O/T The over 50 Test

The Doc's found and got rid of a couple non-cancer polyps in me and I don't have to go back for a couple 3 years. I sleep better at night knowing my "chute" is in good shape. Besides, my kids were amazed at seeing the color pictures of my "inards!"

You will thank yourself post procedure no matter what the outcome. A chance to easily correct things in the early stages if a problem is found OR peace of mind if nothing is found. Sounds like a win/win situation to me.

Take Care, David H. Dexter, MI

Seriously, go get the procedure. It's a walk in the park and well worth it for peace of mind.

And next Xmas.....well never mind.

Joe

There's something to be said for avoiding "unnecessary" testing. There's alot more to be said for preventive maintenance.

Take the test. You'll likely pass with no problems, and can wait a few years for another. If you take the test and they find problems, you'll be VERY glad you had it done!

A little side note..... I used to work with a gal that was a health teacher. She had the test, and asked her doc for a copy of the videotape of the test. He asked her why she wanted it, and she told him she wanted to show it to her health class. Four of us were standing in the hallway after school when I asked her if she'd shown the tape to her class. She said she had. A male health teacher was standing there and said "You showed them a tape of your colonoscopy? I can't believe you did that!" Her reply was, "No problem for me, I told them it was YOURS!"

My boss held off on his colonoscopy until he was having problems and in his 70"s, they discovered advanced colon cancer, during surgery to clear that up they discovered the cancer had spread to his liver, he decided to try chemo and radiation but died anyway about 6 months later

maybe that would have happened anyway even if he had been tested anyway

there isn"t a right answer, you have to decide whats best for you and your family

Now a friend of mine was having severe bowel pains, but his HMO doctor wrote it off and didn't have a colonoscopy done. By the time it was over, he ended up with a punctured intestine and he nearly died. Just do it.

Well I'm just plain different. If a procedure can go wrong, it'll go wrong on me. I've accepted that and will not take any type of testing unless I've got a problem that I feel absolutly needs done.

I went in the hospital cause I broke my leg. I needed one of those fancy braces where they drill SS pins into your bone in 3 places, shove 3, 1/8" SS wires thru the muscle that attachs to the 1/2" SS hallow brace. They lost my brace twice in 6days and I finally went to another hospital to get it installed.

While in there in hospital #2, they take a lung x-ray and see a spot on my lung. Well Doc is concerned so in I go to the cat-scan where there going to take biopsey of the spot. They shove a 1/8" SS hollow tube into your back until there over the "spot" then stick a small tube cutter down thru the larger SS tube and take a snip of the "spot".

Well your supposed to spit up a small amount of blood on this procedure so they give you that little kidney shaped pan you always see in your room.

The "young" Cat-scan Doc pushs too hard on the SS tube that punchures my lung and I'm now filling up a kidney pan on every exhale and blowing blood thru the SS tube to the ceiling on every breath intake.

Well the Doc is in a pannick state and there's now four other people in the room trying to help him. He calls my regular Doc and talks with him, about 30secs, then comes out behind the screen with a ahh-sh!t look on his face and I know I'm in trouble.

Doc says " I don't know how to stop this"

I tell the Doc, we created this problem, we can stop it, pull the tube out of my back. He does and the bleeding goes down. I'm really weak at this point, blood loss, and there talking about taking me to my room. I tell them I don't want my wife to see me this way and clean me up before they take me to my room as I'm soaked in blood. I look over at the CTscan machine and it's covered in blood.

The spot just turned out to be a "valley fever" spot. Valley fever you get from the soil in Arizona from a parasite that lives in the soil and it leaves behind this quater size spot on your lung.

You wanna test me? Not in your life time! LOL

T_Bone

The good doctors don't wear signs showing that they are good doctors and vice versa.

My sister is an anesthesiologist and the stories she tells keep me out of the doctors office and hospitals until I'm near death.

One thing about this, it has been being done for some 20 years now, thus there is not much chance of you being a human guinnea pig. The risk I was told was the possibility of this device rupturing the large intestine. Doc. convinced me he would know this immediately, and it would require surgery. That never happened and I understand it rarely does.

The stuff they give you so you are relaxed as they go about their business is worth the trip all by itself. Not to mention the peace of mind knowing what it going on in there, or better yet, that there is nothing going on in there.

The procedure is absolutely painless - no physical discomfort at all. Go with a smile on your face.

Good luck.