The truth of the matter is the recovery period is fairly short. You get it done in the day, you go home on the same day, on that day you might feel a little bit bloated because you blow a lot of gas inside during the colonoscopy to distend out the colon so we can see it well. You’ll find yourself farting a lot on that particular day.
Usually, by the evening, your tummy will be fine, and you’d have recovered from the sedation. During a colonoscopy, we usually give some sedation, that makes you a little bit sleepy. So most of the time after you go home, around the evening, the sedative effect will wear off.
By the next day, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be back at work. However, for most of us, we do give a medical certificate for that day of the scope and the next day. Mainly because we know that by the next day some patients will still feel a little bit tired, they’ve gone to the toilet multiple times the day before, they didn’t get a good sleep. So usually we are quite sympathetic and give 2 days of MC.
But otherwise, in terms of absolute recovery, I’d say by the very evening you’re usually fine.
