I’ve decided to take half day off the day before as I’m supposed to take pill laxative at 1:00 pm and I don’t want to get caught in the car on the way home. Now if I could just get the damn hospital to call me back and tell me what time it’s going to be on Thursday…
That shouldn’t be an issue - the pill takes a few hours to do anything. I took mine at about 9 PM on a Saturday (also the first day of all-liquid diet), and didn’t have any surprises until some time the next day (early afternoon, I thinK). Of course when it did hit, it was a little more sudden than I expected and a little cleanup was required… but you should be OK driving home a couple hours after taking the pill.
But since you’ll be liquids-only at that point, taking time off work might be a good idea anyway (I have always done mine on Mondays for that very reason).
See, this is one of the things that annoys me about House, MD. He says “go get a colonoscopy” and an hour later, the results are in. You just can’t DO that.
He needs to be sued. 
My father-in-law was just diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer and had a large tumor removed; now it’s time for chemotherapy to begin.
Having a colonoscopy is now on all of our minds, and I think I’ll have to beg for a pill form too; my gag reflex is insane since having my children.
You won’t sleep much, as has been stated. And you WILL shit yourself, if only just a little, especially if you do manage to drift off to sleep. I remember waking up thinking, “just a fart…”
Alas, it was not…
Ha! Yes, he should have been grateful.
I don’t know why more guys don’t wear nightshirts. I made a couple for my father and he was very, very happy to get them, especially after he had one of his lower legs amputated. Nightshirts/nightgowns are just a lot easier to manage, in many cases. However, I have to admit that I wear stretch pants (cotton only) under my nighties during winter, to keep my legs warm.
Hmmmm. So I drank 32 oz. of green Gatorade with half a bottle of Miralax two hours ago and nothing’s happening. Plus I took two Dulcalax (as recommended) five hours ago. All I’m doing is peeing like a racehorse…
You could be a “late bloomer.”
I was incredibly tardy to my last colonoscopy because the prep didn’t work until 15 minutes AFTER we left the house.
OMG.
Nurse at the colonoscopy clinic said, “You are the kind who has to take everything 12 hours EARLIER.”
~VOW
Urg. I’m never drinking green Gatorade again…
That’s a reasonable response regardless of colonoscopies ;). So given the 12 hour break between posts, things started moving?
Yes they did, at midnight last night. I had to drink the last 32 oz. of Gatorade/Miralax mixture this morning at 7:00 am and have to be at the hospital at noon. At this point, I am looking forward to the procedure just so I can have something to eat!
If im not too late, when you wake up, periodically touch your knee to your chest. They fill your colon with air to do this and if you dont expel the air, you will cramp.
If that isnt doable, have them pull your finger
Yikes. It didn’t start until midnight? so you spent the next few hours crapping your brains out instead of sleeping??? You probably really deserved your username by 6 AM!!
Obviously your lesson is, like Vow’s: start much earlier the next time around.
Timely thread. I’m having my first one on 5/16. As I read all of the above details of the prep instructions, it’s clear that every office seems to have its own variant on just what you ought to eat/drink/take in what order the day before.
I’m taking two days off: one day for starving and pooping, and one day for the procedure. I just had the initial consult yesterday, and nobody told me he’d do a cursory feel around up there after we talked. I like to have a little time to prepare for that sort of thing!
I’m not looking forward to the starving. I get woozy and headachey when I fast. The receptionist did say that I could have “Ensure” on my fasting day, though.
I hope it all goes uneventfully for you today, SurlyChick.
This is also a reasonable response. Truly, the procedure itself is a piece of cake. I hope that by now, it’s all over and you have eaten some solid, tasty food. Preferably something that isn’t green.
Ensure is allowed? Wow! Better double check on that!
COFFEE is allowed, so you can stave off the caffeine withdrawal headache.
~VOW
For mine, I could have coffee, no creamer or milk added. sweetener ok.
I just got off the phone with the nurse. Yep, I can have Ensure on the fasting day before. And the regular stuff if I want, not just the clear Ensure.
I read in the linked previous colonoscopy thread that one can cut the Halflytely with white grape juice. Can I? That’d make a big difference.
Well, everything went ok. The procedure was a piece of cake after the purge phase. They did find and remove a polyp which I’ll get the results from in 10 days. I woke up once and got to watch the screen for a while until they realized I was awake and knocked me out again.
I’m very gurgly today - my stomach is making very frightening noises. It sounds like demons inside…
Yay - glad all went well!!
I’ve got my next one scheduled for early next week. Oh joy. Though I saw a doctor today (new internist) and mentioned that while I had polyps, my husband had Barrett’s (esophagitis - increased risk of cancer of the esophagus); he said that’s scarier than the colon polyps.
Maybe… but the prep is sure a hell of a lot easier!!
A slight aside, for anyone to comment on: For several days before the actual Evening Of Misery, I’ve been instructed to go on a low-residue diet. No dried fruit, fruit with peel, raw veggies, bran cereal, etc.
This has the unfortunate result of making the pre-prep output, well, bricklike and in many ways WORSE than the prep. Yuk.
Is the low-residue specifically to make the actual prep go faster or something? or is it because of the risk of the prep missing something???