You must have an adult accompany you to drive you home after the procedure and to stay with you as needed. Other arrangements may be made, but in all cases, you will need a driver.

For your safety and to help avoid nausea, please have no solid foods for four (4) hours before and no liquids for one hour before your procedure. However, you may take your usual medicines, including pain medicine, with a sip of water, as you would routinely take them.

If you are taking blood thinners please be sure to let your clinical provider and our staff know this. It is necessary for you to stop your blood thinners in advance of having a procedure. For your safety, we ask that you contact the physician who is prescribing this medication for you and check with him or her to be sure it is safe for you to discontinue this several days prior to your procedure. Patients who are on Coumadin are of particular concern. It is almost always safe to discontinue this medicine for a short while to allow your bleeding time to go back to normal, however, this should be cleared with the prescribing physician. We will need to have you get your bleeding time checked prior to any procedure if you are taking coumadin. Blood thinners such as Plavix, Ticlid, aspirin, and medicines related to ibuprofen (e.g. Advil) may be safely stopped seven (7) days prior to your procedure without getting a blood test. But, again, check with your prescribing doctor to be sure it is safe. If the only blood thinner you take is one regular aspirin a day, then we ask that you change this to one baby aspirin a day for at least seven (7) days before your procedure. Typically you should resume your usual blood thinners the evening after your procedure, but check with your doctor here at PMA to be sure this is what He or She wishes you to do.

If you are a diabetic and you are scheduled for a procedure in the morning, take only half of your usual insulin dose. If you use oral diabetic medicines, do not take any of these. We ask you to do this so that your sugar level does not go too low, since you will not be eating.

Please wear loose fitting clothing; sweat pants and shirts are perfectly acceptable.