On Friday, I had my first colonoscopy! It was quite the experience, and I am going to write all about it in this post. Be warned that I am going to talk a lot about bodily fluids, so if that isn’t your jam, you might want to skip it! (Also, I’m sorry this post is so damn long. I had a lot to say!)
(As a reminder, the reason that I got a colonoscopy before the recommended age of 45 is that I’ve had chronic diarrhea for about five months. Even though my grandma had colon cancer, the guidelines state that it has to be a first-degree relative to get an earlier screening. In any event, I’m happy I was able to “sneak” around the guideline because I’ve wanted a colonoscopy for a few years now. Not because I thought it was going to be a fun experience, but with my family history and seeing more and more people under 40 diagnosed with colon cancer, I felt it was important.)
A Week Before the Procedure
On Friday, July 11th, I had to start following some necessary protocols:
- No popcorn, seeds, or nuts
- No ibuprofen, naproxen, or aspirin (Tylenol is okay)
- No iron supplements, multivitamins, or fish oil
All of these were fine! I was a little worried I would accidentally take a dose of ibuprofen if I got a headache, but I never needed pain reliever, so I didn’t need to worry about that, thankfully. I was also worried about accidentally eating something with seeds. Bottom line is that these kinds of recommendations are not great for people with anxiety.
Two Days Before the Procedure
On Wednesday, July 16th, I was asked to take my first dose of Dulcolax, which is a stool softener. It was just two tiny pills, and while I had a little bit of stomach pain and diarrhea following the dose, it wasn’t anything major. I guess the benefit of dealing with chronic diarrhea for five months leading up to colonoscopy prep is that I have become used to all of that!
When I had my original appointment with my GI doctor and she ordered this colonoscopy, I was sent home with some paperwork on how to prepare. There was nothing in this paperwork about following a low-fiber diet in the days leading up to prep day. However, everything I read online said that you should eat low-fiber foods the day before. It’s all very confusing! I decided to do a low-fiber diet on Wednesday, even though I had not planned for it at all.
I didn’t eat as much as I should have on Wednesday because I didn’t really have the right foods stocked in my apartment. I had my typical eggs and sourdough toast for breakfast, a freezer meal for lunch (only ate about half of it because I had to pick around some of it due to my restrictions), and had chicken and rice for dinner. I stopped eating around 7 pm.
One Day Before the Procedure (AKA, Prep Day!) (AKA, The Worst Day Ever) (AKA, Everyone Who Told Me Colonoscopy Prep is “NBD” is a LYING LIAR)
Prep day was one of the worst days of my life. I hated every single minute of this day, and I cannot believe people told me it’s “not that bad.” (Thank you to Engie, who was very honest about how bad prep day can be!) My experience was more similar to hers.
I started the day with another dose of Dulcolax, and around 9:15 a.m., I had a delicious breakfast of lime Jell-O. Yummy! It did help curb some of my hunger pains, and I was able to do a little bit of work in the morning. (I took the day off, but since I had already been on FTO the week before, I wanted to be online and available for as much of the day as possible.) Then, around noon, I had lunch! This time, it was a lemon Popsicle. After that, I decided to try to ward off some of the hunger pains by taking a nap.
Around 3 pm, it was time to mix up my first Gatorade bottle! I had a 28-ounce bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade and my bottle of prescription Miralax. I had to pour 7 capfuls of Miralax into the Gatorade bottle. It would be useful to have a funnel during this process, which I didn’t have on hand. Instead, I used a small teaspoon to scoop out a little bit of powder from the capful at a time to pour into the bottle. (Which, yes, means it took forever to do this process.) I put the bottle in the fridge until it was time to drink it.
At 5 pm, it was time for my first drink! I had to drink 8 ounces of Gatorade every 15 minutes until I had finished the whole bottle. I used a mason jar that has ounce measurements on the side, so I knew exactly how much I needed to drink. I’ll admit that I was feeling A-OK after this process. I didn’t find it all that difficult to drink the whole bottle. I set an alarm on my phone for every 15 minutes, put on a YouTube video, and did some coloring while I waited for the alarm to go off. I could usually gulp down the 8 ounces within a few minutes, which gave my stomach time to settle before it was time for the next drink.
It took around an hour to get down the first bottle, and I was feeling just fine afterward. I decided to take a shower so I’d be fresh and clean for the doctor tomorrow (very important!) and then sat on the couch to watch an episode of Survivor. I should also note at this time that I was in the bathroom frequently. The goal for colonoscopy prep is to have light yellow or clear poops, which started happening early in the day (honestly, even before my first dose!), and by this time, it was just completely liquid and honestly felt really weird. It’s not normal to poop liquid!
At 7 p.m., I mixed up my next mixture of Miralax and Gatorade.
Annnnnd… this is where things started to devolve. I started feeling pretty awful, so I decided to eat a lime popsicle to see if that would settle my stomach. I only ate around half of the popsicle because it was just making me feel more terrible, and then I got incredibly nauseous. I stood over my kitchen sink with my head in my hands, trying to take deep breaths and hoping the nausea would pass. Usually, when I have these bouts of nausea, I can take sips of water to settle my stomach, but this time, I couldn’t even move because the nausea was so intense.
Thankfully, the nausea passed with some deep breathing, and at that moment, I thought about making myself some broth to settle my stomach, but when I realized a cup of broth was only 10 calories, I was like, “Not worth it.” In retrospect, I probably should have made the broth because it might have helped, but my brain cells were not working that day. Instead, I got some lime Jell-O, hoping that would help. At the very least, it had more calories than broth.
Reader, it did not help. Within minutes of finishing that Jell-O, I was violently ill. I am not a vomiter, so this was quite the ordeal for me. (The last time I vomited was 2020, and I was hoping to continue my streak for much longer.) However, throwing up did make me feel a lot better. I’m not sure why it happened, perhaps just too much sugar in my system at once (between 28 ounces of Gatorade, multiple cans of Dr. Pepper, and the Jell-O) or from the intense hunger pains. Plus, I’m hypoglycemic, so I often get nauseous when I haven’t eaten in a while.
Anyway, soon 8 p.m. rolled around, which meant it was time for my next Gatorade-and-Miralax mixture! This time, I went with orange Gatorade, hoping the different flavors would make things feel less terrible. The first two doses went fine. It was a little harder to get it down, just because I was so tired of drinking Gatorade by this point. My body wanted solid food! But then I took the third dose, and within minutes of finishing it, I was extremely nauseous and again got violently ill. By this point, I only had 8 ounces to drink, but I was really concerned if I was going to throw up that dose, too. Was it even worth doing it? I was pretty sure my digestive tract was cleaned out by this point, based on what was happening in the bathroom, but I’m also a rule follower and didn’t want something crazy to happen. Like what if I did all of this, only to find out they couldn’t do the colonoscopy?! (Which was a real fear of mine, made even worse when my mom told me it happened to her!)
I needed to finish the mixture by 10 p.m., so I still had about an hour to do that. I decided to give myself a half-hour break before drinking the last 8 ounces. I slowly sipped the last 8 ounces starting around 9:30 and thankfully, kept it all down. Whew.
After that final dose, I started needing the bathroom more frequently, so I parked myself on the toilet with a Survivor episode on the iPad and let things devolve as they needed to.
I did not sleep well that night. I was up every hour to use the bathroom, and then around midnight, I started to feel a headache coming on. NOOOO. I was instructed to stop all eating and drinking after midnight, and while I think I probably could have taken a Tylenol dose with a tiny sip of water, I was truly worried that if I did that, I would somehow delay my procedure, and I wanted to get it done ASAP. Plus, Tylenol doesn’t always work for my headaches, so the worst would be taking a dose and still having a headache. I decided to suffer.
Procedure Day
I was up early the day of my procedure. It was scheduled for 7 a.m., and I highly recommend scheduling a colonoscopy as early in the day as possible. That way, you’re not dealing with delays!
I barely slept the whole night and finally, at 4:30 a.m., I let myself get up and watch an episode of Survivor. Then I got ready and tried to tidy up the apartment (that was just a mess of Dr. Pepper cans and Popsicle sticks and Jell-O containers, lol) while I waited for my mom to arrive.
We arrived at the endoscopy center at 6:30 a.m., a full thirty minutes before they opened. Oops! We sat in the car for 10 minutes before we decided to go in and see if I could get checked in early. Thankfully, the center was open, and I was getting whisked back before 7 a.m. Yay!
The nurse checked my temperature, blood pressure, and pulse, and then had me give a urine sample. I was very nervous I wasn’t going to have any urine to give since I hadn’t had anything to drink in 8 hours, but my bladder came through just fine!
Then, I was put in a room where I undressed (I was told I could keep my bra on, but I went full birthday suit) and put on a gown. I stowed my clothes in a bag that was placed under my bed. Then the nurse came in and wheeled me straight into the procedure room. He got an IV going for me, which hurt a lot because he chose a vein on the top of my hand. He also added a nasal cannula, which would get me extra oxygen and help me relax.
And then we waited.
Because, you see, I had arrived so early that the doctor who was performing my colonoscopy hadn’t even arrived yet. LOLZ. What can I say? I was ready to get this over with so I could have solid food again! Thankfully, it wasn’t too long until he arrived (maybe 20 minutes) and then, the anesthesiologist was telling me to “think of a good dream” as she added that sweet, sweet sleeping juice to my IV. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a post-op room with a different nurse who was asking me to wake up.
Y’all. People are not lying about that colonoscopy nap. I was out and don’t remember a single thing. And the crazy thing is that once the nurse woke me up, I wasn’t even that groggy! The nurse told me my results—no polyps, no IBD (which rules out ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, thank God!), and they took tissue samples to test for microscopic colitis. (Different from ulcerative colitis; it’s basically inflammation of the large intestine.) She gave me privacy to get dressed, and then led me over to a chair and handed me a Nutrigrain bar and a cup of ginger ale. OMG, that Nutrigrain bar was the best thing I have ever had in my life!
The nurse walked me out to the waiting room where my mom was, and helped make sure I got into her car without any issues. And then we were off! It was around 8:30 a.m. at this point, so the entire process, from start to finish, took less than two hours. And that, my friends, is why you get the early appointment. I was first in, first out, no delays!
My mom said I could have anything I wanted for breakfast so of course I chose the best breakfast on the planet: McDonald’s! I had been dreaming of that post-colonoscopy sausage egg McMuffin for dayssss and I just wanted it ASAP. We went back to her house to eat and then I took a lovely 3-hour nap. (My mom wanted me to stay with her for a few hours after the procedure, as the anesthesia wore off, and I was happy with that plan, too.)
I am very happy to report that I had no problems after the colonoscopy! I didn’t even have all of the gas that is common after getting air pushed into my colon! I was sleepy (I took another 3-hour nap later in the day), but my appetite came back immediately, and I even had a bowel movement the same day. So even though prep day was horrible, at least I recovered quickly!
Final Thoughts
There were a lot of mistakes I made when it came to my colonoscopy prep that I will hopefully rectify in five years when I will have to do this all over again. (With my family history, I will need a colonoscopy every five years, and I have to do the traditional procedure—no “poop in a box” option for me!) First, I will eat much better the day before. I did not prepare for a low-fiber day and did not eat nearly enough calories to keep me fueled through prep day. Next time, I want to amp up the protein as much as possible so that I won’t be at a calorie deficit on prep day. Second, I will absolutely ask for a Zofran prescription to help with any nausea. This is something I want to recommend to anyone preparing for a colonoscopy. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it or aren’t prone to nausea/vomiting, just get a prescription and save yourself from feeling like shit all day long.
I’d also be better prepared with my food. While I bought broth, I never made it because I just didn’t have the energy to do so. Next time, I might prepare little Tupperware containers that I can zap quickly in the microwave. I’d also have ginger ale on hand to help with any lingering nausea.
What I will say about prep day is that drinking the mixture and cleaning out my colon wasn’t a huge deal. The powder dissolved pretty easily in my Gatorade bottle and was flavorless, so I didn’t taste it at all. And it didn’t feel chalky or anything like that. I should have gone for a lower-sugar variety of Gatorade, though, since I think all of that sugar in my system really affected me. And since I’m used to using the bathroom a lot on any given day, all of the pooping was a little annoying but not very bothersome. I didn’t deal with any booty pain, either. I’ve dealt with hemorrhoids before, and that was 1000x more painful than anything I experienced on prep day.
Anyway, as you can see, I am very open to talking about bodily fluids and what it’s like to have a colonoscopy! If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask. I never want to do this process again, but I also know I will do this process again and again and again, because I’ve seen what my grandma went through during the eight years she battled stage IV colon cancer, and that’s way, way worse than anything I went through last week.
Yay for the all clear! I’m with you – I’ll take the scope over colon cancer any day.
I was one of those people who said that the prep was NBD. I did two days of low fiber but not low calorie eating, and then on prep day I only had black coffee and tonic water with lime (weird, but it’s my favorite summer drink). I am not someone who skips meals, so I was surprised that I wasn’t hungry. I took a fancy prep solution called Clenpiq, so I just had to swill down two bottles plus a ton of water and I was done. I will say that it was rough getting the second bottle down.
Since I sailed through prep like a breeze, I made up for it by having gas that took forever to pass and was very uncomfortable, and my body wanted nothing to do with the ginger ale and cookies that they gave me in the recovery room. My first meal back was a meh. Because I had polyps, I’ll be getting scoped every three years, and I am more than happy to do that because it sure beats the alternative.
I’m glad you had a much easier time with the prep! I definitely need to make sure I eat much heartier meals in the lead-up to prep day because I think that’s what made me get so sick. Plus, it just SUCKS not eating. I was so miserable!
“I never want to do this process again.” I’m right there with you about the procedure and the consequences of not doing it. Having one is a nightmare that I’ve repeated a few times, never with a smile on my face. *shudder*
It’s the worst thing! You’d think by now they could figure out how to make prep day less awful. Not eating for a full day was TORTURE.
My mom’s BF drinks Ensure clear while prepping because he is diabetic and needs to keep his sugars steady– this might be a good option for you when fasting since you are super sensitive to being calorie deficient?
DAMMIT – You told me about this for the ultrasound! I wish I had remembered it for prep day. I think that would be SO helpful because the hunger pains were the worst part of the day. Thank you for the reminder!
Well this is helpful since I have my colonoscopy next week. My instructions are a bit different. I think I can’t eat seeds and fiber-rich foods about 3-4 days out (can’t recall… the instructions are hanging on my fridge). But I don’t have to do anything a week out. I am working the day before my procedure so will have to be careful about making sure I get enough calories. I’m planning to use a zero calorie gatorade type of product so that should help with the nausea. Hopefully it goes ok overall! My procedure isn’t until 10am, though. I had to pick a later morning appt so we could get the boys to childcare before Phil needed to bring me to the clinic.
Getting IVs when you are restricted from drinking before a procedure is SO HARD!! I have gone through that multiple times with all the surgeries I’ve had. Sometimes it’s taken them 3 times to place the IV which is so painful and then you often get a terrible bruise. Oof, it’s rough.
I’m glad the results didn’t show any obvious issues and that you did not have polyps!! My siblings have all had polyps so I kind of expect to have them but we’ll see. But I’m probably 3-5 years younger than my siblings were when they got their first colonosopy.
That’s so weird that we have completely different instructions! You’d think it would be the same for all colonoscopy prep! But nope.
Damn, I wish you could have gotten an earlier appointment, but I totally understand. It’s hard when you have to work around daycare schedules! Hopefully your prep day won’t be as awful as mine was, and the 10am appointment will be fine. I think you are much heartier than me, haha, so you’ll probably handle it like a champ!
Good for you – you got through it! And I’m glad the results were good news! I thought drinking the prep was the worst part of the process, not because of the “cleansing” but because it tasted so bad. I had a big jug of stuff to mix with my choice of flavoring. I chose lemon, so it tasted like motor oil with lemon cleaning fluid. Hopefully, I’ll have something different to drink for the next one! Or maybe they’ll invent a non-invasive test! I can dream, can’t I?
That sounds so gross, Michelle! I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I was very happy I could choose Gatorade flavor and that the actual solution was flavorless. That helped a lot!
I really wish there was an easier way to prep for this thing. I mean, it’s 2025! Can’t this be easier by now?!
This was a fascinating account, Stephany! Thanks for being so open about your experience. I’m sorry it was so awful! Hooray for clear results, though — what a relief!
My first colonoscopy will be in 2026 and I just want to get it over with. I have the exact same family history that you do, and I have been anxiously awaiting this exam, especially with all of the news about increasing rates of colon cancer among younger people.
Seems like the prep has a bunch of variations which I find super confusing and perplexing. I mean, I guess it’s good that there are multiple ways to get from point A to point B, but also it would be nice to know if you can/should do high fiber or not!
It’s really confusing how different the prep instructions are based on different doctors or medical needs. I wasn’t given ANY instructions on eating low-fiber! Next time around, I’m going to make sure my doctor lays it out a lot more plainly for me.
It is such a relief to get clear results! And especially a relief to not be diagnosed with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. I know people who have those conditions and it’s AWFUL.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve never had one (and will likely be a few years away yet), but it’s so helpful to have a reference post!!
It sounds…positively horrible, but I’m so glad you made it through AND Sarah’s idea about clear Ensure is genius!
The clear Ensure is such a great tip! I really struggled with the hunger part of the prep. I get so nauseous when I’m starving!
Having been through this many times with my husband, I can say confidently that the colonoscopy itself is NBD. But the prep. The prep is awful. I’m surprised they didn’t tell you about the low fibre diet. Rob always has to go on one for like a week before, no raw veg or fruit, no whole wheat anything, no nuts or seeds or anything like that. It’s basically meat and white bread and plain yogurt for him, plus maybe some canned pears. Anyhoo, the prep IS awful and you probably didn’t miss anything with not having broth. In his experience, the broth is so full of sodium and has so few calories that he just was uncomfortably bloated, in addition to pooping constantly.
Anyway! It’s done now! You did it!
That is good to know about the broth! It just didn’t feel like it would do anything all that necessary, especially at just 10 calories for a cup. Next time, I’m taking Sarah’s advice and doing clear Ensure. Maybe that will help with the nausea!
I’m so surprised at the different instructions people are given for prep day. It’s all over the place. You’d think it would be one-size-fits-all, but I guess not!
Wow, what a miserable experience, I hate being nauseous. I’m sorry that it sucked so badly, but I’m glad that your results are so far clear.
I had my first (only so far) colonoscopy in 2017, and there were no polyps, so I can wait until 2027 for my next one. The prep is miserable, especially drinking that fluid, that was the worst part for me. I also was lucky to not have gas, and I enjoyed my breakfast after!
That’s nice that you can go 10 years between colonoscopies! I would do ANYTHING not to have to do one again, but alas, I must because it’s better than cancer.
Uh oh. I am one of the “lying liars” who told you it wouldn’t be that bad! I wonder if you’d do better with a different kind of prep. My sister does your version, and she has the same issues with being extremely nauseous. My prep was different- it was more like a salty liquid. It might be worth looking into for next time.
Anyway- I’m very glad you got this over with and had good results! That’s a relief. I have my next one coming up next summer, sigh.
I don’t think it was the prep that made me nauseous. The prep itself wasn’t that bad! I think it was the hunger – I need to eat muh more heartier meals in the days leading up to prep day, maybe. Or get a Zofran prescription. Not sure! The hunger was the worst part of all of it!
Oh boy, I just relived my first colonoscopy through your post here… I also felt like the prep was the WORST. What I don’t understand is that they seem to do it different ways… I wish they’d given me Miralax to mix with Gatorade. Instead, I got prescribed a powder that I had to pick up from the pharmacy in a gallon jug and then fill with water and chill. The taste was absolutely awful and I also don’t do well with drinking huge amounts of liquids that are ice-cold. By the end of the day, I was nauseous and ready to throw up.
Anyway, you learn a lot from that first experience, so hopefully in five years we’ll be all better prepared (and I’ll ask for Miralax, if possible).
I am glad that the procedure itself was so easy and that there were no polyps!
It’s really wild to me how different the prep is, depending on the doctor! Lisa was able to have purple Gatorade during her prep and I was told I couldn’t – which was sad because purple Gatorade is my FAVORITE. Wah!
I hope you can get MiraLAX next time – it’s tasteless so that helped a lot!
So happy to year nothing is wrong.
And so sorry you had such an awful prep day.
A family member is going through this every two years due to ulcerative colitis. No fun. Last time it was tough and some vomiting was involved as the drinking mixture was horrible.
Luckily I had not yet to do this.
How do you feel about not having anything wrong but knowing you had diarrhea for 5 months. That is not normal and I assume you want to know what is going on…
Maybe it all comes down to food… ?!
OMG, every two years! I am so glad I don’t have a serious IBD condition that would require more frequent colonoscopies. This one was bad enough.
I think it comes down to gluten sensitivity, honestly. I’m glad I did all of the extra tests to make sure it wasn’t something serious, so I think my next step will be a gluten elimination diet to see if that solves the issue.
My husband and I had our colonoscopies a couple of months apart. We had entirely different prep directions. It’s insane. You’d think they’d be the same. His was more strict about low fiber and he seemed to bounce back from his a lot faster than I did. I’m glad it was good news for you and next time we’ll both do better, right?!
I am so glad your first colonoscopy is over and that you do not have cancer, Crohn’s, or UC. Whew. But I do hope that they find out what is making you so miserable. 🙁
My mom is the queen of colonoscopies AND worked in an outpatient surgery center where they did them all the time. Her advice: low fiber x 3 days pre-prep, and when you’re clear, you’re clear. That means if you absolutely can’t drink the last dose of whatever, but … what you see in the toilet is clear? You are probably good to go. I know, gross stuff to think about, but it does make sense when you think about it. Here’s hoping the next one is a bit easier on you. <3
I hate that your prep day was so bad. I was expecting it to be from what I’ve heard but was hoping for the best. I didn’t even realize people vomit from all this! I just figured it was all the sitting and shitting. UGH. How horrible! But thank you for sharing all that and the tips about the meds to request for nausea. It’s good to know you can’t taste the meds in the Gatorade!
I am so glad they didn’t find anything! And totally laughing about the nutrigrain bar tasting so good.