So what about me? Why did I choose to get sedation? Surely I could have toughed-out the pain of the procedure, right? I truthfully think I would have been fine without sedation. However there is one thing that I've learned from being a physician who does procedures for a living: Sometimes there are unintended bad consequences of going against the standard of care.
Why wouldn't a fellow endoscopist sent their patients for a procedure that is as effective, safer, with no significant recovery time, and far less expensive when compared to surgery?
Over two years ago, I had a colon resection for the removal of a cancerous tumor (stage 2A). Ever since, I have had on and off bleeding in my stool. My surgeon has done two sigmoidoscopies and my gastro doctor has done two colonoscopies.
One useful technique to minimize the risk of perforation when treating large angiodysplastic lesions (let's arbitrarily define large as greater than 10-mm in diameter) is to...
Case: A 79-year-old man with a distant history of pulmonary embolism (PE) was admitted to the hospital with several days of vague right-sided lower abdominal pain. There was no history of gastrointestinal bleeding, and the pain did not worsen with eating. On physical exam, there was moderate right lower quadrant abdominal tenderness without rebound or … Read more