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  • Medical Tests

    For those of you who underwent medical tests, what did you have to do to prepare for them?

    Every time I underwent ultrasound tests for either my bladder or my uterus, I had drink tons of water and hold in my pee. Today's test was no different, except for the excruciating TORTURE of not being able to go until the test was done! No amount of dry desert thoughts could quell the agonizing cries of my poor bladder! The exception was my first time, when the sonographer examined my kidneys.

    Bloodwork was easier, though. All I had to do was fast for 12 hours.

    My mom underwent a colonoscopy. She had to drink MoviPrep and had to go on a clear fluid diet for one day. My father had a CT scan for his aneurysm and an MRI and an angiogram. He was lucky in that he didn't have do any prep work.

    What about you? What did you have to do to prepare for them?
    Last edited by EricKei; 03-13-2015, 02:37 AM. Reason: title change requested by OP
    cindybubbles (👧 ❤️ 🎂 )

    Enter Cindyland here!

  • #2
    Hmmm.
    IVP, show up and get an IV set. Then drive down to lower base really fast and pee there. <they have radiation detectors in the sewers there that pick up the indicator and sound an alarm that puts lower base into lockdown. In the right building, I generally could get off lower base fast enough t be able to pull into the next parking lot outside and watch them go nuts looking for a radiation leak.>
    Barium from either end - upper end - chug a bunch of nasty radio opaque shake and get imaged. Lower end do a nasty bunch of vaguely lemon lime swill to give myself the shits, then show up and get a radio opaque enema and roll around on a table while getting imaged.
    We all know about colonoscopies, I have coming up in about a month.
    You mentioned ultrasounds for lower abdominal purposes, I have additionally had them done for gallbladder, pancreas, throat [para and thyroid], x-rays of various parts of my anatomy [I have broken something on the order of about 40 bones over the years] um, blood tests that require fasting or not fasting, or taking various other components. Hm, I test my glucose all the damned time, and occasionally do a urine dip to check protein levels. Done plenty of piss tests for pre-employment so they are checking for various drugs. Some drugs I have been on I need to be blood or urine tested for various things, in general every 3 months I end up giving about 6 vials and one piss cup. Eye exams, but I also get my retinas imaged.
    Just did my smashogram today, show up with no notions, potions or lotions applied and get my tits smashed between 2 flat plates.
    Did the usual scratch crap for allergy testing, audiolab for checking my hearing and later in life worked as a guinea pig for the Navy listening for embedded sounds that was a lot of fun - no real prep for that other than a before and after in depth hearing testing. Done plenty of guinea pig work for Omega Labs and done various blood tests and suchlike - gets me free influenza shots and other stuff - which means I get titred for antibodies for all sorts of things.

    Oh and the usual CT and MRI, and I did a chemical cardiac stress test that was interesting. And Yale was using one of my echocardiograms for teaching, the prof came down to ask for one, and I was there, so they got my permission to do some extra imaging.

    In general they will tell you what you need to do pre-test and anything you don't understand you can ask and they will generally be nice and explain. I get specialty consults occasionally because of the drugs I am on and the guinea pigging [which unfortunately also means I can no longer give blood, but thems the breaks.]
    EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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    • #3
      Ugh, I had one of those ultrasounds once. It was the worst couple hours of my life. I'm one of those people who has to pee a lot anyway, so I was miserable.
      https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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      • #4
        I didn't have to have a full bladder for my ultrasounds when I was pregnant with my daughter, which I thought was unusual, but I think the tech was just that good because she had no problem finding anything. The Glucola tests I had to take, though, were torture. The first one, I could have a regular breakfast and the fruit punch flavored drink they gave me tasted almost exactly like Mountain Dew Code Red. I almost wanted to see if I could take some home. The second time I took the test, the drink was sweeter and I couldn't eat after midnight the night before, and I had to wait three hours until the test was done before I could eat again. It was lunchtime by the time I got to eat something. The third one, after I had my daughter, was somewhere between the first and second in sweetness, and I only had to wait two hours after the test before I could eat again, but my body does NOT like not being fed, especially when I have to get up early.
        The fact that jellyfish have survived for 650 million years despite not having brains gives hope to many people.

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        • #5
          I had a CT scan when I was in hospital over the weekend and I had to drink contrast (Omipaque) which I had to drink over an hour and promptly made me sick. Later I couldn't stop throwing up and considering I hadn't eaten for almost two days I was beginning to throw up blood.

          A nurse and two different types of anti emetic later I passed out asleep and felt much better when I woke up.

          I have a cyst on my right ovary that has decided to cause problems so I will be seeing a gyno shortly and hopefully getting shot of it.
          Final Fantasy XIV - Acorna Starfall - Ragnarok (EU Legacy)

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          • #6
            I've really only had ultrasounds. For nearly all of them barring one, I've had to do the "drink 1-2L of water and hold it" thing, although for the first time I did it, it was absolute torture because I also had a UTI. I think the clinic let me go earlier in sympathy!
            The only time I haven't had to do it was when I was in hospital with abdominal pain and it turned out that an ovarian cyst had either become dominant or ruptured (not sure which, hospital said one thing, GP said another) and I was fasting in case they needed me to do exploratory surgery.
            The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

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            • #7
              Update:

              My last ultrasound revealed multiple fibroids (no surprise for me, though), and my doctor thinks that they could be the cause of my vaginal bleeding between periods. So I'm getting referred to see a gynecologist now.
              cindybubbles (👧 ❤️ 🎂 )

              Enter Cindyland here!

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              • #8
                So I did my usual 3 month doc visit - a1c 6.6 and I am down 30 pounds since June - all Doc C did was add victoza to my daily drug regimen. This visit he added a fourth drug, so we will see what will happen over the next 3 months. I will actually admit I am more psyched over the 30 pounds than I am with still keeping my a1c at 6.6 - I normally have very tightly controlled numbers, 30+ years of practice being diabetic dontchaknow =) If I keep up the rate of weight loss, I will be down to my original appropriate for size weight in 4 years with no surgery, no exercise and no change in diet. To me, this is a 'magic pill'.
                EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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                • #9
                  Quoth AccountingDrone View Post
                  Then drive down to lower base really fast and pee there. <they have radiation detectors in the sewers there that pick up the indicator and sound an alarm that puts lower base into lockdown. In the right building, I generally could get off lower base fast enough t be able to pull into the next parking lot outside and watch them go nuts looking for a radiation leak.>
                  Was that intentional? In the case of your practical joke, they'd be looking for a (literal) leak. BTW, I'd advise against anybody pulling something like this. The authorities tend to have no sense of humour regarding radiation incidents, and if you get caught deliberately causing a lockdown they might treat it as a terrorist act.
                  Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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                  • #10
                    Quoth wolfie View Post
                    Was that intentional? In the case of your practical joke, they'd be looking for a (literal) leak. BTW, I'd advise against anybody pulling something like this. The authorities tend to have no sense of humour regarding radiation incidents, and if you get caught deliberately causing a lockdown they might treat it as a terrorist act.
                    Actually yes it was done deliberately. I have had my *disagreements* with the Navy off and on throughout Rob's career. It ended when they started hiring actual certified doctors. What I mainly objected to was the old school milmed. At one point in time there was a doc that was nicknamed Dr Death - when I saw him in 1995 for a bout of pleurisy he had 22 cases of malpractice running through the system. Despite a screaming hot pink allergy folder with Penicillin on it in 3 inch letters he decided my 6 month old case of pneumonia was bronchitis and prescribed penicillin. [I had woken up from a nap with chest pains, a fast thready heart beat and light headedness. I loaded my nondriving roomie into the car with me and headed for the base hospital, picked up my records from the records room and hit the base ER. As far as I knew I might have been having a heart attack.] I also seriously resented sitting in the orthopods office with my husband on a consult for the knee pain and being told to stop sitting on my ass eating candy all day ... despite the imaging from 2 torn ACLs and a dx letter from my original sports orthopod telling me flat out to expect osteoarthritis. *That* cost that doc some problems when Rob went straight to the patient ombudsman on that. And then there is the whole 'husband is out to see, she must be lonely and seeking attention' form of munchausen's syndrome. It got bad enough that I would effectively wait until I was bad enough to need admitting before bothering to get an appointment. One memorable time I was within hours of my kidneys shutting down. When I walked into the base ER that time they thought I was in heroin withdrawl I looked so dead white and zombilike.

                    Why yes, dependents get full medical when their spouses are in ... but back in the bad old days it could be lifethreatening to go to the base for medical treatment ...
                    EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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                    • #11
                      What I was asking about being intentional was your association of "radiation leak" with peeing (a.k.a. "taking a leak"). Sometimes the best puns are accidental.
                      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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                      • #12
                        Quoth wolfie View Post
                        What I was asking about being intentional was your association of "radiation leak" with peeing (a.k.a. "taking a leak"). Sometimes the best puns are accidental.
                        Or as The Stainless Steel Rat said, watching all the excitement on-base, "Wherever I go happiness follows!"
                        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
                        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
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                        • #13
                          Quoth wolfie View Post
                          What I was asking about being intentional was your association of "radiation leak" with peeing (a.k.a. "taking a leak"). Sometimes the best puns are accidental.
                          Very deliberate. And honestly it is almost impossible to determine where exactly the radiation came from, just that there was some radiation present in the sewer system - what they do is slam the gates on lower base and send radiation control and health physics around with counters to see if there is an actual leak going on. There really isn't much issue with the amount of radiation detected as it barely registers - what they are looking for is something actually leaking. It is not entirely uncommon for there to be radiation detected in the sewer system on base - they do various types of imagery with radioactive indicators that end up getting pissed out - usually it happens at the base hospital, but it is not uncommon for guys to void elsewhere on base.

                          If caught [and that would be damned near impossible to do unless there was some guy with a meter aimed at you while you peed] you would only have to play blond and say something like nobody told you not to pee ...
                          EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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