I'm barely 39, married female (no kids) and have microscopic colitis (as opposed to ulcerative) and was Dx with that about 4 years ago via c-scope. I had my first scope when I was 24, after having bouts of non-stop diarrhea. Back then I was told I had IBS and that was about it... not very helpful. My father died at age 53 of metastatic colon cancer; he was Dx at age 48. I started learning about this evil disease back then, when I was in college. (I was 23 when he died.) His mother died of stomach/GI cancer in her early 50's right after I was born. I think the docs blamed part of "my" problems on stress, from losing my dad... which certainly could have made sense.
I've had I think 8-9 c-scopes over all this time, and will have my next one on January 12th. I guess this is the only safe place to even admit such a thing, but I haven't had a "solid" crap in well over a year. I had a scope in 10/05 and had no polyps, but the biopsies showed the chronic inflammation and "microscopic colitis." Basically my GI doc said I will just have to live with this. He believes I probably ALSO have IBS in addition to the colitis. Oh joy.
I saw him most recently in August of this year and took a course of some new drug (antibiotic) just for kicks, but it did not help. The only thing I've been taking "routinely" is a Tincture of Opium liquid, 3-6 drops 3-4x/day... sometimes it helps slow the diarrhea but usually not. Not lately anyway. The diarrhea is relentless and constant, no matter what I eat. If I eat crappy junk food, I have diarrhea. If I eat totally "clean" with no sugar, no white flour, no caffeine, no processed foods (etc)... I still have diarrhea. Lately I have the "Big D" 5-6 times a day on a good day. A bad day is 10+ times... or any day that the urgency is so bad I don't make it to the toilet. I suspect you guys here know what that is like. Lately the urgency has been worse and pretty embarassing.
Last summer I also had the great luck to have some breast lump issues and wound up having 4 breast biopsies from May-October. I'd also had those in the past too... but all have been benign. But now I was sent to a "high risk" breast cancer clinic, where they taught me that there is a proven genetic "link" of some kind between breast cancer and colon... and while I am not considered at risk for the breast cancer "gene" of BRCA, they said that I am at risk of having the HNPCC gene, so they drew the blood for that. (My GI doc had never suggested this!) We are still waiting on the results from that test, which will probably be several more weeks. Actually we still don't know how much (if at all, god forbid) our insurance co. will help pay for that $2K test. But I think we (my husband and I) probably need to know... if I have the colon cancer gene, then that will affect my various tests, etc - obviously. And since I am sort of a control freak, the truth is that I would rather "know" than "not know"... so that it's my choice to do things, or not. Does that make any sense at all?
Anyway, I don't look forward to my c-scope on 1/12, but at least I fully know what to expect, having had so many. I will have the lovely and fabulous Visicol pills (gag!) but I still prefer those salty nasty things over the liquid jugs of torture. haha. And you all are correct in describing the sedation... I don't mind THAT a bit. I actually love those few seconds of all warm "swirliness" right before I am "out"...
Thank you for reading this ridiculously long intro, and if anyone has experience with the HNPCC testing process or "family history" stuff, etc - that would be great. Again, I am just happy to have found a helpful place to learn more and discuss these lovely topics.
-Michelle
I also have had what I thought were excessive bouts with flu (3 times in 5 months, last year) which made me wonder about my succeptibility (sp?) to infections, though at the time I just wrote it off to stress, or bad luck, haha.
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