Crohns
Crohn's disease and colitis cause severe ulceration of the colon which causes the intestines to go on strike and cause a very severe and immodium-proof case of the shits (bristol scale #7) that can only be curtailed with the use of corticosteroids. But we're not here to chat about shit, and unfortunately IBD isn't just about an incurable case of the bad beer runs.
As anyone who has had a mouth ulcer will testify, any movement or anything touching the affected area will cause a very serious pain. If your colon has ulcers all over it it feels as though you're pregnant with a baby made of knives and battery acid. Anything passing through, be it wind or fecal matter causes a pain so bad it stops you in your tracks and almost makes you drop to your knees, and you would if it wasn't the case that you had to make a dash for the smallest room very quickly.
After around five weeks of this, severe weight loss and half your friends thinking you've taken to smoking crack, the NHS gives you the chance to go for the dreaded camera. Or as chtonic would say, the long bendy jaws on the end thingy.
If you ever get to see what your intestines look like, well for christ's sake, make sure you take someone with you, because otherwise they don't let you get sedated, and what they don't tell you is that for the camera to be able to take accurate pics of knackered intestinal wall they have to fill you full of air. This means every last bit of ulcerated colon is all stretched at once, for around fifteen minutes.
I thought I was going to die. I couldn't speak, I could barely breathe properly, the heart bleep device was all over the place. It is without doubt the most painful thing I have ever had to endure, ever.

Credit where its due, this was the zenith before I was prescribed corticosteroids and set on the path to remission, and nowadays through a combination of asacol tablets and some immunosuppressants they give to liver transplant patients (our local plumber, who is on his second liver said "Fuckinell, I'm on those, they stop me shitting me liver out") I am able to live something resembling a normal working life, touch wood.

But FFS if you ever have to go for a flexible sigmoidoscopy, TAKE SOMEBODY WITH YOU.

Length? a metre and a half second time round. I made sure i was heavily sedated for that one.
(Sawdustman now with added giro. again, Thu 29 Jul 2010, 19:26, 2 replies)

Hiya Wallop
This is all very true - ulcerative colitis in my case. B3tans ,when you start to feel that you have a problem with your plumbing, it's all too tempting to wait and see if it will go away. Mine went away, and came back, and went away, and came back...by the time I decided I had to overcome my fear and talk about it,there was a six month waiting list for the camera. No camera, no treatment, even though I was losing massive amounts of weight, even though I couldn't eat or sleep any more. If I'd dealt with my problems sooner, praps there would have been a shorter waiting list, and I wouldn't have needed two hospital admissions to get well again. Any other IBD types out there? (The B3tan Bowels? Sorry, sorry, sorry...)
(magenta may, Thu 29 Jul 2010, 22:48, closed)

Crohns all the way
However due to fucking GP's and the fact that it was flare and go, flare and go wasn't diagnosed properly until I was down to 6 stone, with a section of fused bowel and obstructed.
From my experience, sigmoidoscopy. Not pleasant in the extreme. Steroids do the job until you start bouncing off the walls. Pethidene is your friend.
Oh and for anyone reading this, wallops pain description is on the U / PG side. Imagine the worst food poisoning you have ever had. Loop and splice. Turn all the way up to 11, and you ain't close. I wanted to punch my head through a wall to stop teh hurt.

As for the best story about bowel examinations I have read. Google Blu-tone and picolax. Read and shit yourself laughing
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 21:25, closed)