Colonoscopy

Why is it important to get a colonoscopy?

One of the big reasons to get your colonoscopy is that colon cancers are asymptomatic. You don't know you have one until it has progressed to the point that you're either bleeding or obstructed and not passing things through anymore. With the colonoscopy, we want to find that either before it becomes a cancer or as early as possible in its development.

How do patients prepare for a colonoscopy?

The day before we have you drink a combination of Miralax and Gatorade, and it cleans out your colon and cleans out your system so that we can get the best look at your colonic tissue as possible.

What happens the day of the colonoscopy?

The day of your colonoscopy you come in, get an anesthetic to put you to sleep, which usually takes about thirty minutes, and then you wake up and go home the same day. 

The recommendation is that patients should start getting a screening colonoscopy at age 45. When would a patient need to do this sooner?

Depending on your race, family history, other diseases you may have, you might need a colonoscopy earlier, so that's something to talk to your primary care doctor about. When you need your next colonoscopy depends on the findings of the first colonoscopy.

How often do patients need to be screened if their initial results are normal?

If your colonoscopy is normal, the recommendation is 10 years, again based on family history and findings of other colonoscopies. 

What happens if you find something during a colonoscopy?

If during your colonoscopy we see polyps or other lesions that we're concerned about, we can biopsy them at the time of your colonoscopy. We send them to the pathologist, and they tell us what it is. Then, we base your next colonoscopy on that.

What may be found during a colonoscopy?

On your colonoscopy we may find just normal colonic mucosa. We may find diverticulosis or diverticulum, which is a normal finding in many people. We can find polyps or precancerous growths and remove them at that time. And the real reason you want to get your colonoscopy is to remove the polyps before they would become a cancer. This is another thing we can find on colonoscopy and then plan further treatment from there.

What is a polyp, and why should polyps be removed?

A polyp is a precancerous growth. They can vary in size from a couple millimeters to several centimeters. Most colon cancers start from polyps, so we want to do the colonoscopy and remove those polyps before they have a chance to develop into a colon cancer.