As an American medical professional, who has given “sedation” for more colonoscopies than I can count, I will say that this experience does not hold true for any individual I have dealt with. Trust me. No one wants to deal with sedating patients. It’s more monitoring and more time and more risk.
As a Crohn’s sufferer who has had multiple colonoscopies I feel able to comment on some of the sweeping statements here.
- despite what the Crohn’s and Colitis US guy says, it is not “inconceivable” to have one without sedation. Which, in the UK, is not ‘knocking you out’ but a mild sedative keeping you awake and somewhat responsive (YMMV as sedatives do hit different people slightly differently.) It is commonly done and docs prefer it if the patient does not have sedation - up to the point not having it interferes with the procedure.
- some places may not routinely offer it (someone said Japan but I have no knowledge) but I bet even some of those may have it on standby for especially sensitive/difficult patients (difficult not as in ‘awkward patient’ but as in 'experiencing enough discomfort/pain to not enable the procedure to proceed smoothly)
- @megalodon USA is NOT the only country in the world to offer sedation. Regularly offered in UK for example. Your modest pain may be someone else’s severe pain, however brief. And what @anon55609254 said
- @MaiqTheLiar the poop sample is not an alternative to this, it is a precursor - IF the result shows more investigation needed. Ref bowel cancer, colonoscopy is typically only used (in UK for sure, ref bowel cancer) where a FOBT (faecal occluded blood test) on your poop comes back positive. (Of course it may be used immediately if a patient presents with other symptoms.)
Having had colonoscopies for investigation ref Crohn’s itself, later strictures, and as a result of a positive FOBT result, I’ve never opted for sedation. The first time was not too bad so I kept the same approach. Yes once or twice there was some pain (extreme discomfort? but not ‘scream out loud’ pain or anything near) for a few seconds but it subsided fast enough.
Just as much pain was experienced during X-ray scans when I’d drunk a load of radioactive gloop and then had air pumped into me to expand the bowel for a better view. I prefer to take myself to the hospital and drive home again, so no sedative, but I might have had one for the X-ray, seeing as there was nothing for me to see - but the main point of no sedation in a colonoscopy, for me, is to see and note what they are seeing. It has been instructive on two occasions, helping me to better understand how my Crohn’s presents and has developed, enabling me to better manage it. I might not have those insights had I been sedated.
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It was more the suburbs, not rural voters, that got him in. And much as I wish Toronto were so noble, the PCs still won 11 Toronto ridings (granted, all in the suburban Toronto areas of North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough, none in Old Toronto, East York or York). The NDP (11) and Libs (3) only won 14 between them.
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great now i have the mental image of hello kitty getting roto rootered 
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What it is with Anglo-Saxon countries lately that all these weirdos are starting to crawl out from under the stones? Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage in the UK, Trump in the US, the Antipodean Resistance in Australia and now this lunatic in Canada. Is the Murdoch press the common denominator which gives this rabble a voice?
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It’s not just the anglophone countries, unfortunately.
There’s more than that too. All of them have more support than I am happy about.
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That is super neat. Is this available somewhere?
As for parsing formats, have you considered using something like pocket? It provides an API where you can save articles and then retrieve them later (presumably pre-parsed). I don’t know too much about it from an API point of view (though I use it for all of my online reading).
https://getpocket.com/developer/docs/overview
ETA: This is off-topic, but I’m quite interested, so you can ping me privately if you want.
You are right, and you forgot Austria, which is just a few miles from where I live and which is descending into a morass of antisemitism and xenophobia.
But somehow it seems to me the Anglo-Saxon countries currently have a particular kind of crazy, with climate change denial, an urge for authoritarianism and xenophobia and racism and f#&cking the poor becoming a really toxic brew. But perhaps you are right, and it is as bad also here in Europe.
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It’s what I was going for. I should have used strikethrough 
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I know what you mean. I’ve been on the receiving end (ha ha) where medical decisions were made based on clinicians’ convenience rather than patients’ needs many times.
ETA: Oops, I meant to reply to @Martin_Beldin.
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Ah, the old “air contrast” barium X-ray. I had many of those as a kid. If done correctly, a thin layer of barium on the tissue surface can show lesions not directly visible with barium only. But it’s not as good as a colonoscopy, so I’m not sure how much it’s done nowadays. I certainly haven’t had one in years.
I had an incompetent doctor recommended by my college health clinic order one of those. They forgot the air. Despite the mistake, and based purely on me describing my history of having had ulcerative colitis for over ten years, the quack suggested I get my colon yanked immediately. Fortunately I’d had enough of bad doctors to decide otherwise. Two years later, I was re-diagnosed with Crohns disease, where you DO NOT do this. Forty years later I still have my colon, and am in remission, more or less.
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Ford’s a dick, but this report isn’t very accurate; he doesn’t actually want to cut sedation with colonoscopies (it’s much more fun to be probed with a bit of fentanyl taking the edge off), he wants to reduce the use of anaesthesia. But it makes for wonderful outraged clickbait and petitions.
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So Ford is happy to volunteer for the first procedure without sedation, yes?
Although it is not just the anglophone countries, as @theborderer says, I do strongly believe that the Murdoch press and others of their ilk are indeed a common denominator. Although in UK the Daily Mail is a leading non-Murdoch rabble-rouser.
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April 6th Update : The Premier’s office tells CityNews proposed changes to sedation for colonoscopies are no longer under consideration
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I, too, have had a colonoscopy without sedation.
The appointment letter mentioned that I might be given sedation, and to make appropriate arrangements so that I wouldn’t have to drive home. In the end, I didn’t. It was uncomfortable. I wouldn’t like to have it done every day. I was happy to be alert and able to see the insides of my colon, though.
I’ve only had one colonoscopy. It was in Shanghai a few years ago and they were not going to do it, since the anesthetist was not available. They told me they never knock out Chinese but only foreigners since they couldn’t handle it. Well, challenge accepted. Had the colonoscopy and a growth removed. I fell asleep during the procedure. I asked my Dad, who had had many of them, and he said he never bothered with the anesthesia as well.
I also had a stent taken out after a kidney stone operation in Shanghai as well. No anesthesia. That one hurt but it only lasted for about five minutes. Didn’t want to be the weak foreigner and lose face.
Also, they can’t bill you for the gamelan orchestra and performing monkey troupe they said were needed if you are awake all the time.
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I was like, didn’t that idiot die? And then I realized 
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This is Blue Cross / Blue Shield’s policy as well (at least it was 5 years ago when I had a colonoscopy). After two calls to them making sure everything was covered before I had the procedure, I got a bill for $2000 from the anesthesiologist and BC/BS rejected it as unnecessary.
Apparently you need extensive medical training to know what might be done in any given situation or procedure and then ask specifically whether or not they are planning on paying for it.
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