Tag Archives: colonoscopy

Last colonoscopy?

Well…as you know, I have my second colonoscopy scheduled for the 24th of this month but there is a new study out there that questions the effectiveness of the procedure saying that it has little effect in preventing colon cancer…but the study is a little confusing and I’m not sure what it really means…the headline says that people are questioning it’s effectiveness but then the states in the article that people getting colonoscopies had a 31% reduction in colon cancers and a 50% lessened chance of dying from it…and an American study showed even better results with a 40% lowered risk of getting cancer and a 68% reduction in dying from colon cancer. With having 5 polyps removed last time, that is 5 sites that won’t be turning into cancer in my colon and I really hope they don’t find more of them this time….I’m getting to the age that the sedation they use poses higher danger than for young people and I wonder if that will be the determining factor on whether I get another one? The prep is pretty unpleasant but the procedure is okay…the stuff the give you really makes you not car what they are doing and it is even a little interesting for a science geek like me since you can watch the pictures on a monitor and that is a little cool….so I guess we’ll see if this is the last one or not…to go through a day of unpleasantness to get a 68% death reduction seems to be a good tradeoff to me…just don’t want to do it every year….