"Colonoscopy"

I have a condition that requires regular colonoscopies. I had a bad experience with one during a severe flare-up in which I felt I regained consciousness due to pain. I recall the Drs involved at the time showed remorse in their body language and talked cryptically about how brave I was however the experience was not explicitly discussed with me.

Since this time during each subsequent colonoscopy I have had increasing level of awareness and also remember pain. (However I am unsure how much of this is a trauma response/pain memory due to the first experience). I felt emotionally stressed and overwhelmed about my experiences so just tried to forget it after each time. I didn't discuss it with my Dr as I didn't think I had any other options.

Recently however I had a really awful colonoscopy experience where it was obvious to everyone that I was in pain. I think I had a panic attack in combination with feeling pain.

I felt the team knew I was nervous before the procedure due to my high HR. I recall they did try to be reassuring. I think it would have helped though if they waited a few minutes for the HR to lower naturally before sedating me so I would be in a better state of mind.

This experience led to me requesting for the next time being under GA or else I never wanted another one done. It was an idea I had but didn't know if was possible. They organised the next under Propofol, which was completely fine.

I was disappointed that it was seemingly up to me as the patient to suggest GA as an option when I believe my care team knew that I've been in pain and even mentioned previously in passing about the increasing doses of Midazolam required to knock me out.

I feel that my specialist should have proactively discussed my experience after each procedure rather than seemingly hoping I would forget/that the next time would be ok. If I had known there were other options I would have opted for this earlier.

I believe perhaps more training can be given to medical staff on how to discuss a patient's experience after a procedure and how to manage the stress of the situation. I felt my Dr did express care and regret over what had happened but in an indirect way after the event. This I feel was likely because they were also overwhelmed managing their emotions and perhaps were unsure of what to do next.

Just because there is not full consciousness does not mean a person doesn't remember or impacted by an event therefore I feel open and formal discussion would be helpful in such cases. I believe training in trauma informed care for health professionals would also be beneficial for dealing with patients similar to me.

I believe my Drs did the best that they knew how to do under the circumstances. I think further system wide training could help to prevent similar episodes/or help Drs to manage the unusual cases like me.