’...I know that everyone who comes back from a colonoscopy says it was fine and they slept through it and it didn’t hurt at all. And about three quarters of people did sleep through it.
But about a quarter of the time, the anaesthetic didn’t work too well, and the patient was awake and in horrible, horrible pain. Outside of movies and TV, I’ve never seen someone in such pain before. And watching someone literally writhing in agony is a terrible, terrible experience.
What did the doctor say? He told me that they couldn’t up the anaesthetic because an overdose could cause respiratory arrest, and that it wouldn’t matter because the anaesthetic on any dose caused severe short term memory loss and whatever happened the patient would forget all about it. The second point, at least, was right on. One patient spent the entire procedure writhing in agony and screaming something incoherent to God. The doctor finished the procedure, took out the endoscope, and cut off the anaesthetic, and the patient turned his head, looked the doctor right in the eye, smiled, and said, laughing “Wow, that wasn’t bad at all! Guess I slept right through it!”′
--Yvain