The yield stress appearance when gelation occurs in wax crude oils constitutes a significant problem in subsea flowline in deepwater oil production systems. In essence, there exist two stages in a pipeline flow restart after a long shutdown: apply a large enough differential pressure in order to mobilize the gel in the pipe, i.e. a process of fluid start-up or inject miscible fluid with low viscosity, preferably Newtonian, at the pipe inlet, to flush the gelled oil out of the pipe, i.e. a process of fluid displacement. We investigate yield stress and thixotropy effects over non-Newtonian fluid flows in a horizontal pipe, considering the fluid start- up and the fluid displacement in the isodense limit. The yield stress and thixotropic properties of waxy crude oils are rheologicaly simulated by water base fluids, Carbopol solutions and Laponite suspensions. The results of experimental and numerical studies of isodense displacement of a yield stress fluid are presented. Three distinct flow types belonging to this central displacement are identified in the experiments namely corrugated, wavy and smooth depending on the level of the residual layer variation along the pipe. The transition between these flow regimes is found to be a function of the ratio between the inertial stress and the characteristic viscous stress of the viscoplastic fluid. Besides, the influence of NaCl and Laponite concentrations in the rheological parameters of Laponite suspensions is detailed and the impact of thixotropy in the start-up of Laponite suspensions are analyzed based on experimental results.