I mention asking the doctor up thread, and his answer was essentially “Here? Not yet.” I did, just for shits and giggles (as they say), do a low residue diet for the few days before prep-day. Beyond the normal no nuts instructions, I avoided anything with fiber, so pretty much ate only meat, cheese, potatoes, and white bread.
This was the first time I got “good” for my preparation instead of “adequate,” so it might have helped. I always assumed that was a pass/fail, and it was here I learned it was a scale.
I did find the suprep (or maybe the low residue diet) to be gentler for the evacuation part. I didn’t have to spend two hours on the toilet, and had ample time to walk and do stuff in between sessions.
We had a whole thread on this awhile ago.
A friend receiving treatments was recently told that Medicare (or Medicare supplement or whatever) would cover a medical transport service, and the hospital was able to help arrange it. He ended up not needing it, but it was good to know it was an option.
Gallon - definitely PEG-based. GoLytely or similar. Some like MoviPrep involve only a HALF gallon. My husband had that, for his first; he had SuPrep the next 2 times.
And yeah, we do skew a bit older. But given recent statistics, even younger people should be getting screened.
Yeah - that’s the general recommendation. No nuts, seeds, high fiber, raw veggies, unpeeled fruits, and so on. Very counterintuitive, and utterly different from what we are normally advised to do on a day-to-day basis. For some, this can also lead to some… discomfort during the low-fiber days. I noted in my writeup, that if you do experience that, a little Miralax (PEG) - a NORMAL dose, not the roto-rooter quantity you’ll be dealing with a day or two later - can solve the problem.
A friend who had a colonoscopy at a very young age (like, in her 30s), back when this was pretty much the only game in town. “Lightly?? LIGHTLY??? They need to call it Shit-B-Gone!”.
I’ve never used any PEG-based prep. I had such a horrible experience with SuTab (bear in mind, I’m very much an outlier with that) that I would have gone for PEG instead.
My doctor suggested (humorously???) that I could always do SuPrep instead. Er… nope, exactly the same as SuTab (I’ve done the math). I went back to ClenPiq which I’d used before.
Shame about your experience with SuTab – really made that part of the prep so much better.
I also like that time in the surgical prep area waiting your turn, where you’re tired and dehydrated, basically super mellow, your phone is locked away somewhere, and you’re just hanging out waiting for that 5 seconds of propofol bliss before you’re out. They put a nice warm blanket on you, the nurses are all very supportive because they know what your prep was like, the IV is in place and you’re just chilling.
Lol, i was meditating while i waited, and my breathing (or maybe pulse, but probably breathing) got so low that alarms went off. I didn’t like the wait.
My place is never relaxing. Tiny cubicle where I need to change into a gown etc, separated from the world just by curtains. They’ve got it down to an assembly-line art. No warmed blankets (though they do HAVE blankets, just not heated).
Afterward, I’m in the recovery area and similarly, while it’s not quite a rush, there’s little dilly-dallying. They’ll want me to sit up and walk to a chair often a little sooner than I’m quite ready - I’ll insist on sitting up on the gurney for a minute or so before I attempt to move. No call button either. The one in 2023, I was soooooooo cold afterward (this was the SuTab explosion experience), and with no call button, the only thing I could do to get help was pull the pulse oximeter off my finger.
Nope, not dead, just freezing to death. I still think that was a pretty clever way of getting attention.
I had a colonoscopy this morning, as it happens, so it’s fresh in my mind. The prep was as follows:
Sunday, 5:00 PM - 2 Dulcolax tablets
Sunday, 11:59 PM - Begin clear liquids only
Monday, 5:00 PM - Dose #1 of SuPrep
Tuesday, 4:00 AM - Dose #2 of SuPrep
Tuesday, 5:30 AM - Begin eat/drink nothing
Tuesday, 9:30 AM - Procedure start time
My 9:30 procedure time had initially been set for 11:30. When it was rescheduled, they sent me revised instructions; only the Tuesday morning activities had their times changed (SuPrep dose #2 was always at t-minus 5:30, and total intake cutoff at t-minus 4:00).
The SuPrep doses were each 6-oz bottles, diluted with 10 oz of cool water. Drink that mix, and then (very important!) drink 32 oz of water within the next hour.
The SuPrep was vile. It took me about 20 minutes to down each dose because I honestly feared that I was going to throw up (and I did not want to screw up the prep and have to do it all again later). Every sip required some “settling time”.
After I got it down, it was fine. No aftertaste that I noticed, and drinking 32 oz of water over the next hour was no problem. The bowel movements it induced were pretty spectacular - they sounded and felt like water from a garden hose - but in no way unpleasant. There was no desperate urgency, either; just a fairly normal urge to go and a casual walk to the bathroom.
You are lucky. For me the aftertaste stuck around for several days. I imagine it was some sort of tongue based PTSD, because it would come back anytime I drank water.
Wishing you a negative dysplasia on all your biopsies.
I’d like to recommend the “long plastic straw” technique. Put one end of the straw in the solution, and the other as far back in your mouth as is comfortable. When i do this, i can drink without the stuff touching any part of my tongue except a little just in the very back. And it changes the experience from unutterably vile to refreshing. It’s astonishing to me how much easier it made drinking a gallon of poison.
I’m jealous. Not of the SuPrep vileness, but that it worked, without undue violence. My experience with SuTab meant that I quite literally never made it to the toilet. I had a package of disposable underwear; I made my husband go to the store for more.
Anyway, you can ask for SuTab next time around! It truly was the easiest to take of all the preps I’ve done. My first two or three involved OsmoPrep, which was also pill-based, but a different ingredient (sodium phosphate); IIRC, there were more pills and they were larger than SuTab. But still easier than any kind of liquid prep I’ve tried or heard of.
