I’ve had an annoying pain in my right side for a while now, never very painful, say 2 or 3 on a scale of 10. It comes, hangs around a week or two, and goes, reappearing a week or two later. Well, three weeks ago, the pain appeared and was a bit more painful and appear in front and back at the same time. I called and got an appointment with the Physicians Assistant.
After hearing my tale of woe and pressing and prodding where the pain was, she asked when was my last colonoscopy. “Eight years ago,” I said. “Well,” she said, “Let’s get a stool sample first and see what that says.” They found no blood, but did find something called Lactoferrin which could be an indicator of Crohn’s or IBS. The colonoscopy was scheduled for today.
Turns out, the last part of the gastrointestinal tract was just fine and I have the photos to prove it… The doctor brought me about eight little souvenir snapshots from his trip along my intestinum crassum. I think he really did this, not as proof of my shiny colon, but because I mentioned that at my first one I asked for photos to put on my blog.
Anyway, what’s with the pain? He said maybe I have a small diverticulum or two that appear when my colon isn’t full of air that might snag something. What he didn’t say was maybe it is all in my head…
For the weirdos and medically curious out there you can read about colonoscopies Number 1 and Number 2. Plus, there a couple of bonus episodes about my one esophagogastroduodenoscopy: 1 & 2.