Hi Superheroes!!

I hope you’re having a low symptom day. Chances are you are prepping for a colonoscopy and or endoscopy soon, which if you are- you came to the right place!

If you watch my daily instagram stories, (@invisiblysicklala) then you saw that I just had an endoscopy & colonoscopy. You also saw I prepped differently than normal. I used the Sutab prep. The Sutab prep got approved in the United States November 2020- so it is a fairly new prep. On my stories I showed visually the prep, but now here are the details!

I wanted to share my experience since I know there is very little to no feedback from patients on this prep. When you ask Doctors they can only be so informative if they haven’t done it themselves.

So my colonoscopy & endoscopy was booked for Thursday. Tuesday late at night was my last meal before the prep. Wednesday I started fasting, I only had a bit of homemade broth and clear liquids. I think I only had water but maybe I had some apple juice too. If you have been following along on my stories you know I unfortutently now suffer badly with appetite so fasting was honestly not hard for me. I was just nervous I would get a migraine; which did not happen probably because my body unfortutently is used to not eating much.

Come 6:00 pm I started the Sutab prep. I had to swallow 16 big pills (there tablets that consist of sodium sulfate, magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride.) I then had to drink 16 fl oz of water every hour, but the nurse instructed the more water the better. This may sound like a walk in the park, but when you suffer with GI issues the nausea was hard. The pills also made me really nauseous.

I was hosting my chronically iconic zoom & I felt so grateful for my supportive zoom superheroes to recognize I needed to end early, which I NEVER do. I had bad stomach pain, nausea, and a lot of urgency. I still 100% would rather this prep than the liquid drinking prep any day. I didn’t go to the bathroom nearly as much compared to the miralax drinking prep. With the drinking prep I am glued to the toilet drinking and also going to the bathroom non stop. With the tablets I felt I didn’t empty nearly as much however I was still clear for my doctors! So regardless of the nausea, stomach pain and urgency it was still not nearly as bad as the traditional drinking prep.

You may have saw from my instagram stories I kept a vomit bowl next to me while I was smelling lavender essential oil. Lavender essential oil can be hit or miss but sometimes it really helps with my nausea. I didn’t want to take any Zofran before the prep just in case (that’s just me!) Side note a zoom superhero sent me these vomit bags. SO sweet and thoughtful! These bags are SO handy. I would recommend.

I had to take the rest of the tablets at 6 am. The time you take the tablets all depend on what time your testing is at. I then fell back to sleep for a bit since I was nauseous and going to the bathroom. I then had my colonoscopy and endoscopy was at noon but I had to get there early. Once the prep is over with, it’s all smooth sailing from there. You get into a gown answer questions to a nurse and they always end up having to give me IV fluids (ugh) because if you’re a woman you have to pee to make sure you’re not pregnant before going under anesthesia. The thing is, I couldn’t drink or eat so I couldn’t pee! But regardless of that, fun fact (or not so fun) ever since I was a little girl I would always prefer a blood test over a urine test and the doctors were always so shocked when I would get upset if I had to pee in a cup instead of get poked and the reasoning is I can never pee on command!

Once I was good to go in the back, you see your GI for a few minutes they talk to you about your symptoms and then they give you anesthesia. If you never had anesthesia before I understand you being so nervous! I still get a bit nervous when I have had anesthesia so many times. However the first few seconds it hits you before you go to sleep feels so good! LOL. Before you know it, you are waking up back in the room you were in before admitted and you are drowsy but fine! Your GI will come in and most likely talk to a guardian, spouse or whoever is with you to go over the results because chances are you are still extremely loopy or will forget whatever was said.

If you have any more questions I am just a DM or email away! YOU GOT THIS! I am proud of you. I always remind my zoom superheroes, testing will lead you to answers which will lead you to more relief, doctors, treatments etc. Getting a diagnosis is so beyond heartbreaking however you have already been living with these symptoms so now you finally have validated answers!