Colonoscopy – The Preparation Day

If you are just joining me for this journey into the ultra glamorous world of the colonoscopy – I suggest you read my first post explaining what a colonoscopy is, and why I’m getting one!

As I said in that post -  my first step was meeting with a gastroenterologist, and he scheduled me for a colonoscopy. The day before you are scheduled to have a colonoscopy you are customarily asked to not to eat anything solid. Just liquids…

Day before- Only Liquids

Above, you see what I shopped for. Gatorade, Jello (no red or purple), hard candy to suck on  & soup broth. I went a little wild and got both chicken broth, and beef broth. It was a soup party ya’ll;)

-This was really no problem. I wished I’d gotten more broth actually as Gatorade and water didn’t really sound that good during the day. And before 6pm I was allowed milk products, so I made a great coffee and added some creamer as my lunch. I usually use skim milk- so that felt kinda special and fun. You take the victories where ya find them, right?

-I did hear after I had already shopped that I could have had yogurt until 6pm as well, so I suggest picking some up if your doctor also allows that. It would have been a nice change.

After 6pm- Start Drinking the Prep…

-Ok, I promised to be TOTALLY HONEST about this whole thing. So here it goes…the prep I had to drink was yucky tasting for about the first half. Then after 50% was gone… the stuff I had to drink became putrid. It was really, really hard not to throw it up. Luckily a reader had suggested in the comments of my last blog, that it helped her to keep a hard candy in her mouth to swish around between sips. I did that – and it did indeed help. It’s really the after taste that was hardest for me, so keeping something handy that can change the taste in your mouth with in between sips is a great idea!

-Another tip. My cousin wisely told me not to try and chug the whole thing down really fast (that was totally my plan too!). Even just taking big sips made me feel like I might throw up, so even though it takes longer to drink the stuff… I do think its better to work through it at a moderate pace. Do not try to handle the Suprep like a really big shot;)

-I realized at this point that I had totally misunderstood why people kept telling me the worst part of the colonoscopy was the prep. I thought they were referring to the sheer amount of prep & water you have to drink. But in hindsight, I’m pretty damn sure they actually were saying it was really, really hard to keep the prep down. And this point brings me too…

Wake up at 3:30 am to do the prep again

-This sucked. I only got through half the prep when I started to get sick to my stomach. So at that point  rather than throw up what I had managed to drink- I just focused on lots more water.

My Bathroom Supplies…

-The tip about A&D I mentioned in my last post was a good one. I recommend it.

-I also suggest you clean your bathroom and make it as spa like as possible…since you will be spending much of the evening there. I was also really thankful my husband suggested I watch movies from Netflix on the ipad. Definitely have some kind of entertainment available. There will be lots of waiting, but you wont want to be too far from the potty:)

-The Aveeno bath that was recommended on my sheet from the doctor is so laughable to me now! I cannot imagine at what point they thought I would have time to take a leisurely bath…LOL. Perhaps everyone experiences the prep at different rates? For me- that Aveeno bath would have been a FIASCO! Do not recommend;)

- On a whim I searched the hashtag #colonoscopy on Twitter, and found several other people doing the prep at the very same time as me! It was great as we could complain to eachother in real time

- FYI white wine does not count as a clear liquid on the prep diet. Darn it!

Next post… Going to the procedure! Aggghhh!!!

Related posts:

1. Getting a Colonoscopy – The Actual Procedure!
2. Colonoscopy – Getting ready for mine
3. How to Color Flowers! An experiment!