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The thing about colonoscopy is that everybody has a different experience. And that's mainly because everybody's guts are different.
Some people's guts are like wide six-lane highways, and the doctor is able to navigate with no problems and little discomfort to the patient.
Other people's guts are more like two-lane switchbacks; it's more difficult for the MD to get the probe where it needs to go, and the patients suffer more discomfort as a result.
In my case, it took roughly a half an hour. They gave me a sedative to relax me, and let me watch what the camera was seeing on a monitor. They had to nip one polyp (not malignant, though), and I didn't feel it. The worst pains I felt were a couple of bouts of what felt lyour standard gas pains that go with an upset stomach. Not too bad.
On the other hand, I've talked to people whose colonscopies caused them much more pain than I felt. So like I said, it's going to vary with the individual.
You definitely should get checked out. While there are a lot of ways to get blood in your stool, and a lot of them aren't cancer, you don't want to mess around and take chances.
My dad got colon cancer, and while he knew something was wrong he waited too long to have it checked out (I think he had blood in his stool for a couple of years before he went in). While the docs were able to remove the cancer from his colon, it had already grown through the intestinal wall and got into the liver and eventually beyond. He was gone in three years.
So I had my first colonscopy earlier than usual, just to be on the safe side.
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