About a Colonoscopy
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What is a Colonoscopy?
Sources of information for this page
What is a Colonoscopy?
This test looks at the whole of the inside of the large bowel. It is done in outpatients and takes about an hour.
For this test the bowel has to be empty. You will be given a list of things to do to help prepare the bowel for the test. These are likely to include
* Stopping iron tablets
* Not eating solid food for 2 days before the test
* Drinking plenty of clear fluids
* Taking laxatives
When you arrive at the hospital, the nurse or technician will ask you to remove your clothes and give you a gown to change into. This is to protect your own clothing. You may also have paper trousers, with a hole cut out of the back, to wear under your gown. You will probably have medicine to make you drowsy just before the test. This is called a sedative. Colonoscopy is nearly always done with sedation and painkillers because it would be uncomfortable for you without. It may be possible to have a colonoscopy without a sedative, if you have particular reasons for wanting to. You would need to talk to your doctor beforehand about this.
Your doctor will ask you to lie on your side. The doctor will pass a flexible tube into your rectum and up into your bowel. As the tube bends easily, it can pass around the curves in the bowel so your doctor can examine the whole length of it. The light inside the tube helps the doctor to see any problem areas or swelling. Photographs and biopsies of the lining of the bowel can be taken during the test.
A colonoscopy can be uncomfortable but the sedative should help you to feel more relaxed.
You should be able to go home a couple of hours after the test. You shouldn't drive for a few hours after the sedative. If you have had a sedative, you should have someone with you to take you home. Ideally they should stay overnight just to make sure everything is all right.
Colonoscopy is a very safe test. But like all medical tests, it does have its risks. There is a very small risk of tearing the bowel wall. Your doctor may call this 'perforation'. This only happens in about 1 out of every 800 colonoscopies at most. But we have mentioned it because it is a serious complication for the very few people it affects. If you did have a perforation, you would have to go to the operating theatre for emergency surgery to repair your bowel wall. And you would need strong antibiotics for abdominal infection.
Sources of information for this page
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=3950∞
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