Hi Jeepers - I sympathise, had a colonoscopy without sedation about 30 years ago - not something I'd ever want to repeat
![Grin ;D](https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/Smileys/extended/grin.gif)
, but they did manage to get all the way around. However, with a flexi-sigmoidoscpy a few years ago, they couldn't get round as far as they wanted due to what was described on the report as "excessive looping". My screaming might have been something of a deterrent too! The lovely nurse afterwards told me she'd also screamed the place down when they did hers, so that made me feel a bit less of a wimp. Barium studies a few years before that had shown that for a little woman I have lots of guts! Like a nest of vipers. Took an age, a funnel with a neck like sandpaper & a damned great jug of barium whitewash, lots of tilting of the table & more radiation than I care to think about, just to get it all on film! Not my most dignified hour
![Grin ;D](https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/Smileys/extended/grin.gif)
Tortuous bowel, or redundant colon as it's also called, really
is a medical condition. The Cons told me they sometimes open people up & find in his words, "an extra-long colon, that meanders all over the place". Technical term that!! But without imaging or surgery that reveals the condition, those who have it may go their whole lives (but frustratingly not often enough) wondering why on earth doing all the right things for a lazy bowel simply doesn't work for them. Food simply has further to travel than in most folk, so takes longer to make an appearance at the other end.
Maxwin, with only 1 TFT a year, if you haven't had one recently, might be worth asking them to do one for you in light of your slow tummy. Appreciate that's not a new state of affairs for you, but some folk need their TSH to be pretty low in order to feel well, so I wonder whether you might need a little more Thyroxine. Your GP may be one of those who assumes any TSH within the ref range will do. It will not! Sorry if you know all this already but I'd hate for your health to suffer needlessly if you don't. They certainly should ask you how you're feeling & let you have your TFT results, which ideally should include TSH, Free T4 & Free T3, together with the reference ranges for the lab they were done at. Your dose should be the one that makes you feel your best & not determined solely by blood results. Some people also don't convert Thyroxine into T3 very efficiently & that can leave them with hypo symptoms for which they also need to take T3.
If you have any suspicion that you may need more thyroid hormone - other suggestive symptoms, I would go & see your GP. It's possible for us to miss this, as it can happen gradually. I was taken by surprise by a way too high TSH a couple of years ago when we were mucking about with my HRT trying to find the right regime. I knew oestrogen could do that & I'm well aware of what to look out for, having been on thyroid meds for 25 years. I knew I needed the dose tweaking, but hadn't suspected TSH had gone up that much
![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/Smileys/extended/rolleyes.gif)