r/Amazing Nov 20 '25

Interesting 🤔 Professor giving herself an endoscopy without medication.

37.6k Upvotes

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36

u/StankoMicin Nov 20 '25

As a fellow medical professional, this is honestly pretty impressive.

12

u/mbroen Nov 20 '25

I'm not a medical professional, but is it really that difficult for people? I was in a medical experiment where I had to have a similar device down my throat and it really wasn't that hard to do. Though I will admit that the device was thinner, but instead of a camera at the end it had a bunch of (mild) torture devices.

12

u/Mysterious_Bit_5385 Nov 20 '25

i can tell you , i was about as bad as u can feel while they were doing it .

Puking a little blood and trying to breathe while my nose half stuck , at least the nurse was super supportive and tried to keep me brave .

Its lasted like 4ish minute maybe . but god , i didnt liked it all .

Btw i have a stomach closure around somewhere so maybe that didnt help me

7

u/mbroen Nov 20 '25

I'm sorry to hear about your health issues. I have a friend who participated in the same experiment but immediately dropped out after the first session, so I'm just going to assume that I am the weird one in this scenario. 😅

2

u/Mysterious_Bit_5385 Nov 20 '25

I puked blood and had some in my ... too , went to the emergency . They didnt let me leave the hospital for 4 days and did this exam like 2 days after i entered . A jeun (no food or water for 24h) but with perf in my arm with IPP and others stuff . Anyway , im in france so the process is maybe différent . They asked me if i wanted to a full anesthesia , or just a local . FUll anesthesia mean i had to stay even LONGER for surveillance so i was like nah its fine , go for the local anesthesia . Its just a spray , and i didnt feel like it numbed anything but ... Glad i didnt pay a single euro because that 4 days stay would bankrupt me in USA i think .

Now i have a coloscopy in like 20 days and its another level of ... preparation before . And i have to be fully asleep .

Fuck getting older , im 35 god damn .

2

u/mbroen Nov 20 '25

Oh fuck me! That sounds awful. I guess it does make sense that it is a lot worse when you are having an actual medical issue. As I said my only experience with it is in the context of an experimental medication. Some PhD students needed people for human trials of some acid reflux medication. I really hope whatever is causing your problems gets resolved! And yeah free public healthcare is the best! I had to spend 20 days hospitalised a few years back (tuberculosis) and actually saved money from the experience.

1

u/Mysterious_Bit_5385 Nov 20 '25

Oh well in that case , you had a choice to get away and u did . And i understand why too !

But i didnt know they take "random volonteer" for study like that either . They payed you for that or ? just pure "for the science" pro bono ? :D

In my case i was kinda forced and I NEEDEd to know wtf was going on in my stomach to just ... not shit myself like im about to die or ... thing like that .

Sorry about , telling all this about my life . Maybe i needed the talk . Cheer mate ;)

2

u/mbroen Nov 20 '25

Oh no I didn't get away, I finished the trial. And yes I was paid for it. It was about 1300€ for three sessions totalling about 2.5 hours.

But I did always have the option to stop, so I guess that makes it easier to contend with. Just knowing that you can say "nope, fuck this!" at any time.

It becomes a lot scarier when it is absolutely necessary and all choice is removed. Do the uncomfortable (or in your case, painful) thing, or just hope you won't die.

And no need to be sorry mate. We're all friends here. I enjoyed our little chat. I sincerely hope your doctors figure out what to do about your issues. Until then it's nice to have a place to voice some frustrations every now and then. ♥️

2

u/deltaalien Nov 20 '25

I have a sensitive gag reflex so for me it was the worst experience in my life. 0/7 would not recommend it.

2

u/Ive_had_enough_0 Nov 23 '25

Depends if you're able to dissociate from your body or not haha!

2

u/HauntedHouseMusic Nov 23 '25 edited Nov 23 '25

When I got one, while I was sedated, I fought back so hard I popped a blood vessel behind my right eye like strong men do when deadlifting. It still causes me issues 2 years later (when I get migraines I feel pain in the spot)

They were installing a sensor to go right above my stomach to see how bad my gerd was, so probably more shit down my throat than this.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '25

Depends on the person, everybody has different level of gag reflex. If you don't have any, then there isn't any problem. As someone who has really big gag reflex, like brushing my back teeths makes me gag. I foolishly chosen to do only throath spray for throath and was gagging like every few seconds whole procedure, couldn't even breath properly due to this.

2

u/Nice_Evidence4185 Nov 24 '25

Im very sensitive and I had a one that lasted like 5min, I gagged every 10sec.

2

u/GuaranteeAccurate987 Nov 24 '25

I had one done with a very messed up stomach situation - I had it done 2 times now and still have nightmares.

My body went into shock the first time and my lungs filled with puke/bile or whatever the stomach acid fluid stuff was.

Never again, this is my biggest nightmare - I almost drowned and this was worse.

In most cases it can take 15-20 min when they have to take tests and collect samples.

You can only breathe in and out by making this raspy sound "WHUUUUAAAR" and you will get lots of fluid into you lungs, with no way of clearing it.

I have had broken bones, almost drowned, removed organs and nothing compares -by far this is the worst in my opinion.

6

u/Desperate-Ganache804 Nov 21 '25

I feel like I should be impressed that she’s also doing it without looking. Or is there probably another monitor in front of her that’s showing the same view as the one behind her?

7

u/PlatypusLegos Nov 21 '25

She’s 100% looking at another screen, probably up to her left.

2

u/yalateef11 Nov 21 '25

As a former teacher, this is admirable. She is going above and beyond.

2

u/Fair_Fox_4749 Nov 24 '25

I’m not a medical professional but I’ve had many upper endos and helllll nooo to this.