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GASTROSCOPY
An Information Guide for Patients
Gastroscopy allows the doctor or nurse endoscopist to look directly at the lining of the upper part of your digestive tract. A thin flexible telescope is passed through your mouth and into your gullet, stomach and the first part of the small intestine, the ‘duodenum’. One or more tiny tissue samples, ‘biopsies’, may be taken for laboratory analysis.
To help make the gastroscopy more comfortable, we offer you a special spray that ‘numbs’ the throat or a mild sedative given by injection. The purpose of the sedative is to relax you. It is, however, not a General Anaesthetic, you will be awake and aware of the procedure.
If you choose throat spray, you can drive yourself home after the procedure.
If you choose the sedative injection, you should feel fine and ready to go home within approximately one hour after the procedure, but your ability to drive will be impaired for up to 24 hours. Therefore you MUST arrange for an escort to accompany you home from the Endoscopy unit afterwards and a responsible adult to look after you for the rest of the day. Please ask your escort to ring and ask for your discharge time on 020 8321 2585. You must tell us in advance if this is not possible. Your appointment may be cancelled if these arrangements have not been made.
It is very important that your stomach is empty for the examination.
If you have a morning appointment, please do not have anything to eat or drink from midnight, apart from a small glass of water at 06.00 a.m.
If you have an afternoon appointment, you may have a light breakfast before 7 am but nothing more to eat or drink after this time, apart from a small glass of water two hours before your appointment time.
If you are a diabetic, using tablets or insulin, you should not take these on the morning of the test. We will aim to carry out your gastroscopy at or near the beginning of the session. Please bring your tablets or insulin and a sandwich with you so that you can then take your medication and eat soon afterwards. If we have given you an afternoon appointment, and you are insulin-dependent diabetic, please call us on 020 8321 5752 and we will give you a morning time instead.
If you are on anti-coagulants, for example warfarin, please call us on 020 8321 2585 as soon as you receive your appointment date and talk to one of the nurses.
If you are taking a drug to reduce stomach acid please stop this, if you can, a week or more before the gastroscopy. The main drugs are Omeprazole (Losec), Lansoprazole (Zoton), Pantoprazole (Protium), Rabeprazole (Pariet).
Please bring a list of all the tablets you normally take.
Please report to the receptionist in the Endoscopy Unit. Please note that waiting room space for relatives is limited and that children and infants are NOT allowed in the Unit. One of our nursing team will escort you to the ward area, explain the test and ask you some questions about your general health and medication. The nurse will also explain the difference between local anaesthetic throat spray and sedative injection. A doctor or nurse endoscopist will also come to talk to you and answer any queries you may have.
You may find that you have to wait a while before it is your turn to have the examination and / or to speak to the Endoscopist afterwards, so feel free to bring a book or a newspaper. If you choose throat spray, you may be in the Department for up to 60 – 90 mins; with sedation, up to 2 – 2.5 hrs.
The doctor or nurse endoscopist will ensure that you understand the procedure, the benefits and any possible risks and will then ask you to sign a consent form.
The vast majority of gastroscopies are performed without complication and even though the staff of the Endoscopy Unit are very experienced, as for any procedure, there are some small risks involved such as reactions to the medication used. Very rarely, a small tear, ‘perforation’, can be made in the intestine and there is a small risk of bleeding. These complications are rare (less than 1 in 1000 examinations), but may require urgent treatment, blood transfusion or even an operation. The possibility of complication is greater when the endoscope is used to apply treatment such as dilatation.
Once in the examination room, you will be made comfortable, lying on your left side , on the couch and given your throat spray or sedative injection. Two nurses and the endoscopist will stay with you throughout the test. If you are sedated, your pulse and blood oxygen levels will be monitored. At the end of the examination it may take an hour or so before you are fully awake and ready to get dressed. If you choose the throat spray, you can get up much more quickly. The examination should take only 5-10 minutes if no treatment is required through the endoscope.
Once you are awake and ready to go home, the endoscopist who carried out your gastroscopy will come and talk to you and explain the findings. If you would like to wait until a member of your family is there to listen as well, please tell the nurse in the recovery area.
We produce a printed report of your gastroscopy immediately after the examination and usually send this your GP within 24 hours. If the endoscopist feels that you need a follow up consultation in the Outpatients Department, this will be arranged.
If you have any questions regarding your gastroscopy appointment do not hesitate to contact the Endoscopy Unit on 020 8321 5752.
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