Icky Subject: Occult Stool Tests (Sorry)

[Christine]

For those of you who have "done" one of these , can you tell me, am I making TOO much out of the dietary restrictions.

I have to stop Ibuprofen for 7 days (sometimes that's tough!!) and then I apparently can't eat red meat, chicken, or fish for 3 days prior to the test and throughout the test (which is another 3 days). The veggie restrictions I can handle.

When I look on the internet I see various recommendations (some say chicken and fish is okay, some don't). My doctor kind of shrugged the whole thing off.

I really want to do this test correctly (i.e., I DO NOT WANT A POSITIVE RESULT), but man, what am I going to eat for 6 days??? I work full-time with kids and I don't have a lot of time to spend meal planning.

So, what did you do?

 

[Towncrier]

You should follow the directions unless you want to do the test a second time. That's incentive enough for me. I seem to recall eating lots of pasta and pizza during the testing period. Good luck.

 

[Christine]

You should follow the directions unless you want to do the test a second time. That's incentive enough for me. I seem to recall eating lots of pasta and pizza during the testing period. Good luck.

Thanks. I'm definitely going to follow the directions because I don't want to have a colonoscopy (that will be the next step if the test is positive). I just keep finding conflicting reports or the "meat" portion of the diet. Most of them say "no red meat" but chicken is fine. But a few of the internet sites are specific in restrictions eating chicken.

My doctor told me "you just want to go easy on the meat for a few days.

It sounds like I'm going to be eating lots of pizza and spaghetti.

 

[Fan2CSkr]

Follow the directions and whatever you do do NOT take any ibuprophen. If you have to take tylenol. I didnt eat red meat but I did eat chicken and lots of pasta and rice dishes. Good Luck!

 

[Christine]

Follow the directions and whatever you do do NOT take any ibuprophen. If you have to take tylenol. I didnt eat red meat but I did eat chicken and lots of pasta and rice dishes. Good Luck!

The last time I took Ibuprofen was this past Thursday night. I won't be collecting a "sample" until this coming Friday so that gives me about 8 days off the ibuprofen. Do you think that's enough. I was hitting the ibuprofen pretty hard last week due to "the monthly visitor" . I really don't want to have any GI bleeding.