You don't have to get around any characters, you just have to treat them properly. What do you do to update the database? What method are you using? Do you create an SQL query yourself? Do you use a parameterised query or do you concatenate the values into the query? I see no reason why a colon would be any problematic, but an apostrophe is a common problem if you concatenate strings into the query and don't encode the data properly first.
--- single minded; short sighted; long gone;