Biopsies during colonoscopy

Hi All. I'm a 43 year old fit guy who looks after himself and I would consider myself generally as a healthy person. For 3 months now I have been experiencing change in bowel habits, with diarrhea and blood in my stool ... recently on a daily basis and also accompanied by an abnominal pain on the left side. I attended colonoscopy yesterday where they have retrived few small polyps but also took 10 random biopsies. Has anyone got any experience with that? Is that a normal procedure that they take biopsies from different part of the colon? Doctor said bowels look healthy and they removed few polyps so I'm slightly concerned by the fact they took so many biopsies. On the other hand polyps were not big (3mm-4mm) so is this possible they could have caused such a heavy bleeding. There has been no inflamation of the bowel neither any piles that they could see. Has anyone had similar experience? I would be thankful for sharing your thoughts. 

  • Hello gregw I'm in the same position as you also found polyps and few taken for biopsies which were benign I'm still waiting for the results which is about 3weeks now I also have change oin bowel movement s and Sharpe stabbing pains in left side stomach  bloating very painful and uncomfortable 

  • Many thanks Rivers1234 for sharing it and also sorry to hear that you have been experiencing similar issues. I hope the results will come back promptly with some good news at the end. The waiting game is what kills me and makes me very anxious. I think the colonoscopy went OK and things looked fine apart from those few polyps they removed but it still strikes me that the abnominal pain was in fact on the other side of my tummy. As for myself I think sometimes its better to even have bad news than not to have any for so long if we are not at our best. Not knowing anything is the worst. Lets hope results arrive soon. As strange as it may sound it does help to know there are people somewhere else going through similar stuff and you are not there alone ...  so many thanks for your response. Are you saying three weeks and despite the polyectomy the pain and bloating hasnt gone away? 

  • Slightly different situation for me but rather than starting a new thread am hopping on here. I had a routine colonoscopy in June (as I have family history of bowel cancer) and they found a couple of polyps that they removed but other than that they said it all looked fine. The paperwork all said 'awaiting histology' on the polyps but I haven't had any results through - 3 months later. I'm assuming that means everything is fine, but should I expect that have received results?

  • Hi gregw  yes it a waiting game it does your head with I think the symptoms have been going on for a while to long  hope u get your results and the outcome is  all kk try not to worry to much I no it's hard 3weeks in waiting  for results had conlonoscopy last month 

  • I think 3 months is a bit excessive so I would probably get in touch with the endoscopy unit or your colorectal surgery to follow up on that. I take normal timeline is about 4 weeks. I understand there might be some backlogs in processing cases in the hospital due to Covid but I wouldnt think anything that 2 months is normal. In any case they should let you know and either your consultant or hospital should be in touch to confirm everything is OK.