Have you or has your child had the hospital test known as a 'barium swallow'?

[Janni]

I have to take DD (3) for this test tomorrow at Great Ormond Street and wondered if anyone had any tips to make it easier on both of us. She has cystic fibrosis so is no stranger to invasive procedures, but I am SO not looking forward to it!!

Not me but my DH. TBH it wasn't much fun for him but it wasn't the worst test ever either. At least it is at Gt Ormond Street where they will be used to helping little ones go through it. I hope it goes well for you both (it will probably be much harder for you!).

Yep, I'v had one, at least a baruim meal, is that the same thing?

You swallow some fruit flavoured chalky stuff. They whip you down to be scanned, completely painless and quite interesting.

You then have to pooh pdq otherwise it sets inside you

Nothing scary or worrying about any of it.

HTH

Fizzbuzz - well she's quite good at poo-ing generally! Glad to hear it's painless. It's the fear that's associated with these things which is so distressing.

I'm not going to tell her until she wakes up tomorrow. It's at 9 a.m. so I'll take her for a huge treat afterwards.

(What's HTH by the way?)

Oh my DH had to have one that looked and tasted of charcoal Fruity chalky sounds much nicer!

HTH = Hope this helps

ds had one when he had gastroenteritis (again) and they wanted to rule out a blockage.
He just had to drink some clear liquid, which he only took one mouthful of, luckily it was enough to be seen on the scan.
So Im guessing will be the same for your dd, just swallow it and then quick scan.
Good luck hope all goes well

My DS had one when he was 12 months old and I was really nervous about it, was also 8 months pregnant at the time! In fact it was really easy, hardest part was getting him to drink it, they gave it to him in bottle with orange juice and he quite happily drank it. It was over and done with within 5 minutes. Good luck with it.

It is honestly nothing scary at all. Really....as long as the pooh comes out in time!.

I believe I had the choice of forest fruits, strawberry or orange. I say choice....they only had orange on offer as it turned out

Thank you everyone, I feel much better now x
I had HTH down as 'hugs to her'

They might use a water soluble version if she is at risk of aspirating. One is aniseed flavour and the other is orange, but I guess the 'pernod' and 'cointreau' analogy isn't going to be much help in this case
Sometimes they have an unflavoured version which can be mixed with milkshake syrups to the flavour they prefer.
If she has the straightfoward barium she will end up with a really good 'milk moustache' so take some babywipes to clean it off.
Oh, and be prepared for her poo to have speckles of white in it for a few days after. It is just a case of getting her to drink an extra 200 - 300mls on top of what she would normally have for a couple of days. Can be anything, but orange juice can also help with the added fibre to help things through.

reallly really not an 'invasive' procedure.

three of mine have had this as they all were bad refluxers when tiny, and for me, the worst memory was trying to get my then exclusivly BF DD3 to drink the stuff at the age of 3mths. it is rather like liquid gaviscon in taste and texture!

oh, the worst for the babes.......pooing after.....they weren;t the best (all had issues with bowels too) and got tummy ache for a few days until the managed to get it out of their systems.....but I see your DD dosen't normally have pooing problems so she should be absolutely fine.

good luck.

Hope all goes well.

DD had barium swallows at 5yo and about 8/9yo, iirc. Our hospital mixed the powder with nesquik - I think there was the choice of chocolate or banana.

She said it tasted horrid anyway but she knew she had to do it, bless her, and did it anyway.

Never heard the thing about setting inside you before!

She was an absolute star, I was really proud of her and GOSH is such a professional outfit that we were in and out exactly on time.

Thank the Lord for the chocolate flavoured drink!!

Its fine - though once when I had one they didn't scan me quickly enough (ultra speedy system was my problem!) went to the loo and had to find a nurse quickly to tell her that it was coming through already

Can also be a bit of a pig to flush away too. So don't recommend a pub lunch after

The radioactive white poo certainly impressed her brothers!!