Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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So this morning I had an Upper GI & x-ray. I had to swallow the nasty white barium drink which makes its way through your intestines and allows the doc to follow its travels through the GI system using x-rays. I took maybe an hour & a half or so for it to reach my colon. Then the test was done.

About 3 hours after I first started drinking the barium, it's already starting to pass through me. I had around 3 cups of the stuff. Does this have any significance?

I've been working with my GP to figure out my chronic fatigue/muscle weakness, inability to gain weight, and IBS. He suspects it's some sort of malabsorption issue so he sent me to the GI doctor for "Diarrhea and weight loss" who looked at all of my previous blood work and ordered some additional testing for C.diff antibodies and my cortisol level along with the Upper GI (hopefully will get these results by the end of the week).

Most of my blood labs are within range, but some of the levels look a little whacky to me. I mentioned to my GP that my testosterone & B12 levels seem in the low range, but he keeps saying they're perfectly fine.

If anyone has thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Hopefully my GI doctor will be able to offer something conclusive in the next couple of days.

Thanks!

flag	asked Jun 20 at 16:29 Kyev 191●1●5

Jackie · Answer 1 · 2012-06-20 17:15:09Z UTC

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I had a barium swallow last fall, the upper GI and small bowel series, and I began to pass the barium within 3-4 hours, but most of it was about 5-6 hours later. I had eaten lightly the day before and obviously had nothing the day of - so it might be kind of normal.

answered Jun 20 at 17:15

Jackie
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	Thanks Jackie, perhaps barium passes through more quickly? I guess my concern is if food is also passing through at the same rate. – Kyev Jun 20 at 23:48
	I would hope my body would prioritize moving barium out of my body quickly. I'm not sure you can extrapolate how fast your other food is digesting from that. You could do a test of your own and eat 1-2 beets. You'll know exactly what your transit time is after that. – Happy Now Aug 15 at 22:36

Kelly · Answer 2 · 2012-06-20 17:19:33Z UTC

when I did mine it was through in 30 minutes (they told me to be prepared to be there for up to 8 hours while they constantly snapped xrays of me; after the first xrays in 20 minutes they had to take them all at one time)....in my case it meant that my digestion transition time was way too fast obviously....mind you this was a few years ago. They sent me for allergy testing, I ended up being allergic to just about everything in my diet.

My colonoscopy not long after ended up revealing much irritation, the tissue was tested was pure immflamtion from allergies. I was not absorbing nutrients and was barely 100lbs. All my blood work was within the limits, no infections just clearly imflamation.

Finish getting all the testing and hopefully they'll have a clear picture of everything

primallykosher · Answer 3 · 2012-06-20 19:32:57Z UTC

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Barium cause severe pain for me. I really wish they would devise another test for testing the upper GI. Takes at least 5 hours to pass through me.

answered Jun 20 at 19:32

primallykosher
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Yea, not the most pleasant stuff. I didn't get much pain, but a little nausea. – Kyev Jun 20 at 23:41

Upper GI - Barium passed through after 3 hours - too quick?

3 Answers