I'm on the five-year plan. I've got the bad polyps. This is my year to get it done. I've never had trouble with the prep in the past, but now I have a little pouch. The prep includes drinking a massive amount Water along with a whole bottle of miralax and magnesium citrate.

I asked the nurse (surgeon's team) and they said to ask the gastroenterology folks when I made my appointment. When I made my appointment, I asked about prep alternatives and they weren't sure. They asked me to check with my primary physician. Surely, I can't be the first gastric bypass person to get a colonoscopy at this rather large clinic in Minneapolis.

Has anyone here had a colonoscopy done after they've had weight-loss surgery? Did you have an alternative to the prep or the procedure?

I thought I would explore my options before writing my primary care physician an email. I will also google it, but do want to hear first hand from people about their experience (pros and cons). This way I could tell her which alternative I prefer.

Thank you so much for your responses!

What I was told, was that you still have to do all the prep, but you get a lot more time to do it. Which doesn't sound very promising. I know I have to see my new Gastroenterologist this month, and I'm hoping he will not want me to have a colonoscopy. He's very good with bariatric patients I am told. So I hope it goes well.

This is definitely something I think needs more research. Wish I could help more, but that's all the information my surgeon gave me.

I would think the people at the Bariatric center/hospital where you had your surgery could advise you.

Good luck with everything, and let us know what they had you do.

Each doctor is different with their prep orders. Mine only required 1 or 2 bottles of magnesium citrate spread out over several hours. I also had to take several Dulcolax. Whereas my mother had to drink almost a gallon of whatever as her prep. The magnesium citrate bottles aren't very big.

Any updates on this thread? I'll be scheduling my colonoscopy soon - first time after bypass -- thanks!

I had my colonoscopy late October. My gastro clinic and surgeon's clinic have no specific guidelines for colonoscopy prep. I had to follow the same instructions, just took a lot longer to do it. Instead of drinking eight ounces every 15 minutes for an hour, it took me three plus hours. The only problem with drinking so much SF Gatorade laced with Miralax is that there really wasn't time for me to eat anything on the liquid diet. So basically for two days, I had two cups of broth. I really wasn't hungry because I was drinking so much.

My NUT said that not eating for two days wasn't going to kill me and I wouldn't suffer nutritionally. She also said that even though they discourage drinking juices, that drinking apple juice or another clear juice would be ok, especially if your diabetic like me and worried that your blood sugar is going to crash. Another suggestion is powders?utm_source=BariatricPal&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=CommentLink" target="_ad" data-id="1" >unjury makes a Protein chicken Soup and this would be good to keep up with your protein intake.

Other than that, we don't get an easier way of prepping. Lucky me, I've been promoted to the three-year plan now and I get to do this all over again in three years instead of the five years.