Hello,
I'm a male endurance athlete, 64 YO. At my most recent annual physical my Dr. mentioned that it was "that" time again, referring to a colonoscopy. However he mentioned that he was now suggesting to his patients a "new" procedure that did not require the usual and somewhat unpleasant preparation. I was not convinced, but was persuaded by him and agreed to go that route. The route in question was the Cologuard test.
Basically, you poop in a container and send it to a lab for evaluation. My test came back as positive. This positive result then necessitated a traditional colonoscopy in order to more definitively determine if there was an issue. When I met with the Dr. who would be doing the colonoscopy he told me that I would be responsible for the entire expense of the procedure due to the positive Cologuard test. He related that health insurances pay for diagnostic procedures of this type whether it be the Cologuard of the tradiotional colonoscopy (which by the way is considered to be the gold standard). But since I'd gotten the positive Cologuard, insurance no longer would cover the additional work!!!
Long story short, the colonoscopy came back normal with no issues. Thankfully! However I was now out about a total of $1,300....
I asked the Dr. if the fact that I was near the end of a marathon training cycle had any impact on the positive result. He wasn't sure until I mentioned that it is not unusual for distance athletes to have trace amounts of stool blood as a result of the training. Immediately he said yes, that that was the likely cause of the positive as the Cologuard test checks for abnormal DNA AND the presence of blood.
My family Dr. knows of my marathon training and I feel he should not have recommended the Cologuard in my case.
So, I'm posting this to: see if others have had the Cologuard, see if others had false positives, and to warn others in this situation to seriously reconsider using the Cologuard vs. colonoscopy.
Thanks
I'm a male endurance athlete, 64 YO. At my most recent annual physical my Dr. mentioned that it was "that" time again, referring to a colonoscopy. However he mentioned that he was now suggesting to his patients a "new" procedure that did not require the usual and somewhat unpleasant preparation. I was not convinced, but was persuaded by him and agreed to go that route. The route in question was the Cologuard test.
Basically, you poop in a container and send it to a lab for evaluation. My test came back as positive. This positive result then necessitated a traditional colonoscopy in order to more definitively determine if there was an issue. When I met with the Dr. who would be doing the colonoscopy he told me that I would be responsible for the entire expense of the procedure due to the positive Cologuard test. He related that health insurances pay for diagnostic procedures of this type whether it be the Cologuard of the tradiotional colonoscopy (which by the way is considered to be the gold standard). But since I'd gotten the positive Cologuard, insurance no longer would cover the additional work!!!
Long story short, the colonoscopy came back normal with no issues. Thankfully! However I was now out about a total of $1,300....
I asked the Dr. if the fact that I was near the end of a marathon training cycle had any impact on the positive result. He wasn't sure until I mentioned that it is not unusual for distance athletes to have trace amounts of stool blood as a result of the training. Immediately he said yes, that that was the likely cause of the positive as the Cologuard test checks for abnormal DNA AND the presence of blood.
My family Dr. knows of my marathon training and I feel he should not have recommended the Cologuard in my case.
So, I'm posting this to: see if others have had the Cologuard, see if others had false positives, and to warn others in this situation to seriously reconsider using the Cologuard vs. colonoscopy.
Thanks