Gastroenterology Testing - Royal London Hospital

10/03  I went to the GI physiology unit for tests on my lower bowel. I thought I was just having an x-ray to see if there were any markers left from 5 days ago when I had to swallow some capsules. I was wheeled into a room and asked to undress my bottom half and get into a gown. The nurse was chatting to me while we waited for the Dr to arrive, this helped reassure me! the Dr shook my hand and explained what would happen and asked lots of questions about my medical history etc. First they took an x-ray of my tummy, this was not too bad as they both helped me onto the bed. Then I had to lie on my left side knees bent up and a probe was inserted into my back passage, he used lots of jelly to make it as comfortable as possible and got me to squeeze my muscles then relax to check they were working, next he checked my pelvic floor and used another probe to do an ultrasound taking different pictures from various positions. Lastly I had an Evacuation Proctography, which looks at problems opening the bowel, this was very embarrassing and uncomfortable as barium paste was inserted into my rectum via an examining scope until I felt the urge to use the toilet, the nurse escorted me to a specially designed toilet behind the curtain in front of an x-ray machine and the Dr told me when to open my bowel, this made me feel very uncomfortable. I felt sick and hot afterwards and just wanted to get it over with. I was told by the Dr that the x-ray showed lots of traces of markers from the capsules which means my bowels work very slow and there was also some sensory changes.
I will wait for my results now and let you know them in another post.