I've just had mine scheduled for three weeks time. Needless to say the anxiety levels are through the roof. Thank you for this post.It's very easy to get really scared when people post their experiences. This research really helps my anxiety. I'm going in with no sedation as I'm even more scared of needles that colonoscopy. Hopefully I can be one of the 80%.

I'm 66, and have experienced occasional bowel cramp throughout my life. It's a pretty bad pain, but it's only been really bad on about a dozen occasions. I've no idea what brings it on. Anyway, I'm a single man with no one to drive him home, and I get a bad reaction to many drugs, so I decided to get it done without sedation. I was told I could get an inhaled drug during the procedure, often given to women in childbirth, but decided not to take up the offer.

Well, I got the cramp when they inflated the bowel. The procedure lasted about 30 minutes, and it's hard to say how much of that involved bowel cramp, but it was probably less than 3 minutes in total, although it felt like far longer. I can easily understand how someone who has never experienced bowel cramp would 'freak out' if they experienced it for the first time during a colonoscopy. If you've ever had cramp in your leg, it's just like that, but you can't hold it to ease it like you can do with leg cramp. It's bad, but not intolerable.

I have just had a colonoscopy today for the first time. I'm a 40 year old female who has given birth naturally 3 times, with minimal gas and air, i would consider myself to have quite a high pain threshold. But this procedure was very painful at times. I opted for sedation but was drifting in and out, when the camera goes around the corners it becomes very painful and this brought me around so to speak. I was squeezing the nurses hand and really wincing for a few minutes. The start of the procedure and the end is fine, it's just the middle bit where those corners are. I had quite a large poloyp removed and a few biopsies so I dont know if that made it much worse. I'm pretty sure I was given more sedation at points as I recall the nurse being told...so many mg of something and I dont remember much again. Good news I was in there 40 mins and it seemed like 2 or 3. And I found the moviprep fine, didn't taste that unpleasant and it certainly did its job. 

It's definitely worth it to find out what's going on in there, have all the sedation offered I say.

I don’t usually write reviews but thought I would write about my experience having a colonoscopy on 26/06/19. I am 32 / female. I was very anxious about this procedure so much so that I nearly cancelled my appointment. 

Before my appointment I surfed the internet looking for reviews of what to expect and found a mix of responses. YouTube was the most beneficial to me as you could see the procedure so knew what to expect. 

Moviprep is what it is. It cleanses your bowel so expect lots of tummy grumbles and water flushing through. I was nervous taking this as I suffer from piles and a fissure but it was ok. I used wet wipes to wipe and Vaseline after every bowel movement which kept it comfortable. Taste was ok! 

I was so stressed about having the sedation as I hate the feeling of drowsiness and feeling out of control so debated having this right until I was in the theatre room. I was advised by the specialist doing my colonoscopy to have sedation as I have endometriosis and also had a c-section which encourages adhesions that can stick the bowel to other areas of the body. Adhesions can make the bowl stiff and painful in those areas which is what I struggle with so I do suffer with quite a bit of pelvic pain. 

Due to being anxious I decided to start with a painkiller via cannula only and no sedation. The specialist said he could top up the painkiller or give sedation during the procedure if it got painful. I had 25ml Fentanyl (opiate painkiller) to start. I then upped it to 50ml as felt some discomfort from the gas which totals to half of the allowance they could give me. It it took away the discomfort. The whole procedure was performed with this dose. I completely felt myself (no feelings of drowsiness etc) and I had no sedation. I could feel the tube inside me which felt like pressure even when turning the bends. It was totally manageable. 

Please don’t let this procedure freak you out. I spent days stressing about it and it was over in 15 mins. Where as I know everyone is different I hope you can take comfort from this post as I suffer with pelvic pain and this procedure was performed on me with minimal pain killers. I hope this review helps.

Having had a colonoscopy in May 2019 due to two positive results on the bowel cancer screening programme I thought it might help if I posted my own experiences.
I'm 68, male and with no other health issues except very early stage glaucoma. In fact to make my life even more fun I had my glaucoma investigation on the Thursday morning (confirmed but emminently treatable by using eye drops for the rest of my life) with the colonoscopy scheduled for midday Friday. So back from the eye department and pretty much straight into the MoviePrep having not eaten anything since Wednesday night! The MovePrep is what it is. I didn't find it tasted too bad at all and managed to sip it all down. I would suggest it's worth chilling it though (just seemed to make it more pleasant) and I'm not going to describe the results, I'm sure we can all imagine them! But, again, it's not horrific but I would suggest applying something (Vaseline was my choice) to prevent any soreness developing. If I have to tell you where to apply it then you might want to think a bit more about this!
By the time I felt safe enough to go to bed it was late but I was never going to sleep well anyway. I freely admit to being scared of what the next day would bring. So wife drives me to the hospital and in we go. By this stage with lack of food, being totally empty and pretty much stressed out I was not at my best but everyone, every single person throughout the whole business was SO helpful and SO re-assuring that I started to relax, a little. Was shown how to change into the hospital gown and left to do it. Yes, leave your dignity in the car park, but don't worry you can pick it up again on your way out! Had a cannula put in but if you've ever had blood taken it's just like that and then wheeled in to what I had come to think of as the "Room Of Doom". Me, two delightful nurses and the consultant. Some equipment and a big screen on the wall. I wasn't asked if I wanted sedation but A:- I kind of think they'd decided I needed it and B:- if they had asked I would have said Yes Please! So sedation in. I didn't fall asleep, I remember pretty much all of the procedure (although I would have said it took about ten minutes but it took far longer so maybe I have forgotten some of it?) and was chatting happily away to everyone. But, looking back, I was VERY calm so the sedative obviously worked because I had been near terrified earlier. I watched the screen and can honestly say I felt no pain whatsoever. Just a sort of strange feeling of something moving around inside me but definitely nothing painful at all. The Consultant told me that he had removed one small polyp and that although he was sending it for a biopsy he wouldn't expect it to be of any concern (it wasn't) and then out for a spell in recovery before dressing myself, thanking all the staff I could find and then driven home. Where I slept for about ten hours straight.
OK, I know I've gone on a bit but that is my experience. Basically that procedure could have saved my life and it wasn't in any way anything to fear. I hope your's goes just as well and I'm sure it will.

Hi everyone!

I'm 39 and getting my first colonoscopy in 6 days. I am worried about 3 things and it would be great to get some opinions about the 3 of them or at least about this first one:

1 - I have been reading all the comments in this thread and in many other places in the internet, but very few comments include information about the previous state/symptoms that each one of you had when you went to do the exam.

At this point and for the past 30 days, I've been getting slight but permanent pains in the abdominal area. Also, permanent disconfort and, the worst of it, soft but permanent pain in the rectal/anus area in such a way that it seems like I always have to go to the toilet to flush something out. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. But even when it happens the sensation does not go away for more than just a few minutes.

So, my question is:

Did you have any of these symptoms in the day you went to do the colonoscopy? How did they affect it?

I fear that I have some very sensitive intestines/bowel and that for being sensitive they are at a higher risk of perforation. Is this a reasonable thought?

2 - I have a very short experience with sedation and anaesthesy but it is enough to get the sense that I usually need higher doses to get the effect and also the sense that they only start doing effect a bit later than expected. I happened a couple of times before when I had other medical interventions.

So, this is something I'm also worried about. That I don't get enough to fall asleep with no pain and what I mention in the 1st point gets really painful and unconfortable. Or that they realise I need more and then I get a dose that is too high and I get negatively affected by that.

3 - The third thing I'm worried about is the preparation. Not because of the taste of the "laxative" as I usually can tolerate any taste no matter how unpleasant it may be for other people. 

The problem is that I have some gastric condition (undiagnosed) that makes me tend to get nausea and vomits in the first hours of the day when I wake up. If I start the day with fresh liquids (water, juices, etc) it gets very much worse and it is almost impossible to hang with it without throwing up.

I have it kind of controlled with antihistaminics (yes, no idea why these help, but they do), but even like this, if I start the day with fresh liquids I end up throwing all them up very quickly. So, I'm worried that the day of the exam is one of these bad days (like 3 out of every 5 days) when I can't really bear liquids before I have solids. And if I throw up in the same day I think they can't perform the exam.

I told this to the (man) nurse who is following me for this exam but he couldn't care less about it. I told him I was planning to it differently. My exam is scheduled for 5PM. So I told him I was planning to go to bed very late the night before so that I would do the preparation the night before.

I would get the first dose of "laxative" at 11PM, then the second dose at 3AM and then try to sleep at around 6-7AM. I would then sleep until 1.30PM, have just a hot tea at 2PM and then wait these 3 hours until 5PM without drinking anything (which is not a problem at all for me).

But he says that they do the exam in the evening because if you sleep for 6-8 hours after taking the preparation the exam may not go as well as it should, because of acid reflux production in the stomach that then goes to the intestine. I find it difficult to accept this excuse because I know that many colonoscopy's are scheduled to the morning and so people do the preparation the night before and it is not a big deal.

...

I also have a fast bowels movements. Not diarrhea, they are soft but solid, but it comes out really fast like as if I had a meal 1 or 2 hours before and it is already coming out. I am the exact opposite of a constipated person. So it is much easier for me to have my intestines completely clean.

Besides that I am also a person who can be just fine without eating anything for hours and hours. I'm the kind of person who coul probably even do the preparation (cleaning the intestines) without any laxative, just with diet in the previous 3 days. So, in that sense, the preparation is not a problem, I just worry about the fresh liquids after waking up.

Any opinions? Would be good to know what you think, especially in the number "1" listed above.

Thanks!

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Hi Dave 

I dont know if you will get this reply but thatnk you so mush for your information it has helped me make a decision not to have sedation and to ask some questions prior to the proceedure when i get there. One of them being how many times has the doctor done the proceedure and how many times has the doctor done the proceedure without sedation, whicch after reading what you had to say and then clicking the link and reading the article of which was very intersting I feel a lot calmer about the whole thing. 

It seems that the purging is the worst of which i will be starting this coming Sunday 18/08/2019 at 17:00hrs BST.

Karen 

I had a siegmoidoscopy yesterday and, quite frankly, I would rather give birth again. It was the most horrendous experience. I am now supposed to have a colonoscopy, but unless they knock me out completely I will never have that done again. And they had the cheek to write on the result form that I was "comfortable" throughout. I most certainly was not. Dreadful experience.