For patients over 14 years old

Day before exam:

4:00pm take 2 Dulcolax tablets with 8 oz. of water
Eat a regular dinner
Nothing to eat or drink after midnight

Day of exam:

Nothing to eat or drink. Combine medications unless instructed otherwise by your physician.

Diabetic patients can check their blood sugar in AM - if low, can drink 6oz juice and remain NPO for food.

INFORMATION REGARDING CONTRAST AGENTS AND NURSING MOTHERS (BREASTFEEDING)

The examination you are about to undergo requires the use of a contrast agent that contains iodine and is injected intravenously. A very small amount of this agent will be secreted in breast milk. The safety of this contrast agent as it relates to nursing infants has been investigated and reviewed by the American College of Radiology (ACR), which is medical organization that among many other things, issues guidelines and recommendations regarding the safe practice of radiological exams for the general public.

What the ACR has determined are the following:

• Half the amount of contrast agent is cleared from the bloodstream within 2 hours. Clearance of the contrast agent from the the body is virtually completed by 24 hours.
• Less than 1% of the injected contrast will make its way into breast milk. Of the amount consumed by a nursing child, less than 1% will be absorbed by the gut. This means that the child will absorb less than 0.01% (or 1/10,000th) of the total amount of contrast that is injected into the nursing mother.
• On certain occasions, small children and infants will themselves undergo CT scans requiring the intravenous injection of this contrast agent. The small amount consumed through breast milk is less than 1% of the typical amount injected directly into the child for these types of studies.

You may wish to delay breast feeding your child if you continue to have concerns, but based on the above information the ACR has concluded that it is safe to continue nursing after the examination without a waiting period. If you do choose to wait, you may wait 24 hours with active expression and discarding of breast milk during that time. In anticipation of the study, you may consider using a breast pump to collect milk to feed your child during this wait period.