I thought it would be awful, but it really wasn’t. There wasn’t any limit to how much I could have, just limits on what. And the chicken broth was sort of close enough to food to make it okay. I had some variety and with the gumdrops I had some chewing. Not bad at all. The Phospho-Soda went into something like six ounces of ginger ale and actually that was the worst of it, because I had cheap ginger ale. Tasted nasty. I thought it was the Fleet but it was the pop.
This is kind of like asking one’s favorite way to be flayed alive.
Have done GoLytely and HalfLytely, they were both awful. Let me know how that pills and Gatorade thing goes; that sounds tolerable.
They do one with Miralax, don’t they? That’s probably not too bad (though I see it’s both no longer relevant to the OP and has already been mentioned a couple times).
I had one with the standard GoLytely, which was pretty miserable. But the experience is somewhat intrinsically uncomfortable anyway. For what it’s worth, I never actually thought the drinking of the GoLytely was as nasty as everyone made it out to be; in fact, I hardly thought anything of it. The entirety of the discomfort was in the ensuing effects (particularly because my problems included very painful defecation at the time).
My prep was no prob and the procedure itself was a breeze. DulcoLax, then Gatrodade with Miralax - no bad taste. I puked a little after I finished it, but it was okay (not scared of puking). I only pooped about 6 times all night. No urgency really.
Liquid before my endoscopy and colonoscopy, however, was hellish. I felt like utter shit very soon even though I ate thousands of calories worth of grape juice, apple juice, and broth. Most people tolerate fasting better than me though - some even enjoy it.
Remember that recommendations between doctors vary and you can do whatever the heck you want, as long as you’re peeing nice and clear from your butt by the end.
I think some people handle it better than others. For a lot of people (myself included) it triggers a gag reflex with every swallow, and according to the instructions that came with mine results in the side-effect of vomiting in 50% of users. The instructions said to wait 5 minutes if you throw up, and then drink more. At some point it actually feels like self-inflicted torture.
I say with absolute sincerity I would rather have knee surgery or some other comparable medical procedure than drink that stuff again. Hopefully by the time I am 50 they will have come up with a better way.
Oh. That’s interesting, that it can cause such a strong emetic effect for some people and nothing of that sort for others. I wonder why that is.
Also, apparently, Miralax and GoLytely are the same polyethylene glycol? I had no idea.
I’ve HAD knee surgery, and I’ve had GoLytely. I’d much rather have knee surgery, thankyouverymuch. I’ve also had breast surgery. Again, I prefer the surgery to the colon prep. Although “prefer” rather implies that I want something. It’s not that I want any type of surgery, it’s that if I’m given a choice, I will avoid the colon prep more than the surgery.
Yeah - I noticed that myself when reading last night. I wonder why Miralax is relatively tolerable but GoPainfully is so awful?
My son used Miralax daily for a number of years (to treat encopresis) and never complained. We’d just mix up a cup with juice and his dose at night, and he’d drink it with breakfast. We could have mixed it up in the morning but this gave it longer to dissolve thoroughly. I remember his initial dose was a bit larger than his maintenance dose, to help “clean the pipes” (in lieu of an enema) but not, I suspect, colon-prep quantity.
It certainly did for me. I would drink it, then immediately have to put the cup down and throw it all back up again. It was awful. That’s why I switched to the phospho-soda stuff.
ETA: this is re: GoLytely making people barf
Yep, me too – two knee surgeries when I was a high school student. This is an informed opinion, I swear.
Wisdom tooth extraction, well that’s a harder call.
Partial update: tomorrow (Monday) is “the big day” and I’m midway through the process. The way the Osmo-Prep works is on the evening before, you take 4 tablets every 15 minutes (with 8 ounces of Gatorade with each 4 tabs) for an hour - total of 5 doses and 40 ounces of fluid. The tablets had a brief salty taste, usually only on the first tab (I guess the taste was masked by the Gatorade I used to wash down the first tab).
About an hour after the 5th dose, well, we all know what happened. That’s almost entirely stopped so maybe I’ll get to sleep some tonight.
The fluids-while-travelling wasn’t so bad except our flight was a bit bumpy and even after it had been totally smooth for an hour, they had the seatbelts sign on and the flight attendants weren’t in a rush to bring drinks, and since we had bulkhead seats my bottles of juice etc. were in an overhead bin and I was getting to feel a bit ill. I finally just stood up and got my drinks.
I also made 2 batches of finger-jello last night pretty much as soon as we arrived home, so I had something to “eat” today.
Of course, at 7ish tomorrow morning I get to do the pills/Gatorade all over again - only 3 doses (so 12 tablets). From tonight’s evidence, this will be overkill. I guess one advantage of GoPainfully or Gatorade/Miralax is that once you’re excreting clear water (or unmodified Gatorade) you can quit drinking. With the Osmo-Prep, I was given no such instructions.
I think the Dulcolax was… overkill. Why on earth do they prescribe that?
Some random thoughts (hopefully funny) from tonight:
(sniff) “skunk? when did I eat a SKUNK???”
and… do NOT absentmindly put the lid down on the toilet. You will regret it.
Hopefully I’ll be able to eat tomorrow - it hasn’t been too bad, doing liquids only, but I do want solid food. Since they’re also doing an endoscopy (and conceivably taking samples) it’s possible I may have some eating restrictions.
I have had 2 very disasterous encounters with liquipreps, 2 different ones that had me crapping my brains out and seriously dehydrating me [and the crapping should NOT go on for a week. That is an unacceptable response to the active ingredients when taken at a proper dose.]
My doc now agrees that I will do a clear liquid diet for 3 days with an enema at the finish. I have much better results when I don’t parch myself through crapping my brains out.
I did the Osmo-Prep almost exactly as Mama Zappa described. No Dulcolax. The only prohibition I was given was to not eat/drink red or grape jello or Gatorade. Clear liquids like bullion, 7-up and ginger ale were also allowed. I had to start the prep at 4 pm the day before the early-next-morning procedure. Not so bad at all. In fact, it was pretty much over and done by 9 pm.
It was so much easier (and less nauseating) than the GoLightly that I had to use the previous time.
Did you only have the one bout of tablets (the 4 PM)? or did you have a second round? And how long was your liquid diet?
I’m jealous of your variety… I wasn’t allowed orange or blue flavors of anything, in addition to the red/purple restriction .
I’m puzzled at the low-fiber diet I had to follow Friday - you’d think they’d want things nice and loose and ready to roll when the pills hit the gut.
Clear liquid diet started at 7 am the day before the procedure, with Osmo-Prep starting at 4 that afternoon, taking 4 tablets every 15 minutes (with at least 8 oz of clear liquid) for 1 hour. So 20 tablets. Three hours of bathroom time.
Then 4 tablets at 8pm. They said if all was (ahem) “running clear” at that time, I could stop the tablets then. If not, do 2 more of the 4-tablets every 15 minutes til they were gone. I was able to stop at 8 pm, fortunately.
Nothing to drink (even water) after midnight. I think the procedure itself was at 8 the next morning.
It’s interesting to hear the variety of instructions for the prep. I wasn’t given any dietary restrictions, other than no aspirin or ibuprofin for 5 days before the test. You could take Tylenol.
One thing I did forget to mention, which were a big help: popsicles! (not red or purple, of course)
Just had the colonoscopy last week. Dulcolax pills, Miralax in Gatorade. It really wasn’t bad at all. It didnt’ alter the taste of the Gatorade at all that I could tell, so there was just the discomfort of drinking two large bottles of Gatorade, plus 8 oz. or so of liquid every hour. The really surprising part is that I’m still trying to get my system back together. Days of no poop, followed by twitchy runny stuff. Lovely. THAT wasn’t in the instructions.
Quick update: Just got back about a half hour ago. The morning prep had me worried - I needed to leave at 11:00 and at 10:45 I was still making regular dashes into the small room. I had visions of needing to bring a garbage bag to put on the car seat on the way there!
All in all, the osmo-prep method worked for me - doc said I was adequately “cleaned out”.
The bad news is, there were a couple of polyps that were of a more flattened appearance vs. the stalklike sort. Apparently that’s not ideal. Doc removed one and biopsied the other. I’ll hear back on Wednesday whether either one has gone BAD. If so, well, we’ll deal with that. If not, well I get to do this all over again in a year.
Fun stuff.
I just might add Fibercon to the diet starting tonight - it can normalize both runny poops and the shit-a-brick variety.
BTW - if anyone hears of any further richter-scale activity in the DC area… sorry, that was just me :D.