Capsule endoscopy prep.. 4L golytely is this safe for jpouch patients?

kvan, hello, sorry you are having problems. My daughter has never had the capsule endoscopy but she has had plenty of sigmoidoscopys and since her j pouch surgery her prep has been clear liquids 1 day before. When she had surgery for a blockage, after her j pouch,it was still clear liquids 1 &2 days before.

A year or so ago she saw a another doctor, where she goes to college and the nurse gave her the "typical" instructions for a bowel prep. My daughter figured it was overkill and also could be irritating to her pouch so she asked the doctor and he said she was right, just clears a day before and not to follow what the nurse had said. If she hadn't asked she would have followed the instructions for clears the day before and 2 fleet enemas. Her surgeon at home says that if needed you can use the enema bottles, but empty out the fleet fluid (irritating to the pouch) and fill with tap water.

I would say you should ask the doctor and express your concerns and see what the dr has to say.

Hope you feel better soon.

When I first had my surgery, my doc gave me a talk about some things not to do with a pouch even if it was ordered for me. He said that most people (yes, even most health professionals) will not know what a pouch is and to be careful. I was told not to take a prep such as the one ordered for you. Sounds like someone sent instructions to you without considering your diagnosis. Contact your doc's office and remind them of your pouch and request that they check with the doc.

I have done miralax prep or fleet enigma for past scopes but i do understand how they need to see every section esp the parts they miss with egd and flex sig.

Also when i call the dr no one seems to know nothing as of prep. I go through this over and over again.

Lost as of what to do

A capsule "PillCam" endoscopy can look directly at the small intestine - a part of the intestine that no scope can reach. Unlike scopes, though, it can't rinse off any areas that remain covered with fecal matter. So a good prep is important. We don't need much of a prep for the pouch - heck, we don't need a PillCam for the pouch. So the question to focus on is how much prep is needed to clear just the small bowel.

I'd be very surprised if you need the full prep, but the correct amount is a bit of a guess. If you call your doctor and ask for a return call is there any hope of getting one?

quote:

they send out a standard prep form for all patients, colon or no colon

This is true and this has spawned many threads asking the same question and the answer is that you really need to talk to your GI doctor and not rely on forms or what the office staff is telling you. The GoLytely Prep seems like massive overkill and I have never been described that prep in 22 years of having a J Pouch although when I had the colon I did take it to prep for colonoscopies.

Speak to your Doctor and good luck.

Hi,
I've had a capsule endoscopy prescribed by one of the top gastros in one of the best hospital in Paris for IBD, and he prescribed me 2 liters (so half the dose you get when you have a colon), knowing that I had no colon and a pouch.
And the endoscopy went well, so you should do fine with 2 liters ...
Good luck, A

I am waiting for a call back but the nurses are still suggesting the golytely 4L. I am going to do two liters first that should clear me out fine especially since I can barely eat. That's my philosophy because I can fast for days before a procedure with a small Mirapex prep and be running clear. It is important to me that I am cleaned out completely because I know something serious is going wrong and I want to end the pain of this and get it fixed. So you bet I want best visibility. Has anyone been through this capsule endoscopy.. I know I go at 7:30am but as to the process of the whole thing I am in the dark...

The capsule endoscopy goes like this.....

1) You go in to an outpatient center, they speak to you briefly about blah blah blah....then they give you a pill to swallow and give you a monitoring device that fits around your waste like a fanny-pack. Sometimes just a shoulder bag.

2) There are no wires attached to you. They send you home. The pill capsule takes thousands of pictures as it passes through you.

3) The capsule is made to be passed through into the toilet. No recovery is necessary. People pass the pill in anywhere from a few hours to several days. The pill will stop taking pictures after 12-24 hours or so and most people notice when the pill plops into the toilet. If you do not notice the plop, the GI will often order an Xray to check to see if it is retained...


So heres the thing about pill endoscopy...they are very very effective at quickly finding a source of a bleed. The idea is that the GI gets a long strip of film across a screen. They then look for spikes in red color that indicate a bleed. This analysis is effective and can be done rather quickly.

For GIs to find areas of inflammation, it can be very difficult and is often not definitive. The GI has to spend several hours searching hundreds if not thousands of photos. Once inflammation is suspected, it can be difficult to determine the precise location. Also, remember the pill may take a photo of a small edge of inflammation and not get a good shot.

In general, the pill endoscopy is considered one of many tools to form a clear diagnostic picture.

I hope some of this helps...

Dan