What happens during a modified barium swallow?

Nothing too exciting: We can't take pictures of your GI tract very well, so as a substitute you swallow dense material (barium) which coats your tract and they take pictures, as it goes down or after it goes down, to look for structural abnormalities. Basically you swallow a few gulps, turn a few different positions, maneuver in a few different ways for the camera. It's pretty harmless.

Ingesting barium: Modified barium swallow is usually imaging fluoroscopically of patient ingesting various textures from ultrathin, thin , nectar etc. to pudding and solid consistencies of barium looking for normal oral pharyngeal function and signs of aspiration. In some caaes study is performed in conjunction with speech pathologist