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Small Capsule Endoscopy

odcdinah

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odcdinah Contributor
odcdinah
Posted

Has anyone had a small capsule endoscopy? What is it like?

Thanks! Dinah

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mmaccartney Explorer
mmaccartney
Posted

I had that done last year. By far it was the coolest test.

Basically you swallow a large pill sized camera with lights and all, kinda space age! then you put on a vest with wires and recording equipment. The wires are attached to your abdomen, kinda like an ekg. Then you go on about your day! At the end of the day you return to the doctor, they take the recording device and send you on your way. The camera just comes out and gets flushed.

What your doctor gets are thousands and thousands of pictures of your digestive tract. The entire tract!! It shows all the areas that endoscopy and colonoscopy cannot get to without surgery!

Make sure your insurance will cover it before you have it done, at ~$1000.00 it is an expensive test!!!

My doctor told the insurance company he was trying to rule out chrons disease (which was the truth at the time) and that gave them the justification to cover the costs of the testing.

odcdinah Contributor
odcdinah
Posted
  • Author

Great! Thanks very much for the info!

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NicoleAJ Enthusiast
NicoleAJ
Posted

I also had a capsule endoscopy done. My insurance covered mine because I had already had a few colonoscopies and an upper endoscopy and they just couldn't get to the parts that they wanted to see most with these tests. My insurance covered it for this reason--as a last resort. The only thing that I didn't like about it is that my doctor only kept the pack on for 5 hours or so, so they didn't get to see my entire digestive system (leading to inconclusive results). In addition, if you go through an Xray or strong metal detector while its in your system, the capsule could burn your innards--so don't plan Xrays or flights for the day or so after your procedure.

jennyj Collaborator
jennyj
Posted

I too had one done. I was nervous before hand but it was fine. I never knew when it was gone. It was really helpful to the docs.

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