Today I have my health check paid by my company. Everyone does it and I did it last year but weirdly I can’t remember the answer to the first question :
1. Do you get totally naked under the gown they make you wear? Can I keep my boxers on? I don’t want to be that one guy…
2. This is my first time having the barium swallow test. Half the people I know have told me It’s nothing, half have told me I’m definitely going to die. What are you experiences with it?
Thank you
15 comments
1. Keep your underwear on, you’re not supposed to be naked. I usually leave a t-shirt and socks on as well. There will usually be signs in the changing room with pictures indicating what to take off.
2. Barium is unpleasant, but minor. First you take a kind of carbonation powder that inflates your stomach. You’ll want to burp but hold it in until the exam is done. Then you drink the barium and they twist you into all sorts of orientations to take photos. For the next two days after you’ll be pooping white rocks.
You can leave your shorts on.
People have different reactions to barium. I usually have minimal side effects from medicine, vaccine, and the like, but barium once gave me a headache so severe I couldn’t even stay conscious for six or seven hours.
Ours give us pants to wear with a typical gown top, but yes, underwear on.
Barium isn’t exactly the nicest tasting concoction. Kind of like a chalky, fizzy milkshake. In general it isn’t too terrible, though the endless spinning around and the nurse telling you to “flip over please. One more time.” makes you feel stupid.
The medical centre I always go to gives pyjamas to wear, I wear my boxers underneath and no issue.
As much as you will want to, don’t burp, or the staff will be annoyed and make you drink more. I didn’t have a problem with the after effects.
I hated the barium. The taste, the texture, the nearly vomiting and wanting to burp… all things I could endure. The nurse refusing to let me leave the room without forcing me to take laxatives, that… that wasn’t cool. I learned that trying to walk home was a very very very bad idea. I choose the camera option now. If I’m going to humiliate myself in public, I wanna be sedated first.
Between barium and the camera I don’t know which I hate more. I can’t hold in burbs, and I have a horrible gag reflex. It’s all very uncomfortable and I hate it.
They all answered your question. So I give you just a small tip after the barium test. The white poop you’ll pass is heavy and tend to stay in your toilet bowl for days if you don’t do anything. So when you go to the bathroom afterwards, take maybe 1 meter of toilet paper and spread it on the water in your toilet bowl, then do your business. The white poop will be flushed away with the paper. Continue until you pass a normal stool.
Last time I did the barium in the morning and then had meetings until 8pm that night, got really dehydrated and ended up with a brutal headache. Drink lots of water! Also it takes a few days to work through completely.
You can keep your boxers on or freeball it, totally up to you.
I opted out of the barium test.
Always go keeping only underwear and socks.
When gown is not properly set some nurse may ask me to hide chest hairs.
Barium : just make sure you hold the gas until they are done rotating and checking you …then make sure you do get a pill anytime prior leaving the clinic/med center. (If you daily poo won’t really matter else better use the pill [laxative])
the barium gave me a stomachache. drink a TON of water after and for the rest of the day to help get it through and out your system
Barium sucks. The milkshake thing or whatever they give you tastes like liquid chalk vomit. I couldn’t swallow it and had to just give up before even starting the gymnastics. Miserable experience. I’m sure the camera is almost just as miserable though.
About the barium thing. Japanese people loathe it. They insist it’s the worst thing in the world.
For me, it’s a kind of chalky-yogurty tasting drink they give you along with a thing that makes you want to burp. Rolling around on a burpy tummy isn’t exactly fun, but it’s no big deal. Just make sure your close to facilities when they give you the laxative.
The Japanese told me all kind of scary things about the barium test, some of them looked like they’ve just went through hell after doing it. For me and my foreign friends, it’s nothing. Just remember to check your poops to see if it came out.
After the Barium test, your poo will be lighter in color and will settle at the bottom of your toilet. Flushing won’t simply get rid of it, be prepared to scrub wi the your brush while flushing several times. It’s a pain.
Trying to lay toilet paper before pushing out the barium helps but won’t solve the brushing chore.