Well I am coming up on the big 50 and my doctor wants me to schedule a Colonoscopy. Good news, the place is right next to her office. She provided me with a service to get there and home but....
My mom had a perforated intestine due to having one and I also felt she had other damage that they tried to cover up. My dad never had one. He died at 83 without any colon cancer.
So I looked into it and the adverse events are not fully known but it is only recently (in the last 4 years) that anyone looked into if it was causing issues and, the results weren't great. Like 5% of people who had it (this is a lot of people) ended up going to the ER within one week of the colonoscopy. In my mom's cases both issues slowly festered and she had to go to the ER within a month. I also am suspicious that the prep and the invasion into your body could cause issues that you might never really understand were caused by that.
So I looked into it and found there is a stool / DNA test that it is shockingly accurate. It detects 95% of colon cancer -- that is as good as the colonoscopy. If it comes back positive I will have to get a colonoscopy. It also can be done every three years (and if I want to pay for it myself every year) and thus could be even more accurate.
What are people's experiences with the colonoscopy?