Has anyone ever?
- Thread starter Tori
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There are quite a few here who have had it done - you can do a search for 'camera pill test' and you should get a lot of hits....
Cat-a-Tonic
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Pill cam, AKA capsule endoscopy - I've had it, it's fairly easy. They might make you do prep or they might just make you fast the night before. I had to do 1/2 prep - the nurse explained to me that they just need the small intestine to be pretty clear, so it's up to the discretion of the doctor/hospital whether or not to make you do prep. And I was told that if I couldn't make it through 1/2 prep, not to worry too much.
The actual test is easy - you swallow the capsule in the morning (it's a fairly large pill, but personally I have some issues swallowing large pills and I had no trouble swallowing the pill cam). You get hooked up to a recording device - mine was on a belt thing that I had to wear all day. It gets data from the capsule and saves the data on a hard drive. Later in the day, usually about 8 hours after you swallow the pill cam, you go back to the hospital to return the belt/recording device thing. (Don't worry, you do NOT have to return the capsule, you can dig through your poo if you want to keep it as a souvenir, but that's totally optional!) Then it takes awhile, usually at least a couple weeks, to get the results. That's because the device records tens of thousands of images from the capsule, and your doctor will need to look at each image for evidence of illness. That obviously can take hours! So be prepared to wait, I think it took about 3 weeks for me to get my results back. Other than the prep and the long wait for results, it was a really easy test to do. Basically just swallow a pill, wear a belt, and wait!
The actual test is easy - you swallow the capsule in the morning (it's a fairly large pill, but personally I have some issues swallowing large pills and I had no trouble swallowing the pill cam). You get hooked up to a recording device - mine was on a belt thing that I had to wear all day. It gets data from the capsule and saves the data on a hard drive. Later in the day, usually about 8 hours after you swallow the pill cam, you go back to the hospital to return the belt/recording device thing. (Don't worry, you do NOT have to return the capsule, you can dig through your poo if you want to keep it as a souvenir, but that's totally optional!) Then it takes awhile, usually at least a couple weeks, to get the results. That's because the device records tens of thousands of images from the capsule, and your doctor will need to look at each image for evidence of illness. That obviously can take hours! So be prepared to wait, I think it took about 3 weeks for me to get my results back. Other than the prep and the long wait for results, it was a really easy test to do. Basically just swallow a pill, wear a belt, and wait!
