Low fibre vegetarian diet 7 days before colonoscopy/gastroscopy?

[HeathisWealth]

White carbs, eggs, cheese, butter, processed cereals, milk, well cooked carrots and strained tomatoes (but staining?).

This is my idea of food hell.

White bread egg/cheese sarnies?

Pasta with butter and cheese?

Usual diet is rich in fruit, berries, seeds and nuts with my yoghurt, veggies (skin on!), beans, pulses, salads, seeds and nuts- and wholemeal, brown and whole grain.

Please can I ask for your help with better ideas as honestly, if I didn't need one before, I'll definitely need one with that diet!

Macaron cheese is nice and I’d eat copious amounts of cheese on toast I already do.
What about a pasty or two?
And there are numerous things you could do with eggs.
Pasta with pesto? Or pasta aglioli.

can you eat chips? A chip butty is a meal in itself.

i realise none of these suggestions are healthy, but it’s just for a few days.

Like you, my diet is full of berries and veg and seeds and everything that is banned. I hate the white diet before a colonoscopy. But it is what it is.

Along with the other tips, I’d recommend getting some bone broth if you have a 24-hour fast period before (I normally have a 24-28 hour fast period). You are allowed clear liquids - and bone broth was fine. Helps rebalance the electrolytes and there is only so much lemonade you can drink.

For the prep, I’d recommend having some baby wipes to hand and some sudacrem or similar.

I hope you are okay

Jacket potatoes with cheese (don’t eat the skins)
greek yogurt and bananas - applesauce
Baked apples with greek yogurt
Omelette with cheese
macaroni cheese
baked veg in the oven greek style - courgette, peppers, carrots, potatoes in some veg stock may be ok

Picolax is my med of choice. It's vaguely lemony, they are all a bit salty. Assuming you have the same instructions as I normally get, it's preferable as you have a normal size glass of it per dose and then the rest of the fluid intake is plain water, which is far easier to get down.

Apple crumble and custard? Or just stewed apples with custard or Greek yoghurt

💕 thank you 😊

Some great ideas- thanks again for you kind wishes and helping me out here.

There's a lot going on at home with the family and this health worry has been hanging around for a couple of months now. I've tried to park it but now it's upon me, I just couldn't flip the switch in my brain to 'cans', it was stuck in the 'cannots'.

I really do appreciate the kindness of strangers here. Obviously I know how important the procedure is and 'it's only a week' - so I appreciate those of you who recognise the bigger picture here.

Send love back to those of you in a similar boat. Here's to good health. 🫶🏼

good luck with the preperation and procedure.

had to have both a sig and full scope and the prep was the worst.
weirdly, after the full I felt a lot better for a while. as if the diet and clear out re-set my upset gut.

I ate a lot of pasta & cheese

Bowl of Greek yoghurt for breakfast, scrambled / poached eggs and smoked salmon on white toast for lunch, mac and cheese / fish and chips/ bbq for dinner.

Don’t know if anyone up thread has mentioned this but check out the FODMAP diet. I was put on this in hospital when they thought I had diverticulitis (turned out to be a ruptured appendix!). It’s low fibre, although at the time eating was the last thing on my mind.

Omelette with yoghurt and feta.

Macaroni cheese.

Pasta with passata & cheese sauce or peeled cooked potato slices lasagne style.

Baked sweet potato (leaving the skin) with cottage cheese.

Coconut rice (using creamed coconut/coconut milk) - can be sweet or savoury, the former with tinned peaches.

Noodles with tofu and sweet and sour sauce.

Coco de nata puddings.

Potato soup - use a good stock cube, onion and garlic powder and blitz cooked potatoes. Use cheese (blue is good) to give more oomph to the flavour. If that doesn't appeal, use stock and have pieces of peeled potato, carrot and suchlike with tofu, add rice noodles or cooked rice and soy/sake/mirin.

Sieved fruit couli/pureé with yoghurt/cream/ice cream/ rice pudding.

Passata - add onion and garlic powder, grated fresh ginger juice and let cook down. Add tofu, peeled cooked potato, carrot/etc and serve with rice. None of the leaflets seem to have an issue with hot sauce, smooth mustard or ground white pepper, which will give it some heat, and if it's still not quite right, a splash of no bits pineapple juice give a nice sweet and sour note.

Eggs Benedict minus the meat.

You could also have standard custard or chocolate custard with tinned pears, chocolate puddings, creme caramel and many, many other things rather than existing on toast for 7 days.

I was low residue for just over a year, I had to go back to eating fish and a bit of meat as I was veggie before that. But what shocked me was how much better my whole digestion was on the "rubbish food" diet. I wasn't even constipated 🤷 , I'd had a good healthy diet before.

It's a little known fact that bananas leave no residue so are ideal in this situation. I knew this for family reasons and when I checked with my consultant he had to go and check himself before confirming that I was right - if you crave fresh fruit bananas are fine. The poor relly who told me this was fed exclusively on bananas for several weeks due to a horrible illness!

Hey, my partner is veggie and did have a colonoscopy. As the main cook in our house I leaned heavily on pasta and mash.
I would treat it as an opportunity to indulge in cakes and biscuits.
Pasta agio et olio (squash a few garlic cloves, add to olive oil in a hot frying pan, take garlic out, add pasta and a splash of pasta water, add cheese and black pepper), pasta carbonara (smoked tofu instead of guiancale/ pancetta), pancakes with lemon juice and sugar or maple syrup and butter, lovely white sourdough toast with lots of butter and jam/ marmite/ honey/ cheese
Cheese and tomato pizza,
Clear broth with tofu and noodles
Mashed potato with truffle oil or garlic oil instead of butter
Cheesey risotto
Cheese on toast
Hope you find something you like

Just wanted to add my experience to reassure you, I'm vegetarian and eat a good diet, lots of vegetables, wholegrain fibre, pulses and seeds. The first colonoscopy I had I wasn't even told to follow a special diet (only no iron tablets) so ate as normal, absolutely fine. Consultant commented on my good preparation.
Second one in a different hospital Trust I was told to follow a special diet. Took one look at it and thought I'd be constipated within 2 days if I changed my diet so radically and that would be worse so basically didn't bother.
The consultant said it looked like someone had been through with a mop it was that clear.
Not necessarily advocating my approach but it didn't seem to matter at all and when I researched it there's massive variance across health boards and countries on advice given anyway. Taking the full prep with plenty of water is what they really need you to do.

Definitely pot of Vaseline by the toilet and apply every time. It's red raw otherwise.

I recently had a colonoscopy and had to eat low fibre diet for 2 days before. It explicitly said no fruit, veg, salad, cakes, biscuits, chips, jacket potato skins. I could have white bread, pasta and rice. Lean white meat and fish. Cottage cheese, rice krispies, cornflakes. Butter was allowed but spread thinly. You could have clear jelly, clear soup/consomme. Eggs were fine. So quite restrictive.

I had mango flavoured Plenvu which wasn't too bad. The worst of the diarrhea was largely over after a couple of hours.

Are there any other foods allowed? Potatoes? Surely plain yogurt?
From the list you have in your op, I'd suggest
Simple pasta with sauted tomatoes and grated cheese
Carrot soup
Pasta soup made with stock and passata
Cheese omelette
Simple shakshuka - saute tomatoes until soft, crack a couple of eggs in and simmer, top with sprinkle of feta cheese
Roasted carrots as side dish, maybe you can dress up with a little olive oil and cumin?

the reduced fibre diet it not just to clear the gut but also to prevent internal scratches that could result in false positive results from the clear out.

Done 4 coloscopies so have experience. Why 7 days? Each time I was asked to do this for 3 days. My last coloscopy was early 2024.

Also each NHS trust has different what you can/cannot eat. Leicester, the only F&V you can have is potatoes with no skin - mashed or skinless boiled.

Other NHS trusts when Google coloscopy diet NHS. Have seen PDF files of various diet sheets. Some include stewed apples with no skin and tinned peaches.

You need to eat as little fibre and no food with bits.

OP, my diet is like yours - fruit, veg, wholegrain bread and cereal.

The things I ate where Quavers, chocolate mousse, white toast with poached egg, Coco Pops, shop bought syrup sponge and custard.

As to the prep stuff you take. I have taken Moviprep and Plenvu. Moviprep I have never felt so full before as got to drink 1 litre of Moviprep (best to add orange, lemon, apple (not berry) cordial) then half a litre of water.

Plenvu you make with 500ml then drink another 500ml afterwards.

OP which is your NHS trust so can see if any files have been added to the internet

I’d just do broths with skinned potatoes, carrots, courgette, mushroom and buttered white bread for dinners.

Breakfast do something like ready brek or omelette.

Also pancakes!

I Googled NHS colonoscopy diet and some examples

https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/health-information/colonoscopy-diet-advice-and-bowel-preparation/3-days-your-colonoscopy - almost identical to the Leicester hospitals. I had 4 done at 3 different hospitals. https://yourhealth.leicestershospitals.nhs.uk/library/chuggs/gastroenterology/endoscopy/1315-preparing-for-your-endoscopy-procedure-with-a-low-residue-fibre-diet/file

https://www.uhsussex.nhs.uk/resources/low-residue-diet/#bread-cereals-and-grains

The veg allowed - I wouldn't be complaining

• Well-cooked or pureed root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, turnips or swede, tomatoes without skins or seeds such as tomato juice, canned de-seeded tomatoes, passata, tomato puree
• Well-pureed hummus, lentil soup sieved to remove skins
• Vegetable juices or soups – sieved to get rid of any seeds/skins
• Avocado
• Mashed potatoes or well-cooked potatoes without skin, for example jacket potato, boiled potato
• Gnocchi

One more thing - I haven’t RTFT so you might already have been told this. You’ll be offered anaesthesia or sedation. I was advised that I should ask for both which I did. Really glad for that advice if you have a low pain threshold

To be fair, omnivores don’t have a whole lot of other options, chicken breast and white fish maybe. I ate a lot of rich tea biscuits.

My reaction to the diet was the same as yours. Basically the opposite of my usual diet. It's boring rather than unpleasant and you won't go hungry. You may well get constipated though.
If I was doing it again I would use movicol each day plus I would eat as little as possible for at least 24 hours before the prep.