Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Upper GI with smallbowel follow-through? Advice?

Hey Kelly,

I just recently had the Upper GI and was scheduled for the small bowel follow-thru but haven't had it done yet. They are really not that big of a deal, and from what I've heard, you're not normally there more than 4 hours, a lot less if your system moves faster

They just have to make sure the barium makes it to the small bowel.

Basically, they just made me swallow some gas producing crystels and drink some barium, and honestly the gas producing crystals were the worse for me. The test itself is painless, and I didn't even find that the barium tasted that bad. The worse part for me was that I got really bad D after the test, less than two hours after I drank the barium, but from what I've heard, that's uncommon.

Barium usually causes bad constipation, so I would definately drink lots of water afterwards and talk to the doc ahead of time about what to do if you get bad C.

The only other thing I would recommend is to clarify the prep beforehand. For the Upper GI there isn't too much, it's usually just no food or drink 8 hours before the exam. However, what I've found is that for the small bowel one, the prep is different depending on where you have it done. Some places require a prep similar to the colonoscopy prep and others don't. I wasn't properly prepped for mine so it had to be rescheduled

Good luck, I'm sure everything will be ok! Bring a book and just take it easy!

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