Colonoscopy Pain

I'm so glad I found your post. I had a colonoscopy with sedation this morning and it was excruitiatingly painful. I was wide awake throughout and in so much pain that I had to be given two doses of Pethadine, not that it made much difference. When it was over at last, I felt shocked and traumatised by the ordeal. The consultant seemed to think I'd made a fuss about nothing, though the nurses who looked after me were much more sympathetic and understanding. Ironically, ten minutes after the colonoscopy finished, the sedation seemed to kick in and I fell into a dazed stupor for the best part of an hour. Never again! If I ever have to have one of these barbaric procedures again I will insist on a general anaesthetic and pay for it if I have to. As far as I'm concerned, all the websites I read which said that colonoscopies are not painful are simply telling lies. Be warned anyone else facing one!

I had my first ever Conoloscopy (with no sedations just G&A) today and I am in shock still. They asked me if I had any questions before they started the procedure and ofcourse being the anxious annie that I am I asked ''how much is this going to hurt me''. The nurse advised me it isn't painful - just abit uncomfortable. Uncomfortable isn't a word I'd choose to describe the ordeal, more like TORTURE. It was so so horrific. PLEASE ask to be sedated. I was crying in pain, the nurses were so lovely, one stroking my hair whilst the other fed me G&A and another nurse was cheering me on telling me how well I was doing. Cut a long story short, the camera exited me and I was left to feel traumatised from this experience, I feel really upset that I wasn't pre warned about how painful this was going to be. Almost like somebody digging at the raw flesh inside your stomach with a knife. I don't mean to scare anybody, alot say it doesn't hurt at all which I believed and now know that them saying that is 100% far fetched. I am writing this to pre-warn people about the unexpected level of pain and if this will stir somebody to have sedation and not go through what I have been through today then I am happy to share this really unpleasant experience.

Hi all fellow colonoscopy suffers

i had my first colonoscopy yesterday. I feel ok today but quite bruised if that's the right word. 
I feel like I was butchered yesterday. Absolute excruciating pain as the Dr got the endoscope around the corners of my bowel. I was crying and screaming and the Dr had very little sympathy. And he had convinced me to go with gas and air rather than sedation - which just made me dizzy - it was a kin to contractions - in fact possibly more intense at times.  Like many of you have said the nurses were fantastic and offered me sedation half way through but the Dr wasn't keen to do that. At one point I said 'get it out' and the doctor spoke to me like I was a 7 year old who'd done something wrong. 
I have read my report this morning and it says that he removed a polyp... from what went on in that room of torture what I remember is that he tried to remove the polyp but didn't get it all so said to the nurse to just call it a biopsy. So I need to sort that out, to get my records straight, and after all that I think there is still a polyp in my acsending colon... fortunately there were no signs of cancer - colitis was diagnosed and I await biopsy results. 

Hi glad that you have had a diagnosis. Colitis is bad enough but you can live with that.i have not been as fortunate as that.despite going thorough extortionate pain during the procedure i am still in a lot of pain in my stomach.which I did not have before I had the the colonoscopy. I am awaiting  the results of the biopsies which can take up to 3 weeks .to make matters worse I have a infection in my water and on antibiotics for a week.and taking buscapan and pain killer's to ease the pain.

Sorry to hear you are still in pain. I have pain today but as expected I suppose. I hope no damage has been done to your bowel! All the best. 

I have just had my first ever colonoscapy and I pray I never need another one.

I opted for sedation, thinking it meant general anaesthetic.

I was given Fentanyl 75ug and Midazolam 2mg both administered intravenously. 

 I too was told that the procedure would be uncomfortable but not painful.

 As soon as they started the procedure the pain began, It was so excruciating that I ended up begging for more pain meds, I was given an extra IV painkiller then entonox too.

 At one point I ended up yelling in pain at the top of my voice, they stopped briefly then restarted, informing me that I had a loopy bowel. I can honestly say that I have never felt pain like it in my life even though I have broken ribs, fingers and even broke my upper jaw in a car accident.

 I persevered for as long as I could as I really wanted the full procedure but eventually the endoscopist stopped the procedure saying that all the noise I was making was too destracting and that I was obviously in pain.......

 I too was made to believe that I was an awkward patient and overreacting.. 

 It's good to see that I am most certainly not and I think this must be the norm....... So why do they all lie in saying its nothing more than discomfort,(like trapped wind)?

On my report I saw that they found I had a tortuous colon (a colon with a lot of tight bends in it) and that the scope was retroflexed in the rectum...

Absolutely  traumatic experience.

Sorry to hear you had to go through that as well as others.

I had a second colonoscopy a few weeks ago now. The reason for this one was because there was a large polyp that they couldn't remove last time. This time they said I would be given Fenantyl and Midazolam to relieve the pain. I said I had read of others experiences where the sedative didn't even work and was still concerned that I would feel the same pain as last time and they said the gas and air would be ready aswell.

The sedative didn't work so I needed the gas and air anyway, but like last time I still felt a lot of pain, it was just made bearable by the gas and air. It seemed like the sedative just made me feel dizzy and nothing else. I had someone to look after me when I left but I was able to function normally and just felt like I needed a quick nap when I got home. It made me wonder if the amount of sedative was too little, or it just doesn't have the same effect with everyone, just like the procedure itself.

I'm going through a lot of things at the moment so I don't know how they may have affected my mood, reaction and so on but afterwards one of the nurses checked my blood pressure and pulse again and said she was doing so becuase they remained constant through the whole process which they'd never had before. When I say a lot of things going on, I mean it in a sense that I have begun to not care what happens to me as if I've lost any sense of self-preservation and maybe this time subconciously couldn't care less if anything went wrong.

The result was that they couldn't see the polyp this time so they took a photo and will need to speak to the previous surgeon. I may have to go back for another one yet. Again, it seems I was fortunate to have a great team as other people still don;t seem to have.

Bless you. I'm glad the pain was manageable with the gas and air.  The fact they couldn't see the polyp, could be a blessing in itself. I pray that that is the case.

With regards to the negative feelings you're having, I have had some seriously dark periods in my life where I couldn't see a way out. If I could ask for one thing from you , it would be to hang on and focus on the positives. Life has a wonderful way of completely  turning things around in a moments notice. 

 If your problems are focused around your health, then please try to keep your spirits up and keep a positive mindset, the body has an incredible ability to heal plus the advances we have made in medical treatments over the past twenty or thirty years are really quite phenomenal. 

I pray that everything works out well for you .

All the best,

Hugh.

Thanks Hugh, I think I'm just at a stage where nothing is going my way and the help I've been told is there, isn't. I've got health problems such as double vision, which I;m also waiting for surgery for, Chronic tinnitus, hearing loss, depression and anxiety and possible ptsd (I was advised by a nurse to get it looked into when I explained to her my health and behavioural problems for the sigmoidoscopy pre-assessment). I;ve been speaking with Talkworks who seems to not want to recognise it as PTSD but after reading up on it I'm sure the nurse is correct. I'm also autistic which doesn't help matters at all.

Anyway this isn't supposed to be a thread about me. Thanks again for your kind words of support. I hope my two earlier posts help people who think to look up colonoscopy information before they have it and they use this entire thread to prepare themselves for the pain. To me the worse thing was feeling this excruitiating pain when I was told there would be none. If I'd been told beforehand that people feel pain, for me, that would have been better because the moment I felt it I wouldn't have thought they'd done something wrong and thoought for those few seconds I might be about to die in pain.

They should just be straight with people and tell them some people feel a little discomfort and others feel very bad pain and it's something the patient needs to accept and deal with by making the decision to abort or continue if and when that pain occurs. I'd have hated to have been some of the people in this thread who have clearly had unsympathetic surgeons dealing with them. 

Hi all,I had a colonoscopy 2 days ago and it was the most excruciating terrible experience of my life  I had an endoscopy which I tolerated better than I expected. Then !my god the worst hour of my life!  The doctor rammed and I mean rammed his finger into my rectum wow! Then he started with the camera it got more severe every second. I thought he was trying to rip my insides out. I started crying then I started begging pleading with him to stop Then I was screaming for him to take out the probe. They kept saying it was because my appendectomy and hysterectomy scars were all stuck and it was causing him to have to push his way through. There was no word of sympathy at all  I was supposed to be sedated I said supposed whatever they gave me did Not work or have any effect whatsoever. He said I had pockets of diverticulitis and a polyp which he removed. During the torture he kept saying if you don't let me carry on you will have to come back  There is No way on gods earth I would ever go through that. I truly believe anyone having the procedure should be Fast Asleep. My heart goes out to everyone of you who has had to be treat this appalling way  

I'm waiting on a two week urgent referral and can't ignore it given I've had all the symptoms of cancer from diarrhea to a positive fit test, some weight loss and discimformt in my left side. 

But reading this I'm hoping the sedation works.  I normally don't bother have any, child birth, root canal, stitches etc all done without pain relief but I'm goin g to ask for sedation now. 

Hi I sincerely hope all goes well for you  Take care 

Hi I sincerely hope all goes well for you  Take care