Your stool should be clear, yellow, light and liquid. The presence of dark particles or thick brown or black stool means you are not ready for colonoscopy. If your stool is not clear after taking your entire bowel prep agent, you may need additional prep agent.
Signs Your Colon is Clear
The morning of your exam if you are still passing brown liquid with solid material mixed in, your colon may not be ready and you should contact your doctor's office. Passing mostly clear or only a light color, including yellow, is a sign your colon is clean enough for an accurate examination.
You want your stool to be clear. After drinking all of your prep, your bowel movements should be all liquid yellow and clear like picture #4 or #5. If so, you are ready and good to go!
If you don't have frequent and progressively looser bowel movements within 3 hours of taking the preparation you will likely need something else to help it to work properly. Have someone purchase rectal suppositories from a pharmacy. Place one in the rectum and if this doesn't help, call the GI office at 860-679-3238.
It is okay if you have some flecks of material. The yellow color is a result of bile that normally colors the feces. This should not interfere with the examination.
DAY OF COLONOSCOPY
By the end of your prep, your stool should become a clear, yellow-tinged fluid. scheduled, but then nothing by mouth after that.
The goal of the prep for colonoscopy is to completely rid your body of food particles. Your bowel movements will be watery and clear or light yellow. It is still important to continue drinking your prep until it is completely gone even if your stool has become clear.
Will I be up all night with colonoscopy prep? Probably not, if you start on time. While everyone's body is different, most people are able to complete their round of purging before going to sleep for the night.
“If you do get nauseous from the prep, it may be because you drank it too fast. Moving around can also help reduce nausea. If you are prone to nausea, your provider may also be able to give you medication to reduce it,” Dr. Kedrin says.
Why do I have to stop drinking two hours before I check-in? This is to allow your stomach to empty prior to receiving sedation for your procedure. If you still have liquid in your stomach during sedation, that liquid could travel to your lungs and cause complications.
You may brush your teeth. However, unless specifically instructed by your doctor to drink the remainder of a split-dose prep, you are generally asked to refrain from eating or drinking anything, even water, the morning of your procedure.
If you drank the entire solution and your last bowel movements were clear enough to see the bottom of the toilet, you should be fine. It is OK if you have some flecks of material. The yellow color is a result of bile that normally colors the feces.
It takes about 36 hours for food to move through the entire colon. All in all, the whole process — from the time you swallow food to the time it leaves your body as feces — takes about two to five days, depending on the individual.
Research question Can gentle exercise improve the quality of standard bowel preparation before colonoscopy? Answer Yes. Patients who walk intermittently while taking bowel preparation solution have cleaner bowels than patients who sit still.
Be sure to drink at least 12 tall glasses (about 8-10 ounces each) of clear liquids throughout the day in addition to what you drink with your bowel prep. Taking Your Prep: By the day before your test you should already have your “bowel prep” medicine.
It is recommended that you shower the night before or morning of the procedure. After midnight the night before the colonoscopy, you should not eat or drink anything except medications that your surgeon or anesthesiologist has told you are permissible to take with a sip of water the morning of colonoscopy.
The medicine you received during the procedure may stay in your body for up to 24 hours. You may feel tired or sleepy and have difficulty concentrating. Once you get home, relax for the rest of the day.
You may have diarrhea for 12 to 16 hours after beginning the process of getting your bowels ready for this procedure. How long the colonoscopy prep process will take altogether varies, but passing clear or yellowish fluid that is free from fecal matter is an indication that your bowel prep is complete.
You may pass liquid and/or liquid stool after your colonoscopy but, within one to five days, your bowel movements should return to normal.
For procedures that are scheduled to start after noon, it is okay to drink clear liquids (black coffee or tea without milk, water, Seven-Up, ginger ale or apple juice) until 5 hours before the start time of the procedure. You should still not eat any solid food after midnight the night before.
After the test, you may be bloated or have gas pains. You may need to pass gas. If a biopsy was done or a polyp was removed, you may have streaks of blood in your stool (feces) for a few days. Problems such as heavy rectal bleeding may not occur until several weeks after the test.
While drinking GoLYTELY, you may experience chills and some cramps. This is caused the large volume of cold fluid you are drinking and is not cause for alarm.