What are current GI appointments like?

[Tubes]

I was recently wondering because my nephew who's in his early teens has been having some stomach problems and is going to his 1st GI appointment in a few weeks what's it like for Kids today when they go to their GI appointments like just compared to when I was a kid from 1994/95 to 2000 I had to go to the hospital every other Wednesday for 7am and I usually left between 1:30pm-3:00pm it was an all day event.I show up with a stool sample,then I'd go to the eye doctor and get my eyes dilated,then I'd go to a joint specialist,then I'd have my GI exam and then tons of blood work.It seemed excessive.

 

[Lisa]

We took our daughter to one about two years ago, it was just an office visit, exam and bloodwork......

 

[Clash]

My son's GI appts are just office visits that include blood work.

He has an ophthalmologist who is familiar with CD that handles the eye EIMs of CD. He sees a pediatric rheumatologist to oversee the care of his joint EIMs of Crohn's. He also sees a dermatologist once a year for a skin check due to CD and meds.

The ophthalmologist orders and handles the eye exams etc. The pediatric rheumatologist does spinal xrays, joint xrays and MRIs in relation to his joints.

The GI orders tests for his bowels, such as scopes and imaging.

He has seen the pediatric GI and rheumatologist on the same day and they discuss any med changes that may affect the specialty of the other.(he uses humira to treat his CD and his juvenile spondyloarthropathy and EIM of CD)

 

[Maya142]

We do blood work separately from GI visits (usually) so for us, the actual time in the exam room is about 45 minutes. Getting there and back takes about an hour to an hour and a half, so the whole thing takes about half a day.

My daughter also sees an ophthalmologist, cardiologist, rheumatologist, dermatologist, psychologist and several other specialists but we do those appointments separately.

She generally sees her GI every 3 months, if things are going well.

 

[my little penguin]

Same here just office visit (30-45 minutes )
Every 3-4 months for Gi

Rheumo , dermo , allergy , and opthamology are seperate office visits at different times
But kiddo has eye issues ( not related to crohns ) and JSpA for the Rheumo .

 

[Tubes]

I will let him know.

At the time my mom had excellent insurance from her work so I'm thinking they saw free money because 5 years of bi weekly GI experiences was hell for teenage me.

Another question I have is how many Colonoscopy's do they have a year? Because back then I averaged between 5 to 7.

 

[Maya142]

Wow! That is a lot of colonoscopies! I have never heard of doing that many for IBD. Or bi-weekly appts -- that sounds very frequent.

My daughter has been diagnosed 3 years and has had two scopes. She has a third one coming up this summer.

 

[Tubes]

Wow! That is a lot of colonoscopies! I have never heard of doing that many for IBD. Or bi-weekly appts -- that sounds very frequent.

My daughter has been diagnosed 3 years and has had two scopes. She has a third one coming up this summer.

During that period I was really sick and pretty much in constant flares and losing a ton of blood with each trip to the bathroom so it didn't seem too frequent at the time but looking back it amazes me how much I saw them.For whatever reason they could never get it under control and they tried so many different meds that always seemed to make it worse so they'd just keep upping my prednisone and Asacol.I don't miss those days.

 

[Jmrogers4]

Yeah unfortunately back at that time which was about the same time my husband was diagnosed there were not as many treatment options as now. My husband was on the same prednisone / Asacol roller coaster but have since come to realize Asacol was pretty much ineffective like giving aspirin for a brain tumor.
When my son was diagnosed about 6 1/2 years ago we went probably every other month that first year for labs until we got his medicine sorted out then it was labs every 3 months and visit every 3 -4 months. We have talked about every 6 months if we have no issues.
Scopes every 3 -5 years

 

[Tubes]

Yeah unfortunately back at that time which was about the same time my husband was diagnosed there were not as many treatment options as now. My husband was on the same prednisone / Asacol roller coaster but have since come to realize Asacol was pretty much ineffective like giving aspirin for a brain tumor.
When my son was diagnosed about 6 1/2 years ago we went probably every other month that first year for labs until we got his medicine sorted out then it was labs every 3 months and visit every 3 -4 months. We have talked about every 6 months if we have no issues.
Scopes every 3 -5 years

Yes asacol was unless and expensive but my worst medication back then was twice a day stomach injections that turned my stool white.

 

[CarolinAlaska]

First GI appointments are long as they go through the whole extensive history, then blood work, and, if they're good, MRE and complete endoscopy scheduled soon after. Then it's time to wait for results for a couple weeks, then either start treatment, or do more tests, or "wait and see". It's best to get an answer after scopes and biopsies, but it doesn't always show conclusively the first round. Our daughter required a pill cam.

 

[Tubes]

My nephew ended up having his appointment on Friday due to somebody cancelling.He told me his appointment was about 45 mins then he had to go for blood work and he was back home within 90 minutes,he's waiting for them to call him back for a scope.He was very relived that he didn't have the marathon session like when I was his age.

 

[CarolinAlaska]

Glad he got in and out timely. I hope they can diagnose him quickly.

 

[Tubes]

First GI appointments are long as they go through the whole extensive history, then blood work, and, if they're good, MRE and complete endoscopy scheduled soon after. Then it's time to wait for results for a couple weeks, then either start treatment, or do more tests, or "wait and see". It's best to get an answer after scopes and biopsies, but it doesn't always show conclusively the first round. Our daughter required a pill cam.

My oldest nephew who's in his mid 20's about 2 years ago started having stomach problems and they feared it was crohns and they did multiple scopes but they couldn't get a clear view due to him not being clean out enough well last year they did they pill cam and found found out it was something to do with bad bacteria and it was intensified due to drinking alcohol but they found the right meds that as long as he doesn't drink and he watches what he eats he's fine problem is he loves to drink and doesn't want to watch what he eats.

 

[CarolinAlaska]

You can lead them to the water...

 

[Tubes]

You can lead them to the water...

I know I've tried telling him I never had the choice when I first got sick they put me on the bland diet of Scrambled eggs no milk,Toast no butter and Puff Rice Cereal 3 meals a day and that's all I ate from age 13 to 16 And it didn't matter because I would flare like crazy.They put me on the same thing from 20 to 22 until they removed my colon.I remember back especially in my teens I just wanted to eat a pizza with everything or some Mexican food just once but I didn't because I didn't want to make it worse so I ate that bland stuff and my colon reacted like I was eating the worse food imaginable.So it annoys me when just a simple choice can improve the quality of his health/life and he refuses to make the change.

 

[FrozenGirl]

Sounds like a pretty typical appointment. Generally I had bloodwork done separately a few couple days before so my doc has results when I see him. Then 20-30 min outpatient visit and I'm done, usually book either a follow up appointment or scope.

 

[Tubes]

Sounds like a pretty typical appointment. Generally I had bloodwork done separately a few couple days before so my doc has results when I see him. Then 20-30 min outpatient visit and I'm done, usually book either a follow up appointment or scope.

I usually get my blood work done before so we can go over the results too.I don't know if they didn't do that with him because an appointment opened up early but he's going back on the 1st week of June because he already had that date booked and his GI wants to monitor his situation closely.He likes his GI so far so that's a good thing.