Guides · Preparing
Give the day
to the day.
The preparation for a comprehensive screening is specific and mostly about the evening before. What catches people out is not the fast. It is assuming the afternoon is still theirs.
The preparation for a comprehensive screening is specific and mostly about the evening before. What catches people out is not the fast. It is assuming the afternoon is still theirs.
This page sets out the partner centres’ own instructions. What it cannot set is your clock, because that depends on which tests your program includes and what time your slot is. Your coordinator sends the exact times with the confirmation, and those are the ones to follow.
Have a light dinner before 8 pm, and if your digestion is slow, make it a light meal before 6 pm instead. After that, nothing to eat. Go easy on alcohol, skip the cigarettes, avoid overdoing it, and get a proper night’s sleep.
The fast. Every program on this site includes bloods and an ultrasound, and both want an empty stomach, so plan on at least 10 hours with nothing in it. On the day itself that means nothing at all: no water, no coffee, no gum, no sweets, no cigarettes.
Rinsing your mouth is fine. If your mouth is really dry, which a long flight makes likely, one small sip just to wet it is fine too, and nothing more. From 4 hours before your appointment time, avoid even that if you can. The two exceptions are the medications below and the colonoscopy preparation, which has its own water rule.
Each of these is straightforward with notice and disruptive without it, so say what you take when the appointment is being arranged rather than at the desk on the morning, and bring everything in its original packaging. Never stop a prescribed medication on your own.
Blood thinners and antiplatelets, such as aspirin, warfarin, clopidogrel (Plavix), cilostazol (Pletaal), dabigatran (Pradaxa), rivaroxaban (Xarelto) and ticagrelor (Brilinta). They are usually stopped 7 days before, so that a biopsy or a polyp removal can be done safely if the doctor finds something that needs one. How long each one needs differs by drug, so stop only on the instruction of the doctor who prescribed it. A shorter pause may limit what can be removed on the day.
Blood-pressure medication and anticonvulsants. Take them with a small sip of water 3 hours before your appointment or as soon as you wake, and tell the staff you have taken them. Blood pressure that runs too high can stop an endoscopy going ahead, so do not skip them along with the food. With a colonoscopy they go at least 3 hours before the exam: at bedtime the night before for a morning slot, or early in the morning for an afternoon one.
Diabetes tablets and insulin. Skip them on the morning of the check-up and take them once it is finished. With a colonoscopy booked, do not inject insulin from the evening before, and take neither from the moment you start the bowel preparation.
Any past reaction to a medication, a contrast dye, an anaesthetic or sedation, however minor it seemed at the time.
A well-cleaned bowel is what lets the doctor see small lesions, so the preparation is the part of the whole trip most worth getting right. Plan it generously. The diet starts 3 days before, the prep runs the evening before and again around 4 am, and emptying the bowel takes hours within reach of a toilet. Give yourself a couple of nights in Seoul before the colonoscopy, keep the prep evening free, and stay close to your hotel room that night. You need the prep kit in hand before the preparation starts.
From 3 days before (from 7 days if you tend to be constipated), avoid fruit with seeds such as watermelon, strawberries, grapes and kiwi, grains other than white rice, beans, seaweed, kimchi and seasoned greens, tough or fibrous food, and red or coloured drinks such as grape juice and coffee.
The day before, for a morning slot: breakfast of easily digested, low-fibre food (white rice, tofu, egg, fish, porridge, clear soup), lunch of rice porridge or thin rice gruel with no vegetables and only soy sauce and salt as seasoning, and no dinner. For an afternoon slot the same steps move later: low-fibre lunch, rice porridge for dinner, and no breakfast on the day. Plain water is allowed until 3 hours before the exam.
The prep is taken in two doses. Each dose is 500 ml of solution, drunk slowly over 30 minutes at 250 ml every 15 minutes, then 500 ml of plain water the same way. With the second dose you also take one sachet of an anti-foaming agent. Drinking it faster can make you vomit.
Morning slot: first dose at 8 pm the day before, second at 4 am on the day. Afternoon slot: first dose at 6 am on the day, second at 8:30 am.
Arrive at least 15 minutes before your colonoscopy time. If the bowel is not clean enough and the exam has to be repeated, the repeat is charged. A colonoscopy cannot be done during a period unless you use a tampon, and if there is any chance you are pregnant, confirm that before taking the prep. Anyone with G6PD deficiency cannot use this preparation, so tell us in advance. It is not done within 6 months of abdominal or anal surgery.
The preparation can leave you dehydrated, older travellers especially, so drink plenty of water afterwards. If you pass very little urine or feel dizzy, go to the nearest emergency room.
A gastroscopy follows the same fast as the rest of the day. Tell us beforehand if you have a cold or another throat problem, if you have had open abdominal surgery within the last 6 months, or if any teeth (the front ones especially) are loose or in the middle of dental treatment, because each of these can stop the scope going in.
Afterwards the throat spray leaves a numb, lumpy feeling that fades in 20–30 minutes, and once you can swallow without coughing you can drink water. The throat may feel uncomfortable for 2–3 days. If you notice black or bloody stools afterwards, tell the centre.
Sedation is available for endoscopy at every partner centre, and a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy are commonly done back to back in one session rather than as two procedures with two recoveries. Most people wake within 30 minutes to 1 hour, though some feel hazy for 2 hours or more, and a gap in memory around the procedure is normal.
A companion must come with you, and you rest for 3–4 hours afterwards. For the rest of the day, no driving, no machinery, no exercise or sauna, nothing binding to sign and no important decisions.
Who cannot be sedated. Anyone from age 65 or 70, depending on the centre (the request form shows the rule for your programme); a BMI of 30 or more; severe snoring, sleep apnoea or a CPAP machine; a heart attack or angina within the last 6 months, or serious heart disease such as arrhythmia, heart failure or aortic dissection; asthma, COPD or another lung condition; chronic liver disease; kidney disease, including dialysis; pregnancy or breastfeeding (breastfeeding is fine if paused for 24 hours); unstable blood pressure, pulse, breathing or temperature on the day. For them the endoscopy is done awake, and in a few cases it cannot be done that day. If any of these apply, say so when you book.
Book nothing else. The most common planning mistake we see is a dinner reservation on screening evening, made by someone who read "20 to 40 minutes" for the procedure and did the arithmetic on that.
After a colonoscopy, the air used during the exam can leave you bloated. Walking gently, breathing slowly or a warm pack on the abdomen helps it pass. Once it has and your stomach feels settled, start with porridge and keep the day’s meals gentle. If a blue dye was used, your stool may look blue, which is harmless.
After a biopsy, avoid very hot or spicy food, alcohol, coffee and smoking for at least a week. A little blood in the stool is normal and stops soon.
After a polyp removal, eat porridge that day and go back to normal meals the next day if all is well, keeping clear of alcohol, coffee and spicy or salty food for about 7 days. For 7–14 days avoid long-distance travel, international flights included, as well as long drives, exercise, baths, saunas, smoking and alcohol. If you take aspirin, restart it only when a doctor says so.
Contact the centre if you pass a lot of bright red blood or blood that keeps coming, feel dizzy with a cold sweat and a racing pulse, have sudden severe abdominal pain or bloating that suddenly worsens, vomit, or develop a fever. Bleeding usually shows within a week and a perforation within 24 hours. At night and at weekends, go to the nearest emergency room. Biopsy results take about 2 weeks and arrive with your report.
Put the screening day in the first half of the trip and not on the first morning.
Early, because you get a same-day consultation on preliminary findings, and anything that consultation raises is far easier to act on while you are still in Korea with a physician who can arrange the next test. The full written report follows, usually about two weeks later, after you have flown home.
Not the first morning, because a fast and a sedation both go better without a long-haul flight directly behind them, and because a delayed bag with your medication in it is a solvable problem on day three and a trip-shaping one on day one. With a colonoscopy, a couple of nights in Seoul first is the comfortable version.
And leave room at the end. If a biopsy is taken or a polyp removed, long flights may be restricted for 7–14 days, so a return flight the day after the screening is the one plan worth avoiding.
If there is any chance you are pregnant, tell us before the day rather than on it. X-rays, CT, sedation and an endoscopy are restricted in pregnancy, and the program is planned around what is safe.
For a urinalysis or a cervical smear, book 5–7 days after a period. For the smear, avoid intercourse and vaginal medication for 24 hours beforehand. If your slot falls at an awkward point in the cycle, say so and the coordinator sequences those tests accordingly.
A prostate or pelvic ultrasound reads best on a full bladder, so for those you may be asked to hold your first morning urine rather than empty it before the scan. The confirmation says if this applies to your program.
If you need to cancel or move the appointment, tell us at least 7 days before. Leave valuables at the hotel, and plan the day without children in tow.
