My first colonoscopy was in 2012. At that time, they said I didn't need another one for 7-10 years, but when I was diagnosed with CDH1 in 2015, my doctor ordered a colonoscopy and endoscopy because of the mutation. Protocol was to do 30 biopsies, the gastroenterologist did 3. He apparently missed the whole point of doing the endoscopy! A few years later, I received a letter that he was quitting his practice. I wouldn't have used him again anyway, so it didn't matter. Because they found polyps during that colonoscopy in 2015, I was supposed to have the next one in 5-7 years.
I decided I had put it off as long as I should and I needed to go ahead and get it done, even though it made me anxious. I explained my anxiety to my primary care physician and she recommended a gastroenterologist that she thought would be good and suggested I have a consult with him before scheduling the procedure.
I was pleased when I visited with Dr. Alsop in April. He had looked at my chart, knew about the gastrectomy and CDH1 and went through the various types of prep that can be done and suggested using Suprep which is a split prep. You do part of it the night before and part of it the morning of. That seemed like it would address some of my concerns regarding the volume of liquid. The biggest down side was having to get up to do the morning prep 6 hours before the procedure. They only do them in the morning, so I wanted the last possible time of arriving at 10:30 for a 11:30 procedure. Between that and the fact that this doctor is only at the location nearest me one day a week, the procedure was scheduled over 3 months out, but I was in no hurry.
Suprep is a prescription. It has two 6 oz bottles. You do the typical clear liquids the day before and then at 3:00, pour one bottle into a provided cup and fill it with water to the 16 oz line. It took me at least 20 minutes to get that down because of the nasty taste. But then you follow it with two 16 oz glasses of water that you are supposed to drink within one hour after drinking the Suprep mixture. I had no problem getting them down within the hour.
I had to go to three stores to get the clear liquids I wanted. You can't do red, orange, or purple. The first grocery store had no popsicles that weren't red, orange, or purple. I got lemon Jello (I was going to do lime, but they didn't have any). The instructions said I could have liquid Boost or Ensure (no substitutions) until 3:00. I don't usually like the premade protein drinks, but thought I should probably give it a try to get some protein in my system. The grocery store didn't have either, but the drug store had several different ones. I ended up getting Boost Women which I had never had before. I chose it because it only had 4 grams of sugar. It had 15 grams of protein. That was a much lower sugar count than most of the protein drinks. I had one in the morning for breakfast and another around lunch time. I don't recall now for sure, but I think I ended up having 3 of them before 3:00. They actually don't taste bad at all. I may get them again sometime. At the second grocery store, I found Halo lime popsicles. Not only are they not red, orange, or purple, but they only have 5 grams of sugar and taste pretty good. Add to that my regular iced tea that I always drink anyway, and I was set for my clear liquid diet. Thursday was not near as difficult as I had feared it would be.
I did have one time in the middle of the night that I threw up a little. I don't know what caused it. It was long enough after the prep that I wasn't concerned about it affecting it. I had also bought some apple juice which I didn't use on Thursday. I did have a little bit then, just to help soothe my throat.
I'm not a morning person, so getting up at 5am to do the second half of the prep wasn't fun. But I again managed to get the Suprep down, this time taking closer to 30 minutes and followed it up with the two glasses of water with no problems. Not being able to have anything to drink after that was somewhat of a struggle as I am always drinking between meals to stay hydrated, that 5 hours between prep and the procedure was a long time to not have anything to drink, but I managed.
The best news of all was that I didn't have any polyps or other abnormalities so I don't have to have another colonoscopy for 10 years! But I now know that when I have one, I'll be OK and I will be scheduling it with Dr. Alsop again (hopefully, he's still around).
