Ok I'm scheduled for my second check-up pouchscopy (in 4 years) in a month, and I noticed that, after the first one being quite painful, now I'm feeling a bit anxious... I don't know the reason, when I had the colon I remember feel anxiety but, perhaps because of the fact I was hospitalized most of the times, it was different. Also I am always afraid of results of histologics.
How do you handle all this? Are you afraid of histologics? And how about the pain?
Thank you for your thoughts.
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Hello, IKH.
You can ask your doctor to give you a mild sedative through an IV. Just be sure you can tolerate a mild sedative and someone is available to take you home. You will not be allowed to go home on your own. Let the doctor know a few days in advance of your test that you want to be sedated so they can be prepared. Your endoscopy is important and it must be done to check on your health but there is no reason to be anxious or tense. If you tense up (without sedation) it will really hurt back there when they insert the scope. For me, they start the IV when I arrive in the exam room and I'm asleep within three seconds! I wake up in the recovery room 30 minutes later and get a cookie and juice from the nurses. If I need a closed-MRI I always ask for a mild sedative in pill form otherwise we cannot do it. I am given a pill to take 20 minutes before I am rolled into the closed MRI and I am so loopy I'm not even aware I'm in a closed tube. The MRI is necessary so I do what I have to and get through it. See what your doctor has to say about giving you a sedative. You won't feel a thing and you'll wonder why you never asked for it before. Don't spend energy being anxious. Good luck with your test.
Does pouchscopy hurt more than colonoscopy then? Due my first soon and i don't have nearly enough to worry about lol,
For most of us pouchoscopy is trivial, requiring minimal prep and no sedation, and involving no significant discomfort. In other words, nothing like a colonoscopy other than the point of entry. This was true for me even when my pouch was full of ulcers. Some of us have circumstances that make the procedure more difficult, and then sedation or a more aggressive prep may be needed.
good to know thanks Scott.. IKH, hope yours goes well... try not to judge this one based on the last, you sound like you are in a different place now, so hopefully better healed. Worry will make it worse, its something you need to do anyway so, relax and try not to fear it.
I like to think, that some people pay good money (to non medical people) for this kinda of attention, lucky us we get it from the pros huh? lol
Last month I had my first pouchoscopy in almost 30 years and was pleasantly surprised at how easy everything went. I was also a bit rattled on the front end of the test and now look back and chuckle a bit as to how simple the process actually was.
Thanks to all!
Perhaps my first endoscopy was unconfortable because of my tension or perhaps the equipe was not very good (I'm not the kind of person who always criticizes but the doubt could arise).
Some folks here still get their exam via a rigid sigmoidoscope (sometimes called the chrome broomstick). I haven't had that since flexible fiberoptics were invented many decades ago. That device is indeed painful. Most of us are scoped with a flexible sigmoidoscope, or even the more slender pediatric scope (what my GI uses). These are not painful, but there is some pressure and cramping from the air that is pumped in.
I have not had sedation since my colectomy, and haven't needed it.
Jan 
Ciao Jan,
my problem is the air... We in Italy are using the flexible sigmoidoscope... Thank you.
