Tom. Appt....got a question
I go for my Endoscopy tom at 6:30 am. No one has bothered to call me to tell me when I should stop eating and/or drinking, so I called over there and the VERY rude lady had to put me on hold to ask some one else. She said nothing after midnight. Does 6 hours seem like a real short time to digest everything in my stomach? I mean, I will not be eating at midnight, but I thought it should be 12 hours or something. What did you guys have to do in regards to this?
The reason behind not eating or drinking is two-fold:
You want an empty stomach so they can look around and see things w/o food being in the way for your endoscopy.
And equally important, they want an empty stomach so that in the unlikely event that you vomit or choke due to the anesthesia or procedure, your stomach will be largely empty.
Your pre-op stomach doesn't really "digest" much. It's kind of an extended "pre-wash" cycle. 
The stomach has a valve, the pylorus, at the outlet into the duodenum. Immediately after a meal, the pylorus remains closed. An hour or two later, the valve opens up to allow the stomach contents to pass into the duodenum, the top part of the small intestine; that's where most of the digestion occurs: after the stomach.
(After RNY surgery, your pouch doesn't have a pylorus; food just drips thru the stoma into the Roux limb.)
Anyway, for the day before my RNY, my surgeon told me to eat a final "big meal" (if any pre-op meal could be called big!) at noon, and just have a shake for the final meal on the day before surgery. That gave him 12+ hours to have most of where he'd be operating on cleared of food.
Since you're just worrying about an endoscopy, I'm sure that 6 hours should be more than enough time to ensure that you're prepared. But if it were me, I probably wouldn't have a plate of nachos at 10PM!! 
/Steve
The stomach has a valve, the pylorus, at the outlet into the duodenum. Immediately after a meal, the pylorus remains closed. An hour or two later, the valve opens up to allow the stomach contents to pass into the duodenum, the top part of the small intestine; that's where most of the digestion occurs: after the stomach.
(After RNY surgery, your pouch doesn't have a pylorus; food just drips thru the stoma into the Roux limb.)
Anyway, for the day before my RNY, my surgeon told me to eat a final "big meal" (if any pre-op meal could be called big!) at noon, and just have a shake for the final meal on the day before surgery. That gave him 12+ hours to have most of where he'd be operating on cleared of food.
Since you're just worrying about an endoscopy, I'm sure that 6 hours should be more than enough time to ensure that you're prepared. But if it were me, I probably wouldn't have a plate of nachos at 10PM!!
/Steve 
Everytime I have had something done it's been nothing after midnight. Do you have to be there at 6:30 or does it start at 6:30? 12 hours isn't needed since you will have all that digested by the time you have it. When I had the first one they stopped me drinking at 9 and we didn't know what time I was having it. Good Luck!
Wow, you're right about the Versed! I'm seeing double from here!
They gave me Versed and fentanyl for my "welcome to the 50's" colonoscopy. I didn't get a buzz from the stuff at all, whereas when my SO went for his, he was stoned for the rest of the day, and didn't remember having coffee with me after his procedure!
/Steve
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