Everyone has heard about the dreaded Colonoscopy. It’s a pretty shitty procedure, pun absolutely intended! Right around your 50th birthday the notices start arriving. You’ve got to do this thing..it’s for your own good. Truth be told, it is an important preventative procedure, Colorectal cancer is the most common cause of cancer related death among non-smokers and the second leading cause of cancer mortality overall. For information on how to’s of this procedure check out http://www.webmd.com/colorectal-cancer/colonoscopy-16695.
Like many who’ve gone before me the worst part of the entire experience is the preparation. The idea is that your colon must be completely cleansed so the physician can send a scope through your rectum (yuck – I know) and check for polyps that are known cancer indicators. The upside of the cleansing is all the weight you drop, I lost 5 lbs overnight! Not my favorite way to do it though. The downside of the cleansing is the prep solution and it’s affects. It’s 12 hours of running to the bathroom emptying your guts out. How pleasant! Not…
The Harvard Women’s Health Watch recently posted the results of a new study that indicated women have a more difficult time with the prepping than men. Can the news get any better for us! I’m kidding. Much of this is due to the fact that women are more susceptible to constipation and/or irritable bowel syndrome, resulting in gas, bloating, abdominal pain and spasm. Another reason to love being a fem. again…kidding.
But we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do. So here are a couple of ideas to ease the ugly side of healthy living.
1. Read your preparation instructions carefully a week before your procedure is scheduled. There are certain dietary restrictions they emphasize early on that will help make the overall process easier.
2. Don’t plan a hot date or an important meeting while prepping. This is a good time to turn off your cell phone and pick up that novel you’ve been wanting to read, set it in the bathroom and enjoy some quiet (well relatively) “me” time.
3. The prep solution I used was called Moviprep. It tasted like dish soap. The program calls for downing 8 ounces of this distasteful stuff every 15 minutes for an hour the evening before and waking up at 5 am the morning before (thats right-not only do they torture you with taste but they force you into an early wake up call for this shitty treatment) to do the second round of 8 ounces every 15 minutes. Ok, I’m just needlessly dramatizing….The important fact here is that you can improve the flavor of this stuff by mixing in some Crystal Light or Kool-Aid, as long as it’s not red, blue, orange or purple you should be okay. Here is a coupon for crystal light from my favorite thrifty website, Money Saving Mom. Check her out..she’s got lots of great stuff in addition to CL.
http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/05/33-crystal-light-coupon-new-link-0-64-each-at-target.html
4. Drink the prep chilled through a straw so the liquid lands far back on your tongue away from your taste buds or hold a lemon slice under your nose while you drink the solution to mitigate the badness of it all.
5. You are restricted to a liquid diet for 24 hours prior to the procedure so have plenty of clear liquids on hand to fill your belly and bury the flavor of the prep. I drank tons of crystal light in between sips of prep.
Finally at the doctors and ready to get knocked out. Have someone drive you over because the drugs you are going to get will be great but your reactions will be impaired so driving yourself is not a good idea. Yes, your reward for going through with the procedure is some awesome anesthetics. They put it in your IV when you go under for the test. You will not remember going out, you won’t feel a thing through the test and you wake up afterwards feeling like you’ve done a good thing for the health of you! It’s heaven.
A final word of caution. The nurses tell you to eat a light meal after your colonic fast. You know, toast and jam or something like that. I heard what they told me but went straight to the drive thru at my nearest In and Out for a burger, fries and milkshake. Big mistake..I paid dearly for filling my belly with that heavy meal. Please learn from my mistakes.
