"...There's Several Obvious Tailpipe Jokes Right In Front Of Me, But I Like To Think I'm Better Than That..."

Here's a little something from the mailbox at the rear entrance.

Colonoscopies could be made a bit more comfortable for people if they involved lying in a CT scanner, rather than being probed with an endoscope, and at the same time didn't require drinking upward of a gallon of laxative fluid beforehand — current requirements that most consider unpleasant.

A new type of "virtual colonoscopy" that uses CT scans to construct images of the colon, as well as to virtually "clean" the organ, was just as effective as a standard colonoscopy in finding colon polyps 1 centimeter or larger in size, a new study finds. Most polyps, or growths on the lining of the colon, are benign, but some can turn cancerous.

"The subtraction of the laxative can only make what's already an attractive test even more attractive," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society, who was not involved with the study.

The discomfort of colonoscopies may deter some people from getting screened, said study researcher Dr. Michael Zalis, an associate professor of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

If this laxative-free, CT scan type of virtual colonoscopy becomes an option for colon cancer screening, Zalis said, it could increase the number of people who get screened, and thus reduce the number of deaths from the disease.

The laxative-free method was not as effective as a standard colonoscopy in finding polyps smaller than 1 centimeter, but polyps of this size are less likely to cause cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health. The new findings must be confirmed by larger studies before the test is put into practice, Zalis said.

The study is will be published Tuesday (May 15) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.


The idea of a "laxative (not to mention probe) free" colonscopy will certainly have its appeal with those of us who are of an age to want to keep an eye on that sort of thing.

So to speak.

Gotta tell you, though, while my own experience getting cheeky with the doctor and his posse gives me a certain empathy with those who would prefer to go "flushless", I actually found, last time out (or in, as the case may be) a little silver lining in the cloud of cloudy milky stuff that had me sitting long after even I was tired of sitting.

Put simply, I've never felt so "cleaned out" in my entire life.

Actually made me kinda wish you could buy that stuff over the local CVS counter.

Admittedly, hour after hour....after hour.....of what seems like it will be a life spent stuck in the "elimination round" isn't the kind of thing that one usually finds rewarding.

Truth be told, though, I did.

No shit.

So to speak.

In fact, I was feeling so light and free and fresh and emptied after twenty four hours of emptying that I've begun to think that medical science could do the country an unprecedented service if they could just tweak the process a scoche.

And develop a way to flush all the crap out of Congress.