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My Diacol experience

Hi guys,

Just went through my second colonoscopy (yay?), but this time I was offered Diacol for my prep. As I was taking it I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any personal experience information out there on it that seemed to marry up with my experience. I found this stressful as I found it to be a very different experience to the Glycoprep so I thought I would just make note of it here in case anyone else comes looking in the future.

At 5:00pm I started taking the tablets. 4 every 15 minutes with 250mls of water until I had taken 20 tablets. The tablets aren’t small, but they aren’t the horse tablets I take for my vitamin d + calcium. They tasted weirdly salty if left in my mouth for too long which wasn’t too nice.

Then I waited…and waited…and nothing really happened. Dashed to the bathroom for only a small amount of D about 4-5 times that night. Had a rough night’s sleep as I kept expecting it to fully kick in at any given moment (I don’t know about anyone else, but in my experience the Glycoprep acted quickly and very thoroughly). I woke up at 6am the following morning and it finally kicked in properly, but only a couple of times. Following the images in the booklet I was given that showed the 5 stages of what the D goes through I was still in the second stage and nowhere near ready for my test…I started to really panic.

Hit 7am and I started taking the second set of 12 tablets the same way as I did last night and kept drinking as much water as I could (until 9am when I was required to stop) and at about 8:30am it kicked in fully and did its job quickly and thoroughly. By 9:30am it had gone through all stages and the D was clear as it needed to be for a successful colonoscopy. I still had to go to the bathroom every ½ hour or so for the next hour and a half, but was fine after that to go to the hospital for my appointment.

All in all, the Diacol I found to be as effective as the liquid prep. Easier to drink as I like water and think the other stuff tastes foul, but it did take a lot longer to work on me. It was more gentle on my body and not as extreme an experience. I would definitely go the Diacol route again as my preference, but at least next time I will be a bit more prepared for it to take longer and not find it as stressful.

(I know everyone can have a different experience taking medication, but I just thought it would really have helped me to be able to see something like this so I wasn't so upset when it didn't seem to be working as I expected it to)
 
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