The instructions will provide specific direction about when to start and stop the clear liquid diet. In most cases, you may drink or eat the following:. A health care professional will ask you to follow the directions for a bowel prep before the procedure.
The bowel prep will cause diarrhea , so you should stay close to a bathroom. Different bowel preps may contain different combinations of laxatives —pills that you swallow or powders that you dissolve in water and other clear liquids—and enemas. Some people will need to drink a large amount, often a gallon, of liquid laxative over a scheduled amount of time—most often the night before the procedure.
You may find this part of the bowel prep difficult; however, completing the prep is very important. Your doctor will not be able to see your sigmoid colon clearly if the prep is incomplete. Call a health care professional if you have side effects that prevent you from finishing the prep. A trained medical professional performs a flexible sigmoidoscopy during an office visit or at a hospital or an outpatient center.
You typically do not need sedatives or anesthesia, and the procedure takes about 20 minutes. The scope pumps air into your large intestine to give the doctor a better view. The camera sends a video image of your intestinal lining to a monitor, allowing the doctor to examine the tissues lining your sigmoid colon and rectum. The doctor may ask you to move several times on the table to adjust the scope for better viewing.
Once the scope has reached your transverse colon , the doctor slowly withdraws it and examines the lining of your sigmoid colon again. During the procedure, your doctor may remove polyps and send them to a lab for testing.
Colon polyps are common in adults and are harmless in most cases. However, most colon cancer begins as a polyp, so removing polyps early is an effective way to prevent cancer. If your doctor finds abnormal tissue, he or she may perform a biopsy. If your doctor found polyps or other abnormal tissue during a flexible sigmoidoscopy, your doctor may suggest you return for a colonoscopy. A health care professional will give you written instructions on how to take care of yourself after the procedure and will review them with you.
You should follow all instructions. If the doctor removed polyps or performed a biopsy, you may have light bleeding from your anus. A screening exam can find precancerous polyps that can be removed before they turn into cancer. It can also help find colorectal cancer at an early stage when it is easier to treat and cure.
In addition to stool tests, there are two main procedures to screen for colorectal cancer — colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy. Colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy are screening tests that use a thin flexible tube with a camera at the end to look at the colon but differ in the areas they can see.
A colonoscopy examines the entire colon, while a sigmoidoscopy covers only the lower part of the colon, also known as the rectum and sigmoid colon. A sigmoidoscopy is a less invasive screening test. The bowel prep is less complicated. A proctoscopy or anoscopy procedures to examine the inside of the rectum and anus , and even a flexible sigmoidoscopy, are less invasive and can be done in an office. But with colonoscopy, in general, you need to have a full bowel prep and some sedation.
They are are procedures that use a scope to examine your insides and look for disease, but they have different uses. Learn more about vaccine availability. Advertising Policy. You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter. Q: What is an endoscopy, and how is it different from a colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy? Related Articles.
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