A positive experience :-)

Cosmetic surgery
1

Sympathy for those who have had a bad experience with sigmoidoscopy - I have read about all sorts of different experiences in this forum - but mine was pretty uneventful.

Firstly, I seem to have had a slightly different process than most.

(1) I went through the full bowel cleanse using Picolax and fasting.

I haven't seen anyone else who reports having this for a sig.

I found the discussion about Picolax on the colonoscopy forum and have posted in more detail there.

Although this takes over your life for a couple of days (you can't do a lot when you have to be within sprinting distance of a loo) by the time I went in for my procedure I was completely empty.

I was complimented on how clean my bowel was, and it certainly looked it on the monitor!

(2) I wasn't offered any drugs or gas/air to help relax me or anything.

I was told that because they were only looking at the first (left hand) part of the bowel, and didn't need to go round the big bend at the top then it wasn't necessary. Can't disagree with that.

The procedure was 'interesting' and feeling a tube moving around inside me was wierd, but there was nothing more than minor discomfort, mainly when they pumped in a bit of extra air to look around a turn or into a fold.

I was obviously anxious before the procedure (blood pressure was much higher than usual) but it was all fine. Nothing found, all shiny and clean inside. Blood pressure back down a lot (though not quite back to normal) when I was checked in the recovery area before my cup of coffee and discharge.

So all in all not as bad as I feared and in my case nothing to get worked up about.

2

Could I be cheeky  ( pardon the pun ) and ask why you needed the procedure doing ? I have one booked for a few weeks time, which was instigated after my complaints of severe itchiness down below. Not sure what they hope to achieve. Thanks. 

3

I am being treated for piles with injections of oil into the piles.

First go was painless and made some improvement.

Because I reported some bleeding associated with the piles they did the sigmoidoscopy as a safety check to confirm that there was nothing else in there bleeding.

4

Thanks for that. After my intial examination I was told there were some grade one piles but wanted to check for anything else that was causing the itching. Is your treatment for grade ones or worse and what exactly does it involve ?

5

I don't think I was told a grade, but they are presumably 2-3 at least.

They inject nut oil into the pile, then put a small cotton plug in there to help compress the piles whilst the nut oil acts.

The cotton bung comes out next time you go to the loo.

So it involves someone rooting around your bum whilst you lie on your left side with your knees drawn up.

Much the same as for any rectal examination..

In my case it was thankfully painless.

6

Thanks for that, I feel more reassured now. Lots of scaremongering on here !