water to drink with the prep. I had sedation, pain relief and gas and air to help me through which I would certainly recommend. I only had a slight bit of pain when they inserted the camera. I think the actual procedure took about 25 minutes although you are at the hospital alot longer. Any other questions just let me know. Good luck, I hope it goes well x