@guener - Wow, huge kudos to you for reading through that novel of mine, and providing such thoughtful answers! Much appreciated!

I'm honestly not particularly worried about the colonoscopy per se, I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can in advance to make sure there's no reason to doubt the results and/or need to repeat the procedure because a certain test or possibility was missed. And unfortunately, my doctor has proven difficult to reach to ask questions, and/or I'm not sure I feel confident in his office's ability to provide accurate information, which is why I'm trying to verify things myself.

Totally true; there's a million things that could be causing my issues, and it's by no means a clear-cut case of oh yeah, you're a textbook case of UC/Crohn's/etc., but we're running out of things to check and the infectious disease specialist -- who I trust completely -- thinks this is a reasonable avenue to explore.

I actually have submitted my medical documentation to Mayo upon referral from my infectious disease specialist; Mayo's infectious disease department actually called this morning and said they're referring me/passing that over to the general Internal Medicine department instead (not sure if that's good or bad -- I'm a little worried that's going to increase my wait since a more general department probably has more requests). I just hope someone can help (and soon). It helps to hear stories about others who'd been given the "all in your head" spiel and yet eventually found answers and help. Glad your mom was able to push through!

Yes, I have a list of medications to avoid that their office provided and have asked about the ones I mentioned specifically, but like I said, I believe previous information they've given me has been inaccurate, so I'm reluctant to rely solely on them to provide good information (I'm not just relying on internet advice either, but it would give me an idea of what to research).

All excellent advice. You really answered a great many of (my great many!) questions and in an intelligent and well-considered way. Again, I very much appreciate it!