I'm going to tell my doctor that you're why I haven't scheduled mine yet.
I thought this was about cars at first. I'm always worried when I switch back to the old car after driving the new one because there's no camera on the old one.
Let's have another group Unfoggedesplosion!
My doctor gave me the option of doing fecal test once a year and only doing the colonoscopy if it comes back concerning. It's gross but not as arduous.
I was expecting this to be another "doctor flogs testing regardless of evidence" situation, but in fact a couple of years ago the USPSTF did start recommending 45-75, expanded from the previous 50-75.
I feel like I should invest in Cologuard.
Is that the aftermarket backup camera for cars?
I delayed mine until I was in my mid 50s despite having a grandfather die of colon cancer before I was born. Thankfully it came up clean.
I got razzed a bit on my pub lads group chat in Arrakis before the procedure (mostly Brits from their 30s to 50s) and posted a pic of goatse to shut them the hell up. Shocked the hell out of them and I was halfway surprised none of them had ever seen it before.
Kids today are not aware of all internet traditions.
What with Reddit going dark and all.
I don't get what that's all about. I read Reddit on a browser.
It's currently being enshittified and the Redditors are resisting.
Great. Now I'm 8 years overdue.
Well, they still rate screening 50-75 "A" and 45-50 "B", so if your standards are higher you're only 3 years overdue.
My health insurance company, unprompted, mailed me a colorectal cancer testing kit for me to "fill out" and send to some lab in California. I haven't done it because if I happen to be sick I don't want my insurance to be the first ones to know.
I'm getting one in a few weeks but I have had actual health problems that a colonoscopy might find, and also turned 45 in the middle of the health problems. So I was actually annoyed that I haven't gotten it sooner, where sooner = a couple months ago, closer to when I started trying to get it scheduled. I'm also getting an endoscopy because the my whole food and drink workflow is messed up.
my whole food and drink workflow is messed up.
They both go in the mouth, but they're supposed to come out different places.
Now I'm 8 years overdue
Christ, just get it done. Even the prep isn't that bad. I've done two now, and I've found that if I keep guzzling gatorade (I get the sugar-free stuff) while I do the prep, I feel fine the next day.
I went with pedialyte, based on the podcast.
At the time of my first such exam (actually a sigmoidoscopy), I did the prep appropriately, but it wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that at that time in my life, I was eating huge amounts of spinach. The doctor was not pleased.
Did Cologuard during the pandemic.
I'm clogged to the finish,
Cause he eats his spinach.
it wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that at that time in my life, I was eating huge amounts of spinach.
How far in advance did you change your diet? I cut out nuts & seeds starting just over a week prior, and I also started cutting back on fiber at that point. I don't remember which day I was supposed to stop eating whole grains, but I started adjusting over the course of that week (it was annoying, but I felt like if I didn't do that, I just accidentally eat things I wasn't supposed to).
I don't want to cut back on fiber. That's how I'm able to time things so I can bill my poops.
I don't remember changing my diet in the days before my colonoscopy, but I do remember the doctor praising me for what a good job I did cleaning myself out.
My wife was about to do this and was prepared for several days of food misery, since the low-residue stuff is like the complete opposite of our usual diets. And the doctor she landed seemed to be on the extreme side as far as prep procedure.
However, it was mooted because she came down with COVID right before the low-residue phase would have started. So we did spend a week in medical unpleasantness, just a completely different one than we expected this week. (She's back to testing negative now. All hail Paxlovid.)
So far I've just done Cologuard a couple of times.
28: You're not old enough to have done Cologuard a couple of times! I don't think. Are you sure it wasn't regular FIT?
The instructions I got say to make some diet changes about a week before. All I remember beyond that is that I should look at the instructions again about a week before my appointment.
29: There's lots of reasons for pooping in boxes.
Low residue is annoying because it's all very calorie-dense. If you want to keep your total calories more-or-less the same, you get a kinda unsatisfying volume of food.
23: I didn't change my diet at all. Apparently I missed that instruction. (I am only now becoming aware that such an instruction exists.)
Since it wasn't a full colonoscopy, I was awake and could look at the camera. My colon was speckled with undigested greenery.
Unless something went really wrong with how you eat, it was probably partially digested.
I've had a couple and my wife had one earlier this year. Diet changes were not eating nuts or food with seeds for several days ahead, then drinking that shit and not eating anything the day before.
I had to do the prep twice in 2020 because when I showed up for the first one, my blood pressure was too high, and they told me to go get it treated before I came back.
36: thanks jms! I thought so!
37.2: Now that is cruel and unusual.
This is the really-not-fun part of the prep.
The test I had was a fecal immunohistochemical test. Is that different from Cologuard?
41: Different but not very.
https://www.cdphp.com/-/media/files/providers/toolkits/colorectal-cancer/colorectal-cancer-screening-with-fit-vs-cologuard.pdf
41 and 42: So, Cologuard is FIT plus DNA, but I couldn't stomach doing it because they get paid $600. An actual colonoscopy is like $1200 and is good for 10 years. $600 every 3 years seemed outrageous. FIT on its own is $20. At my hospital they haven't been doing FIT much lately, because there was a period where the post office was delaying mailing them and they came back too late to process.
I tried to do a FIT, but I was too clumsy to get it to work. Logistically Cologuard is much easier. It comes in a big bucket and you can see their video online whereas the FIT test involves trying to poop on the paper towel thing was too hard. The whole thing fell into the toilet, and I found that much harder to deal with than the bowel cleansing prep. (Gross and maybe TMI, but real).
USPSTF switched in 2022. American Cancer Society made the 45 year old recommendation earlier. And there had for several years been an earlier age for black people, because they have high rates of colon cancer at a young age.
USPSTF is going to start recommending mammograms every other year starting at 40 again instead of 50, and they called for urgent research on disparities and whether MRIs are important adjunct for women with dense breasts. ACS says 40-44 is an individual decision, 45 to 54 every year and then every other year at 55. The USPSTF one is interesting, because it basically seems to boil down to black women get breast cancer younger, and they should definitely get screened then, but we have no good way of making that happen without lowering the age for everyone.
If the lega, challenges to the preventive screenings under the ACA go through, we'll have a weird situation where colonoscopy will only be covered after age 50 even if it's recommended at 45, because 50 was the recommendation when the law was passed.
45: Congrats, heebie! Did it all come out ok?
They don't let you go home until they get the camera out.
Yesterday was distinctly unpleasant.
You just killed Moby. Way to go.
If the lega, challenges to the preventive screenings under the ACA go through, we'll have a weird situation where colonoscopy will only be covered after age 50 even if it's recommended at 45, because 50 was the recommendation when the law was passed.
I thought it was the law itself that specified that USPSTF-recommended screenings must be covered without copay. If the law goes, surely all such guarantee goes away, regardless of when the recommendation was issued?
Moby! get your colonoscopy or else Ogged will blame me when you die!
You're probably going to outlive me regardless.
I have a calendar notification to book a colonoscopy that I've been moving ahead every week since February.
49: First off not all preventive recommendations come from USPSTF. Vaccine recommendations, for example, come from ACIP. The lawsuit claims that the experts consulted who comprise USPSTF are not appointed properly in that they are not officers of the United States. Neither is ACIP, but the CDC director signs off on their recommendations, and s/he is, so that's kosher.
See this episode of Tradeoffs.
https://tradeoffs.org/2023/04/06/obamacare-preventive-care-aca/
Oh, I assumed it was some sort of "mandating preventive coverage is tyranny" thing, even after reading one article about it.
That's mandated vaccines and masks and hand washing.
|| There is an intoxication that makes merry in the midst of affliction;--and there is an intoxication that banishes affliction by producing oblivion. But again there is an intoxication which is conscious of itself though it makes the feet unsteady, and the voice thick, and the brain foolish; and which brings neither mirth nor oblivion. ||