I have to swallow a camera. What's your experience?

May 11, 2012 3:47 PM

I have to swallow a camera. What's your experience?

Next week I go to the doc to have a capsule endoscopy. However, my nurse called it something else. I wasn't sure what she said over my sketchy phone connection. I read this article from the Mayo clinic website. But, I'm looking for some personal experience. What's it like?

posted by bronco trolley to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

This was about ten years ago, but when I did it, here's what happened:

• No food and water for some number of hours beforehand
•  Possibly I had to drink something nasty or buy a Fleet product to prepare
• Definitely the camera was sized and shaped like a horse pill and was easy to swallow. But I think they said that they had strategies for when people had trouble.
•  They velcroed this giant belt thing around my midsection, which was inconvenient but which I guess I needed to wear until eight hours had passed. I guess the "pill" sent a signal to something in the "belt," from which the information was later retrieved. Anyway, the belt was pretty cumbersome and I ended up not working that day.
• The camera comes out and you flush it. (I don't remember if I ever actually saw the thing again, now that I think of it. There was no suggestion of an x-ray to check if it was still there.)
• The adhesive goo was impossible to scrub off and stayed on my torso for almost a week.
posted by brina at 4:12 PM on May 11, 2012

My experience 2 years ago was the same as brina's.

The most annoying part was carrying around the giant belt thing. It was uncomfortable and fit awkwardly. If you can stay in one place or limit your activity while you have the belt on you, do so. I had the belt for 6 or 8 hours.

The camera-pill I had to swallow was larger than I expected but it wasn't that big of a deal. It went down (and presumably came out) without any problems.

I don't remember any adhesive.
posted by vincele at 6:02 PM on May 11, 2012