# barium swallow - question



## lorilou (May 9, 2003)

today I had a barium swallow and small bowel follow through- it only took 2.5 hours for it to reach the point where they send ya home. now, when I had this done over 15 years ago it took so long they sent me home to eat and had to come back for more x-rays- Im wondering, i took zelnorm last night at 9 pm- should I not have done this- would that mess with how my body processes stuff without meds> they did not tell me not to take meds- just no food/drink after midnight. I even asked the gastro office and they said take all meds as usual. I was glad to get out of there but i hope the zelnorm didnt mess up the test. any thoughts???


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## ManualShift (Feb 17, 2007)

I had the barium swallow twice, both times for a esophageal issue. The zelnorm I took went through me. It was part of my colonoscopy prep. It caused liquid D in about 30 minutes with nothing else taken before it. I don't think it agrees with D-type people.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

Why were you having the test done? In general, one would want the test to show the disease process one is looking for, so it's best to avoid medications that could interfere with it. It is reasonable to assume that you are probably taking Zelnorm for some kind of impaired transit and it sounds as if the drug is helping, in this case speeding up small bowel transit and altering the behavior of your gut for this test. (Ordinarily, transit is not tested with an SBFT, but your doctor may not have access to the small bowel scintigraphy that would be the best way to test it.)


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