I am going to have an endoscopy and a colonoscopy in a few weeks.  Last time I had this done I was very, very sick. I threw up all the medication used to clean you out. At that time I wasn't eating anyway so they were able to do the procedures without further torture.  I am in much better shape now but I'm scared that I will have bad reactions to the evacuation medicine and lots of problems without my medication.   The procedures are scheduled for 9:30 am and they are doing it in the hospital as a one day surgery to better manage me.  I have to be there one hour early to start the pre-med sequence.  They will be taking tissue samples to look for mast cells and triptase.  I don't want to do anything that will impact the test results but I don't want to not be able to get the test done because my blood pressure is out of wack or end up in the ER before hand.  My husband is very worried too so the whole thing is stressing me out, which probably isn't going to help anything.  
Does anyone know what I can do to help prepare my body for this?  I think the test results will be valuable in helping the Doc manage my condition and understand what's going on but.......

The procedures are being done in the hospital so I'm good with that.  I had surgery a month ago and the Anesthesiologist was very good about giving me what I asked for and looked up everything I asked him to while I was there.  I asked for him again and the doctor said he would request him.  He said either way he would make sure they followed the same protocol as last time, which was successful.  I figured out that I needed more antihistamines afterward and just dosed myself by adding benadryl every 4 hours.  I think I'll give the night before a shot and if I have any issues at all I'll call the doctor immediately.  Do you think adding more antihistamines starting a few days ahead would be useful?   It's the evacuation meds and not being able to take anys for hours that scares me.

I strongly urge you to use the REMA protocols themselves, either those or those of Dr. Castells.  They are specifically designed for masto patients and they even hold severely reactive patients like me.  But they have a very specific quantity and timing as to these meds and one of them includes taking ALL of those meds no sooner than 1 hour prior to the procedure.  

You should not have to be concerned about the meds you take an hour prior to your exam.  Your doctors should put in an access for meds with this exam, for they may need to give you an IV or medications.  So, they should give you ALL of these meds IV an hour prior to the exam.   Besides, the little bit of water you would injest with these meds is relatively harmless when it comes to doing the upper and lower GIs and being that they are an hour prior, the medication has already disolved and entered your blood stream.  I think that if there is any one of the meds that do not come in injectible form it is probably the singulair, the other 3 can be given to you as an IV injection.  

This is why I suggest that your anesthesiologist be made aware of these procedures.  You should sit down and talk with him yourself telling him aof your experience with these medications and the nausea and vomitting.  These are things that the anesthesiologist also needs to know.

One of the things I´ve learned over the past few years is that the anesthesiologist is who calls the shots during a surgery, not he surgeon.  The surgeon is who does the work, but he doesn´t keep his eye on how the patient is doing, that´s the anesthesiologist´s job.  So, anything that goes wrong during a procedure, it´s the anesthesiologist who must be making the decisions.   This is why I´m personally in contact with mine.  I have two, because it´s not safe to have but one who knows how to deal with you.  If you were in a car accident, and your one anesthesiologist was not in that day, you´re stuck with a really bad situation then.   Yet, in doing this upcoming procedure, you need to sit down with the anesthesiologist and talk with him over these issues.  He will provide that you are given the correct meds to help counteract the nausea as well as give your needed meds IV so that you don´t need to drink water.  

So, I suggest that you ask your doctor to help you get in contact with the anesthesiologist.  You may want to call the hospital instead and leave a message for the anesthesiologist yourself.  This way you don´t need to have your doctor play middle man, which he may feel that your concerns over this are typical patient pre-procedure jitters!!

Unfortunately, many doctors, because they don´t understand the disease and what we´ve had to go through, mistake our valid concerns as nothing more than typical pre-procedure anxiety that normal patients go through.  Because they don´t walk a mile in our shoes, they easily misunderstand us and tend to blow us off!!   My doctors have learned!  In fact, I have an upcoming colonoscopy as well.  I´ve asked my angiologist if she can be present and that we schedule this procedure on a day when she is in surgery.  She´s seen my severe reactions but the gastrologist and the anesthesiologist are going to be rookies in dealing with me and they may not understand my syncope after the exam.  These exams put a great deal of stress upon my system and I don´t wake up from the anesthesia for hours afterwards.  The anesthesiologist is an excellent doctor and he´s got my records from my surgery last year to study and gain understanding and he´s considered one of our best in town.  But, he doesn´t have experience with me except once and that was several years ago.  So, my knowing this, I´ve requested that my angiologist be on hand should these 2 doctors run into trouble with me.  My angiologist is 100% agreeing with this request for SHE´S had a LOT of experience with me and fully understands what´s going on.  And since she is a surgeon, she´s got that angle of understanding to help.  

So, it may seem to your doctor to be overkill, but remember IT´S YOUR LIFE YOU´RE TALKING ABOUT, not his!  If he were living this nightmare, you bet your bippy that he´d be doing OVERKILL as well!!!!!  

One of the things I´ve also learned.... We masto patients are very similar to doctors in that doctors do NOT go into their own surgeries with ease!  They are known to have much higher levels of anxiety than any other patient group and this is because THEY KNOW TOOO MUCH!  Well, we may not know as much as they do on a technical  basis, but due to the frights that we constantly live with, we too KNOW TOO MUCH, from an experience basis.  We´re much more aware of what we are capable of doing and our experience has taught us to be very precautious when it comes to medical proedures!!   OUR DOCTORS NEED TO RECOGNIZE THIS AND RESPECT IT AND STOP CALLING US OVER ANXIOUS!!!!


So, if you can, personally speak with the anesthesiologist, give him the REMA protocols and ask him to appropriately medicate you prior to the procedure so that you can RELAX and HAVE PEACE!!!


I hope this helps!

Lisa