Sushi
Moderation Resource Albuquerque
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I'm posting about this as I have dysautonomia and had a colonoscopy yesterday. I was surprised at the level of autonomic disturbance caused by the prep (I was prescribed the NuLYTELY prep which is basically Miralax in 4 liters of water). Well, most of us know that the prep is pretty awful but we usually just consider the ghastly gastric effects. I was prepared for those but wasn't prepared for greatly increased OI, balance problems and cardiac rhythm disturbances. I think these mainly came from dehydration even though I was drinking a lot of electrolyte solutions, chicken broth etc. At one point I thought I might need a wheelchair to navigate the parking lot of the GI procedure building but some of these symptoms resolved after the non-stop diarrhea ended and I was able to walk again. I also had increased aches and pains.
At one point I realized that I was having some sort of arrhythmia (a problem I am prone to anyway) so I took an EKG using my Kardia device and emailed it to my Electrophysiologist. She emailed back (within 5 minutes!) saying that I was having premature atrial contractions and that it shouldn't be a problem for the colonoscopy. She also said that I could take an extra dose of one of my meds. I showed the EKG (which was on my phone) to the anesthesiologist and the gastroenterologist and they were both enthralled with this marvelous new bit of technology and wanted to try it for themselves!
Once I got to the GI procedure department and was hooked up to IV saline, I started feeling much better. They hooked me up to monitors and my BP and HR were both significantly elevated. After that, the procedure itself was totally smooth as they gave me propofol and I was asleep throughout. The anesthesiologist told me that I had had some more premature atrial contractions during the procedure but that my BP and HR had remained steady and afterwards I saw they they had returned to my normal range.
Does anyone else with dysautonomia have comments about their colonoscopy? The question is what to do differently and I don't have an answer to that, but am very glad that the doctors involved realized (and took seriously) that I had dysautonomia.
At one point I realized that I was having some sort of arrhythmia (a problem I am prone to anyway) so I took an EKG using my Kardia device and emailed it to my Electrophysiologist. She emailed back (within 5 minutes!) saying that I was having premature atrial contractions and that it shouldn't be a problem for the colonoscopy. She also said that I could take an extra dose of one of my meds. I showed the EKG (which was on my phone) to the anesthesiologist and the gastroenterologist and they were both enthralled with this marvelous new bit of technology and wanted to try it for themselves!
Once I got to the GI procedure department and was hooked up to IV saline, I started feeling much better. They hooked me up to monitors and my BP and HR were both significantly elevated. After that, the procedure itself was totally smooth as they gave me propofol and I was asleep throughout. The anesthesiologist told me that I had had some more premature atrial contractions during the procedure but that my BP and HR had remained steady and afterwards I saw they they had returned to my normal range.
Does anyone else with dysautonomia have comments about their colonoscopy? The question is what to do differently and I don't have an answer to that, but am very glad that the doctors involved realized (and took seriously) that I had dysautonomia.