Day before colonoscopy advice please

Thank you everyone for your comments. I have been home for an hour after having the colonoscopy this morning. I've been given the all clear. Hooray.
Drinking the 4 litres of Klean-Prep was challenging but I did it in 3 and a half hours. (I don't want anything else vanilla flavoured for a while.) It worked.
Today I opted for no sedation or pain relief and would just describe the procedure as mild discomfort.
So hopefully anyone of you who are facing this will be feeling reassured.
Big sigh of relief from me and my family.

"Presumably you can take your normal medication."

You need to check that sort of thing, my first appointment came with a dose of Picolax, which included heart arrhythmia among the side effects. This was a month after I had been taken to A&E and diagnosed with an arrhythmia, so I rang to ask if it was safe to take:

"Oh, yes, it'll be alright.................hang on, I'll just check with the doctor.............no, you mustn't take it...."

It was a very long Kafkaesque story after that, but we got there in the end.

I put off my colonoscopy for months. There were numerous reasons, but one of them was the reports about how painful it is: "worse than childbirth". When I had mine it wasn't any problem at all, it felt just like wind rumbling around in my belly, but most of the time the sedative had me asleep.

I'm a wimp when it comes to hint of pain but this was OK. I had sedation but could still follow it on the screen which takes your mind off it. I found it really interesting! After all you don't get the chance to see your insides very often!!! Do follow the prep instructions though. Again the prep wasn't as bad as I though it might be. It's the unknown that is the worst bit. The actuality isn't too bad at all. Good luck

I had no great discomfort.
One of the nurses was my neighbour band she offered to leave. I said it was ok.

That sounds very reassuring. I've obviously been looking on the wrong forums (fora?)
I don't look forward to it even so, but I wouldn't back out - I'm just glad we are able to have these procedures free on the NHS to diagnose, reassure or begin appropriate treatment.
Don't relish the thought of the 'light diet' beforehand- white bread, fish, chicken, white rice, no veg or fruit. Oh well - should help with weight loss ;)
Presumably you can take your normal medication.

Excellent advice on here as usual :D

Rowantree I had no sedation at all, I did not need any. I felt the catheter being placed in my rectum and that took a split second. I watched the procdure on the TV and watched him remove the one polyp to be sent for analysis.

Rowantree it is NOT extremely painful. DH sleeps through his thanks to the sedation and wakes up when it is all over.

Thanks for all this info. I've just had my instructions for my colonoscopy which I will have to reschedule as it's too soon after New Year and we will be away for a couple of days. I'm very nervous because I've heard it's really painful. I intend to ask for sedation but does that guarantee a pain free procedure?

Hope yours goes well, lundylinda. I'd be interested to know how it goes. It's great to have support on Gransnet!

Definitely follow the instructions. I had to take the 4 litres in 6 hours. Followed each glass of preparation with a glass of dilute Orange. It was flavoured vanilla to make it more pleasant.

There was not the urgency that I expected.
And I watched the camera in action during the procedure.

DH always has Moviprep BTW. He had a flexible sigmoidoscopy yesterday (no Moviprep needed) to have a look at areas of concern in his last colonoscopy in the summer and now has to go back in 2 weeks for another colonoscopy and polypectomy

Do exactly what they have told you unless you are prepared to go back again because the bowel was not clear enough. sorry!

I've just read the instructions again, and I had to drink another litre of water with the 2l of laxative, so that's a lot nearer the 4l you're taking, then.

Oh good advice charleygirl. Yes I will.

When I had my colonoscopy a year or so ago I had to drink two litres in the evening and another two in the morning.

Do not cut down on this because if you are not completely cleaned out, remaining faeces can obstruct the view of your colon and you will have an unclear result and probably have to go through the whole thing again.

Well that's encouraging aggie and I've got a good book ready. Thanks. Gosh Ariadne, hope all goes well for you. Yes, Barnstaple have been very good for our family too. crun I've got 4 of the large sachets with one litre to be added to each. So hey ho.

I agree with everyone else, follow the instructions because you do not want to do a repeat performance. Remember to apply water resistant baby cream to your bot, you will need it.

I was offered coffee and biscuits afterwards, I did not have any sedation, but I only wanted to get home.

I am very pleased with Barnstaple hospital, Lundy Three operations this year, one more to go and they have been wonderful.

I haven't had Klean Prep, 4 litres sounds a lot to shift. The stuff I had was Movi Prep which has two sachets each made up with one litre. They were quite large sachets, about the size of a packet of savoury rice, so I'm thinking that there was tons of glucose in them too. I certainly didn't feel hungry or faint like I expected.

I had Pico Lax sent with a previous appointment, which was different, those sachets were about the size of the tomato sauce in cafes, so I got the impression that perhaps they were just laxative without glucose. I didn't use those in the end, so I don't know whether I would have felt any more hungry.

I agree with Mishap, don't go against the instructions, if the bowel prep isn't good enough you will end up having to do it all again (that happened with me for complicated reasons I won't go into). Remember to take some sandwiches with you for when you come out, because you will probably have to hang around for the sedative to wear off afterwards before they'll let you go.

I found that it wasn't anything like as explosive or urgent as I had imagined, so there was no real rush for the loo. Once your cleaned out bear in mind that anything you drink will run straight through in a matter of minutes, though.

I didn't find the drink that horrible , but I do drink a lot of water normally , so I swallowed a glass of the stuff and followed it with half a glass of water to wash it down , I got it all down in the 2 hours . I sat on the loo with the Kindle reading in between swallowing the stuff !!

I read somewhere that once the 'you know what' runs clear you can leave the rest of the horrible drink. That's why I was trying to see a way to get it over quickly. Thanks for the replies. I'm just going to Barnstaple Ariadne.

Keep eating right up to the time they tell you to stop. There is no point in missing meals just before you take the sachets. That would just mean that they had less to work on, but they would still clear out your inside.

After they have cleared out the contents, they still keep working for a while, so you would just be giving them a longer time to work on nothing. I don't think you get the option to not drink the whole blooming lot.

Why not phone the contact number the hospital gave you and ask for their advice? They deal with it all the time.

Hope it all goes well, lundy. Where are you having it done - Exeter? Thinking of you.

Have your lunch - get some nourishment on board before the big clear-out!

You can't avoid getting the whole lot down the hatch; and having some goodies in the system will avoid you feeling a total washout.

I would advise just sticking to the instructions.