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Spacecosmonaut 1 days ago [-]
I'm 35. I had a preventative colonoscopy done (I had to insist). I payed out of pocket since these checkups normally start at 50.
Adenoma found and removed.
This is a type of cancer that is almost entirely preventable with screening. Get your tubes checked.
knotz 1 days ago [-]
I am 59. Got colorectal cancer at 54. I did't notice anything until it was almost too late. I was lucky and it was removed just in time. After inspection it seemed I have polypsyndrome and now have a yearly cleanup. So, yes, get your colonscopy before 45.
gonzalohm 1 days ago [-]
Did your insurance pay after finding out that you actually needed one?
Spacecosmonaut 23 hours ago [-]
Hah no, I suppose it doesnt work like that
jml78 1 days ago [-]
I did the same at 42 due to my mom consistently having polyps. Insurance refused to cover. I was told I would have had cancer by 45 most likely.
Had no symptoms, now I get one every 5 years.
hawk_ 1 days ago [-]
Did you suspect you had a higher chance than general population? If so why?
Spacecosmonaut 1 days ago [-]
Not really. I try to live a pretty healthy lifestyle. I work as a cancer researcher, so I have more contact with these data.
hawk_ 1 days ago [-]
That's crazy. And you don't deal with wet lab I imagine, so just a freak occurrence.
Spacecosmonaut 23 hours ago [-]
50/50 wet lab & computation. We do large genetic screens in vitro.
hawk_ 9 hours ago [-]
Neurosurgeons are at a higher risk of certain dementias and the purported mechanism is exposure to brain tissue during surgery. Any chance the same could be true for GI tract or cancers in general?
1 days ago [-]
solids 1 days ago [-]
Wow, did you have any kind of symptoms?
Spacecosmonaut 23 hours ago [-]
None
747-8I 1 days ago [-]
Commenting to save your's.
thin_carapace 1 days ago [-]
I don't intend to disagree, merely to suggest that while doing the right thing one would be best off considering the potential aspects inflicted to themselves, in this case colonoscopy deaths are one in ten thousand from memory
Spacecosmonaut 1 days ago [-]
I suspect that risk calculus depends on where you live.
tonyedgecombe 1 days ago [-]
Probably how old you are as well.
supersimpleguy 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
BrtByte 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
sevenzero 1 days ago [-]
I'd rather die over having a tube up my ass, and I've seen my father die to this exact type of cancer.
zfree 1 days ago [-]
To anyone wondering about this, I did it last year. You don't remember the procedure at all, you're just left with the blissful afterglow of the drugs they use to make you sleep. That stays with you for a couple of days. The uncomfortable part is the day before when you have to do a cleanse. Worth it.
DoingIsLearning 1 days ago [-]
> You don't remember the procedure at all, you're just left with the blissful afterglow of the drugs they use to make you sleep.
Technically this will vary depending on the protocol. I have friends in this field and in some countries they effectively knock you out with sedation. Others you might get some anxiety medication and only sedate elderly or uncollaborative patients.
Regardless of that everyone should absolutely get checked but just wanted to make sure we don't set unrealistic expectations.
Lwerewolf 1 days ago [-]
Did it without sedatives, nothing special. Common thing in northern Europe - not so much in eastern. Stomach checkup as well, cause you might as well at that point - the equipment and specialists are there.
A friend's girlfriend got stage3(?) recently, not 30 yet. My dad passed away ~5 years after diagnosed stage4. I had some pretty nasty IBD which, along with the mention of my family history, _finally_ got them to agree to do it. Anyways, all clean, other than h.pylori that got taken out with the first round - stomach - apparently exceedingly common here.
Watch your shit, get your stuff checked. I still had the needles set up in case perforation occurred and they had to sedate and do exploratory.
Tade0 1 days ago [-]
I've been reading about this and my sources said the preparation phase takes a week. Does it not have to be a week then?
blue_sauce_bean 1 days ago [-]
I’m literally having a colonoscopy today (Wednesday), so I’ll say what my prep has been.
Starting on Friday, I followed a “low residue diet”. This primarily meant no fibrous fruits/veg or whole nuts/seeds. It was inconvenient but not hard.
Yesterday I started a “clear liquid diet”, which meant that I did not eat anything and only drank apple juice, gatorade, and the prescription prep solution. Starting at 5pm and going until about 6:45p, I drank half of the prep solution, which was like 64oz of stuff that tasted like flat Sprite. Right about the time I finished drinking, the draining out the other end began. It wasn’t a problem, and didn’t hurt, but I did visit the bathroom about 10 times over the next 2 hours with another few throughout the night.
I slept great overnight, and now I’m getting ready to start the second half of the prep solution. I’ll drink it over a 90 minute span, beginning four hours before I am scheduled to arrive at the endoscopy clinic.
(I’m also planning to have my colonoscopy without sedation. I have a very high pain tolerance, and was told that I’ll be able to watch the realtime video feed!)
FuriouslyAdrift 1 days ago [-]
Around here, they refer to the day of drinking the solution as "The Night of a Thousand waterfalls"
andrewjf 11 hours ago [-]
how'd it go
blue_sauce_bean 2 hours ago [-]
Totally fine.
The hardest part was probably convincing my doc that “yes, I’m sure I don’t want sedation.”
The procedure took under 15 minutes, with only about 2 minutes at the start being quite uncomfortable (“beesting way up my butt”). After that, it just felt like a bad case of gas rumbling through my gut. It wasn’t pleasant, but I’m not sure it is that much worse than a painful dental cleaning.
The doctor was quite good at talking through what we were seeing on the big screen. I didn’t feel anything when he used forceps to remove a few tiny polyps. I felt good that I saw the “problem spots” in realtime and could ask questions. (I’d likely have stressed out with a “we found a few tiny polyps” report after waking from sedation.)
After the procedure, I was free to leave. I put on my clothes and immediately left to walk home. No issues throughout the rest of the day.
I’m glad I skipped the propofol, and will skip sedation in the future.
fnordlord 1 days ago [-]
It might depend on the doctor also. I had one last year and, from what I remember, there was no prep besides the 24 hour fast/liquid diet before the procedure.
I was long overdue to the first one but I won't be from here on out. The entire thing was easy.
The sources are in my native language, so it's likely the local practice is outdated.
Spacecosmonaut 1 days ago [-]
I think its okay when you tell the doctor no homo.
ackbar03 1 days ago [-]
I think you need to get the doctor to say it, not the other way round
sevenzero 1 days ago [-]
Surely
21 hours ago [-]
BigTTYGothGF 1 days ago [-]
It's just a butt, you don't have to be any more precious about it than about anything else that gets stuck into your body.
sevenzero 22 hours ago [-]
I dont want anyone to touch me, not in the face, not on my belly and especially not my anus.
preg_match 18 hours ago [-]
Ok well you will have to be touched in order to receive medical care, particularly surgeries. I’ve had been touched while unconscious during surgeries. It was either that or die.
If it makes you feel any better, it is literally impossible to remember it. You can’t be traumatized by it even if you wanted to.
david-gpu 1 days ago [-]
Everyone who goes through the procedure says the same thing: it really is no big deal and the procedure itself is less of a problem than the laxatives you need to take the day before.
You are not going to catch the gay for having a colonoscopy, if that is your fear.
sevenzero 1 days ago [-]
My fear is mostly shame to be honest. Never had an issue with gay stuff as I kissed my homies on the cheek before
BigTTYGothGF 1 days ago [-]
The only thing they might possibly judge you on is how well you followed the prep instructions. They've all seen thousands of assholes, most of them professionally, and will forget about you as soon as they wheel you back to the recovery room.
strictnein 24 hours ago [-]
> The only thing they might possibly judge you on is how well you followed the prep instructions.
Same with if you get snipped. I didn't realize that "shaved" meant with a safety razor and I just trimmed with a beard trimmer. I ended up having two younger women give me a proper shave as I laid there, which was about the dumbest I ever felt in my entire life. Made for a great story for my friends though.
david-gpu 1 days ago [-]
Shame of what? From whom? GI doctors and their teams do this all day long. And nobody sane is going to shame you for following a medical procedure.
It really is not a big deal to go through it.
SpecialistK 16 hours ago [-]
> GI doctors and their teams do this all day long.
I've had an extended conversation about this with an ER nurse friend, in which I reminded her that although the staff go through the gamut all day every day and it's normal for them, the patient (hopefully) does not and whatever procedure(s) are new and scary.
Add in the fact that (sexualized) abuse and med students using anesthetized patients for training without explicit consent is more common in the medical field than any of us would like, and people having concerns strong enough to avoid treatment sounds pretty reasonable to me.
"we see this all the time" may settle a few concerns, but it makes others (such as the power imbalance) worse.
taskforcegemini 1 days ago [-]
not sure if that makes it better for you, but usually you are knocked out and don't know what is happening during the procedure. Much worse is the preparation starting days before with disgustingly tasting things that intentionally give you diarrhea (and maybe make you puke) to clear the path, and no food at all
Findecanor 1 days ago [-]
People get a safe but vile-tasting laxative by default. If you don't have any known problems with your colon then you could ask for a faster-acting laxative that is easier to get down.
I have a condition so I have a colonoscopy every year. Once I had found out about there being a fast-acting option, I've always chosen that.
I've never done it sedated. I prefer to watch the screen and and ask questions. I've found the view quite fascinating, actually.
The doctors and nurses have always been professional, focused on the colon: not the butt. There is absolutely nothing sexual about it. I've never felt pain: only some tension, and that's been because of gas (needed to get a clear view). It is perfectly safe unless your colon has some illness of some sort.
The worst part has always been the prep.
sevenzero 1 days ago [-]
Yea I know, my life just isn't worth living and I'd prefer not to have something shoved up my ass to prevent something that could end it early cuz I am too foolish to do it myself.
aaa_aaa 1 days ago [-]
Dude it is nothing compared to any type of cancer. Besides, you are mostly sedated and dont remember a thing.
esikich 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
sevenzero 1 days ago [-]
If anything I am asexual, but idk why that matters here.
gurumeditations 1 days ago [-]
What is this homophobic garbage? Stop. You are disgusting. Gay is not your insult. Shame on you romancist.
esikich 1 days ago [-]
If you took that as an insult, you are the toxic one. Ew.
david-gpu 1 days ago [-]
The meme that homophobic people are in the closet is, in itself, not only factually wrong but also deeply homophobic.
It is factually wrong because, objectively, there are far more homophobes in conservative areas than there are gay people even in the most tolerant places.
And it is homophobic because it puts the blame of homophobia on the victims themselves. Yes, there are closeted gay and bisexual people who display performative homophobia to separate themselves from the LGBT community, but they are a tiny fraction of the homophobes.
I understand you mean well, but you are not helping the community.
brador 1 days ago [-]
We know around 8% of males in general population are gay. Any less than that where you live and the rest are hiding it no matter what they tell you.
preg_match 18 hours ago [-]
Okay well do the math. Way more than 8% of people are homophobic, depending on the country.
Putting the societal onus of homophobia on gay people just makes no sense. Even a couple seconds of thought will completely demolish that reasoning. So, think.
aaa_aaa 1 days ago [-]
Talk about exaggeration.
BigTTYGothGF 20 hours ago [-]
How so?
david-gpu 1 days ago [-]
Yes, that is indeed part of what I said. There is also far more than an 8% rate of homophobia in most places around the world [0]. This fact flies in the face of the meme that homophobes are repressed gays.
I'm late to this thread, and I've mentioned this story here before several times (under other usernames I lost the password to), but it bears repeating:
I had family who was experiencing symptoms of CRC in their late 30's or early 40's, which they reported to their PCP. PCP repeatedly denied them a referral to a specialist and insisted they were too young for CRC. This goes on for about a year. Finally, with worsening symptoms, my family member 'remembered' that their 'aunt' had passed of CRC when they were very young. This got them a referral to gastroenterologist, who got them a colonoscopy. (All this trouble, even though their symptoms were textbook and got so bad they couldn't make it ten steps to the bathroom).
However! The colonoscopy came out clean, but my family member was still experiencing worsening symptoms. Finally the gastroenterologist schedules a CT or MRI, which spotted a huge tumor in their colon and they were diagnosed stage 4. The tumor was in their sigmoid (the right-angle turn your colon makes), and only the tip of the tumor was protruding from the colon wall itself, so when the doctor performed the colonoscopy and failed to fully inflate the colon, they did not see anything there. This delayed diagnosis by another few months which may have been critical to their prognosis.
They fought for eight years against cancer and the insurance company, and were scheduled to undergo a procedure earlier this year at Yale which may have eliminated the cancer in their peritoneum (often the last holdout for metastasized CRC, and with our current medicine, basically impossible to remove, I'm told), until a certain American president cut funding to basically all medical research. They passed a few months after they would have had the procedure.
Do not ignore the symptoms, and make sure to absolutely force the issue with your PCP/doctor if the symptoms persist, even if your colonoscopy comes back clear. PCP's don't want to upset insurers with useless referrals and many get their egos bruised if you think you know better. Even MD's will half-ass a colonoscopy if they get too comfortable with their judgement. You have to be your own advocate in America's medical system because nobody gives a shit if they get you killed, so long as they don't have to pay for it.
IIRC doctors wanted to lower the age for CRC screening but insurers didn't want to pay for it, so don't fall into a sense of security because you "aren't old enough".
And for those of you worried about a stranger looking up your ass, I've had a coloscopy myself and it's not that bad. These people look up stranger's assholes all day every day.
Fr0styMatt88 21 hours ago [-]
This is so frustrating. I intellectually understand the whole thing around incidentalomas and the way testing’s false-positive rate can make universal testing harmful, but still. If you want the test, you should be able to get the damn test.
andai 1 days ago [-]
Does this track differences between generations (i.e. environmental changes), or the age-related differences within a single cohort, or somehow both at once?
BrtByte 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
cobaltpath 1 days ago [-]
I wonder if the higher proportion of stromal cells in young tumors is a direct result of specific dietary components or gut microbiome variations rather than just inherent biology. The study mentions looking at how cell programs interact with diet and microbes, but it seems early onset cases often present with distinct inflammatory profiles in the colon itself before tumor formation.
It would be interesting to see if these long non-coding RNAs show up consistently in pre cancerous polyps in younger patients or only after malignant transformation. If they are elevated early on, that could actually help solve the diagnosis problem where many late stage cancers are found, assuming we can target them specifically.
yread 1 days ago [-]
The lncRNA is common in all CRCs but the stroma content in healthy tissue usually increases with age
BrtByte 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
484849955 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
zero_shift 24 hours ago [-]
This is a culture-warrior meme (blaming youngsters for "un-Christian" sex lives), but it fails to account for
(1) increases in CRCs being similar amongst women and men
(2) increases in CRCs being higher up the digestive tract than anywhere like that
(3) cancer risk and anal sex link was already investigated and ruled out a decade ago
odyssey7 23 hours ago [-]
I can understand the skepticism / distrust of medical establishment to tell the truth here. The same sort of issue has happened before, in recent memory.
It was literally decades that we knew HPV causes cervical cancer, but boys were not offered the vaccine for years, endangering their lives, because the establishment preferred not to say or to know the truth that HPV gives men head and neck cancer.
Someone doing the calculus might have thought: if people associate cancer with certain sexual practices, then it will kill people, because they will not seek treatment for their cancer.
Of course, this robbed the general public of the right to make informed medical decisions with respect to the HPV vaccine and robbed men of knowing whether they were in a high risk group for certain cancers, out of difference to a stigma. The very same value judgement could be happening right now — on our behalf, without our oversight or consent — with respect to some other cancer or public health concern. We wouldn’t know.
When people are lied to, sooner or later the trade-offs of dishonesty may come home to roost. That’s what we’re seeing here — and I hope that we are not also seeing another case of willful blindness at our collective expense.
Adenoma found and removed.
This is a type of cancer that is almost entirely preventable with screening. Get your tubes checked.
Had no symptoms, now I get one every 5 years.
Technically this will vary depending on the protocol. I have friends in this field and in some countries they effectively knock you out with sedation. Others you might get some anxiety medication and only sedate elderly or uncollaborative patients.
Regardless of that everyone should absolutely get checked but just wanted to make sure we don't set unrealistic expectations.
A friend's girlfriend got stage3(?) recently, not 30 yet. My dad passed away ~5 years after diagnosed stage4. I had some pretty nasty IBD which, along with the mention of my family history, _finally_ got them to agree to do it. Anyways, all clean, other than h.pylori that got taken out with the first round - stomach - apparently exceedingly common here.
Watch your shit, get your stuff checked. I still had the needles set up in case perforation occurred and they had to sedate and do exploratory.
Starting on Friday, I followed a “low residue diet”. This primarily meant no fibrous fruits/veg or whole nuts/seeds. It was inconvenient but not hard.
Yesterday I started a “clear liquid diet”, which meant that I did not eat anything and only drank apple juice, gatorade, and the prescription prep solution. Starting at 5pm and going until about 6:45p, I drank half of the prep solution, which was like 64oz of stuff that tasted like flat Sprite. Right about the time I finished drinking, the draining out the other end began. It wasn’t a problem, and didn’t hurt, but I did visit the bathroom about 10 times over the next 2 hours with another few throughout the night.
I slept great overnight, and now I’m getting ready to start the second half of the prep solution. I’ll drink it over a 90 minute span, beginning four hours before I am scheduled to arrive at the endoscopy clinic.
(I’m also planning to have my colonoscopy without sedation. I have a very high pain tolerance, and was told that I’ll be able to watch the realtime video feed!)
The hardest part was probably convincing my doc that “yes, I’m sure I don’t want sedation.”
The procedure took under 15 minutes, with only about 2 minutes at the start being quite uncomfortable (“beesting way up my butt”). After that, it just felt like a bad case of gas rumbling through my gut. It wasn’t pleasant, but I’m not sure it is that much worse than a painful dental cleaning.
The doctor was quite good at talking through what we were seeing on the big screen. I didn’t feel anything when he used forceps to remove a few tiny polyps. I felt good that I saw the “problem spots” in realtime and could ask questions. (I’d likely have stressed out with a “we found a few tiny polyps” report after waking from sedation.)
After the procedure, I was free to leave. I put on my clothes and immediately left to walk home. No issues throughout the rest of the day.
I’m glad I skipped the propofol, and will skip sedation in the future.
If it makes you feel any better, it is literally impossible to remember it. You can’t be traumatized by it even if you wanted to.
You are not going to catch the gay for having a colonoscopy, if that is your fear.
Same with if you get snipped. I didn't realize that "shaved" meant with a safety razor and I just trimmed with a beard trimmer. I ended up having two younger women give me a proper shave as I laid there, which was about the dumbest I ever felt in my entire life. Made for a great story for my friends though.
It really is not a big deal to go through it.
I've had an extended conversation about this with an ER nurse friend, in which I reminded her that although the staff go through the gamut all day every day and it's normal for them, the patient (hopefully) does not and whatever procedure(s) are new and scary.
Add in the fact that (sexualized) abuse and med students using anesthetized patients for training without explicit consent is more common in the medical field than any of us would like, and people having concerns strong enough to avoid treatment sounds pretty reasonable to me.
"we see this all the time" may settle a few concerns, but it makes others (such as the power imbalance) worse.
I have a condition so I have a colonoscopy every year. Once I had found out about there being a fast-acting option, I've always chosen that.
I've never done it sedated. I prefer to watch the screen and and ask questions. I've found the view quite fascinating, actually. The doctors and nurses have always been professional, focused on the colon: not the butt. There is absolutely nothing sexual about it. I've never felt pain: only some tension, and that's been because of gas (needed to get a clear view). It is perfectly safe unless your colon has some illness of some sort. The worst part has always been the prep.
It is factually wrong because, objectively, there are far more homophobes in conservative areas than there are gay people even in the most tolerant places.
And it is homophobic because it puts the blame of homophobia on the victims themselves. Yes, there are closeted gay and bisexual people who display performative homophobia to separate themselves from the LGBT community, but they are a tiny fraction of the homophobes.
I understand you mean well, but you are not helping the community.
Putting the societal onus of homophobia on gay people just makes no sense. Even a couple seconds of thought will completely demolish that reasoning. So, think.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-...
I had family who was experiencing symptoms of CRC in their late 30's or early 40's, which they reported to their PCP. PCP repeatedly denied them a referral to a specialist and insisted they were too young for CRC. This goes on for about a year. Finally, with worsening symptoms, my family member 'remembered' that their 'aunt' had passed of CRC when they were very young. This got them a referral to gastroenterologist, who got them a colonoscopy. (All this trouble, even though their symptoms were textbook and got so bad they couldn't make it ten steps to the bathroom).
However! The colonoscopy came out clean, but my family member was still experiencing worsening symptoms. Finally the gastroenterologist schedules a CT or MRI, which spotted a huge tumor in their colon and they were diagnosed stage 4. The tumor was in their sigmoid (the right-angle turn your colon makes), and only the tip of the tumor was protruding from the colon wall itself, so when the doctor performed the colonoscopy and failed to fully inflate the colon, they did not see anything there. This delayed diagnosis by another few months which may have been critical to their prognosis.
They fought for eight years against cancer and the insurance company, and were scheduled to undergo a procedure earlier this year at Yale which may have eliminated the cancer in their peritoneum (often the last holdout for metastasized CRC, and with our current medicine, basically impossible to remove, I'm told), until a certain American president cut funding to basically all medical research. They passed a few months after they would have had the procedure.
Do not ignore the symptoms, and make sure to absolutely force the issue with your PCP/doctor if the symptoms persist, even if your colonoscopy comes back clear. PCP's don't want to upset insurers with useless referrals and many get their egos bruised if you think you know better. Even MD's will half-ass a colonoscopy if they get too comfortable with their judgement. You have to be your own advocate in America's medical system because nobody gives a shit if they get you killed, so long as they don't have to pay for it.
IIRC doctors wanted to lower the age for CRC screening but insurers didn't want to pay for it, so don't fall into a sense of security because you "aren't old enough".
And for those of you worried about a stranger looking up your ass, I've had a coloscopy myself and it's not that bad. These people look up stranger's assholes all day every day.
It would be interesting to see if these long non-coding RNAs show up consistently in pre cancerous polyps in younger patients or only after malignant transformation. If they are elevated early on, that could actually help solve the diagnosis problem where many late stage cancers are found, assuming we can target them specifically.
(1) increases in CRCs being similar amongst women and men
(2) increases in CRCs being higher up the digestive tract than anywhere like that
(3) cancer risk and anal sex link was already investigated and ruled out a decade ago
It was literally decades that we knew HPV causes cervical cancer, but boys were not offered the vaccine for years, endangering their lives, because the establishment preferred not to say or to know the truth that HPV gives men head and neck cancer.
Someone doing the calculus might have thought: if people associate cancer with certain sexual practices, then it will kill people, because they will not seek treatment for their cancer.
Of course, this robbed the general public of the right to make informed medical decisions with respect to the HPV vaccine and robbed men of knowing whether they were in a high risk group for certain cancers, out of difference to a stigma. The very same value judgement could be happening right now — on our behalf, without our oversight or consent — with respect to some other cancer or public health concern. We wouldn’t know.
When people are lied to, sooner or later the trade-offs of dishonesty may come home to roost. That’s what we’re seeing here — and I hope that we are not also seeing another case of willful blindness at our collective expense.