my experience with the camera pill

The gadget sounds crazy.

Thanks for the update, Harry. The pill camera is great for patients wiithout narrowing. Especially since you are med-free, am interested in finding out whether the pill cam shows any inflammation.

hopefully i get the results this week. i'll let you all know when i know.

the whole exam was rather uneventful which was nice. it did take a couple of days though for my bowels to reset but now they are good.

they told me i could have a light lunch a few hours after i swallowed the pill. imho, after a solid day of fasting, a light lunch is a tease and a torture. i'd rather suck it up and continue the fast until dinner as my body is already getting used to operating on water alone. from my experience, once i begin to break a fast, i become super hungry. i'd rather not have to exert that kind of will power between lunch and dinner. i'd rather go all out come dinner. but that is just me. talk to your doc. he'll tell you what to do.

it is disposable. once you swallow it, forget about it, unless the unthinkable happens and it gets stuck. that would be a bummer.

my GI had me have the upper GI w/ small bowel follow through first before the camera pill to make sure i didnt have any strictures. i had the ileum removed back in 2005, so that was really to me the only questionable area. luckily for me it was fine and there were no strictures anywhere.

the pill was about the size of a colazal pill, or a large multivitamin. i've swallowed bigger pills before, but it was on the large side. i've found that with the larger the pill, the more water i need. for me, being on pills for over a decade, any pill is easy to swallow with enough water. shoot, i can do several at one time without water, although i do not recommend it to anyone due to the possibility of chocking.

no way was it anywhere near that big. it was smaller than my thumb. it was intimidating at first as there was a very large attachment the nurse handed it to me by. i believe that was just for handling the camera so no one but me would be actually handling the pill i would be swallowing. i had to detach that part before i swallowed it. that was WAY bigger than the actual pill. perhaps you saw the pill with that attachment? it freaked me out at first too - "just how the heck am i supposed to swallow THAT!"

i got the results of my capsule endoscopy from last week. this was the camera pill thing to look at my small intestines. i talked to the nurse practitioner today. she said the results showed little ulcers indicative of crohn's all over the place. she couldnt comment on the severity of them however - i'd need the doctor for that. the ulceration is most likely causing malabsorption of nutrients, including iron. so my iron deficiency may infact be an absorption issue and not a bleeding thing. but i cannot believe that ulceration, no matter how invasive, can be solely causing my anemia. it may be contributing, but not the cause. for example, how can i only not be absorbing iron? - what about the other vitamins and minerals and nutrients? you would think i'd be exhibiting or experiencing deficiency symptoms of those too, but i am not.

i dont want to use meds cos i've never had good success with them. so my plan is to get a copy of this report, complete with color photos, and go to my naturopath. unfortunately the only way to tell if what he puts me on is working is to repeat the procedure. it is new so it is expensive. who knows if my insurance would cover it say 3 or 6 months down the line, especially from treating my symptoms by naturopathic methods. but i'll deal with that later. right now i need to get this better. so i'll be ratcheting my diet back to phase 1 makers for a while. once i get the report from my GI doctor i can sit down with my naturopath and make a plan. i'll still be doing my liver detox though.

but overall i still feel fantastic. no symptoms or abdominal pain. even my energy levels are good. this is a serious bummer. but at least i feel good, right? i guess i should feel glad it was caught now while i'm not symptomatic instead of feeling miserable. but i'm still bummed from these results, especially since the upper GI barium exam at the end of march had such favorable results and my colonoscopy from june 2008 was good too. i am hoping it is mild ulceration cos with the blood work i had done a month ago, the doc said my cells didnt not show signs of inflammation. and previous blood work in the past always had a sed rate that did not indicate inflammation. perhaps once i talk to my GI doc he can alleviate some of my fear and anxiety.

i'll keep you posted.

Crazy Harry -

  I to am experiencing anemia.  However, my hemocult (stool sample) came back positive for blood.  Now anyone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because I'm no MD.  It is my understanding from past procedures that the colonoscopy usually just shows the colon and not the small intestine.  So a normal colonoscopy says the colon is normal not the small intestine.  A small bowel follow through just shows narrowing or strictures not the actual ulcerations.  So without the actual camera pill, the dr can't see the actual inside of the small intestine to check for ulcerations since usually the colonoscopy doesn't go up far enough.  Therefore, you can have a normal colonoscopy and upper lower GI and ulcerations still not be seen.  Also, anemia doesn't cause ulcerations.  Ulcerations can cause anemia.  Anemia is the loss of iron, which can be a result of an absorption problem or an ulceration leaking blood through your stool.  Usually with anemia, the dr will order stool specimans times 3.  Mine just came back positive for blood in stool.  I am on an iron pill twice a day.  He is ordering the camera pill.  If the iron pill doesn't raise my iron, then he wants to give iron injection.  Waiting on the test to see what it shows.  Then we will go from there.  I hope I'm accurate on my explaination and I hope it helps.

Ok Rider Fan where the heck is the jujenum exactly lcoated in the digestive tract?

Ho Harry, yesterday I had a colonoscopy, an endoscopy and the to top it all off I ran over , not literally of course, and had the cam pill test. The test wasn't too bad after everything else but my question to you is do you recall how long before you expelled the camera? I know that we are all different and of course it depends on what we eat etc., but I am not sure because all the nurse said was if you get any different kind of pain go to the emergency room and tell them that you had the cam pill test. Also I have had Crohn's and Colitis for 30 years so my colon is shot as well as my large intestines so that might play a role in the time frame. I am just a bit nervous about this. Any ideas? Thanks for the help.
Darilyn

update: my GI was nice enough to call me and go over the results with me over the phone. that was cool. he wasnt overly concerned with what he saw as i was feeling well, the pretest with the barium came back negative, and the colonoscopy i had last june was good too. he didnt want to put me on any meds for those reasons and also that i didnt respond to any in the past. the only ones left for me are the new powerful biologics (humira, cimzia, etc) and i'd rather save those for a last resort as they have gnarly side effects. my doc agreed with me on that and was on the same page of thinking, so that too was cool. so it was comforting to know he wasnt jumping up and down concerned that we need to fix this right away and treat it. but i still plan on getting the report and seeing my naturopath to see what he can do with herbs and supplements cos i'd rather treat my crohn's that way. i'd like to nip this in the bud where it is before it blows up on me.



omigrandma -

i dont know when i expelled the camera pill. i hope i have by now.