Is colonic cleansing a marvellous therapy or a total con for fools?

[Spidermama]

My friend did the colonic cleanse with Blessed Herbs. Have a peak at the pictorial testimonials if you think you have the stomache for it.

Anyway my friend looks great and she says she feels great too. It could be because she fasted for a bit as she was only having the drinks on this regime, but she also had the horrendous ablutions.

I'm feeling generally very groggy and in need of something to break my unhealthy cycle of caffeine every morning. I have all sorts of aches and pains and a low level headache nearly all the time.

So I was thinking about giving this a go. Does anyone have any experience? Or am I just a naive sucker about to part with money for some quack psuedo scientific nonsense?

[DreamsInBinary]

Marking my place - have always been inexplicably tempted.

[Spidermama]

It seems we're alone DIB.

I may give it a go and report back.

[Squiggly]

Message withdrawn

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

God yes, go for it. I've always wanted to but been scared of by the ruptured bowl urban myth scare stories. Also slightly put off by having someone put something up my bum and turning a tap on.

But I love the idea of having 10lbs of impacted food waste cleansed from my bowl and me springing off the couch considerably lighter and more radiant.

Go on Spider you do it and tell us all how brilliant it was

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

Oh HOLY CHRIST Spidermama why did I look at that link.

Ugh ugh ugh

Vom.

[FlyMeToDunoon]

Eurgh! Weird!
Long stringy goop is scary.
Quite tempted to try this sometime.
I wonder if it would be difficult to keep up with normal housework and childcare whilst living on strained liquids and herbal supplemnts though.

[gscrym]

If you do it, are you going to put your happy poo picture up as well. I wonder how many people e-mail their photos to them after using that therapy.

I must admit I have been tempted to do this for a long time.

[BintOfBohemia]

I spoke to a dietician about this who said it was all bollocks; that the fauna of the bowel is perfectly balanced and contains the right bacteria to allow it to do what it is supposed to and to wash all that out and make it start from scratch is bonkers. Or words to that effect.

[Spidermama]

I have heard this too bint. The debate is polarised. I don't have total faith in doctors and orthodox medics so wouldn't necessarily put me off.

I certainly won't be photographing and sharing poo photos. I wonder if they paid those women.

My friend recommends it. She says she was running for the first time in years and felt happy and clean. Could be psychological or just the result of a near fast.

I also found it quite convincing in one of the testimonials when the woman says she found popcorn in her long stringy pooey thing though she hadn't eaten the stuff for years.

Maybe one of you will do it with me and we can compare notes.

[Clary]

I've had a colonic irrigation. It was great (slightly odd feeling at the time) felt really good afterwards.

Didn't do the whole fastign etc thing tho

[Spidermama]

Clary I'm not talking about irrigation here. That's different.

These are shakes made up with psyillium husk which is supposed to reflate in the gut and pull loads of toxins out of your intestines. Hence the strange ablutions on the site.

Once you've seen the things that come out of people it's hard to carry on with normal life with any hint that you might be hosting such horrors.

I'm still undecided.

[ThingOne]

I have no idea how they get stringy poo like that. I've had to clear out my bowel for operations and there's been nothing like that. And I've seen up it with a camera - it was lovely and clean and pink. So all the shit had gone, so to speak, and not a stringy lump in sight.

I'm sure the overpriced herbs she sells must help it stick together and get stringy.

I'd go for the fantastic diet and lots of water myself. If that's not enough why not talk to a medical herbalist or someone at Neal's Yard? No doubt far cheaper and tailored to you.

[DontQuoteMeMisogynistBastardDM]

I do home Carl from Canada sterilised that colander and didn't just give it a man-wash and put it back in the cupboard.

[Clary]

Oh OK sorry didn't dare look at the link

[CarmenSanDiego]

Hmm, take a look at this link where the Blessed Herbs is concerned. It looks like the rubbery/stringy poo is just a reaction to the clay stuff in the 'herbs' and would happen on a completely empty bowel. I've heard of similar scams that supposedly help you pass gallstones.

[Spidermama]

Good link Carmen. This crossed my mind as a possibility but when the woman claimed to have passed popcorn despite not having eaten it for a decade or so, I wondered.

I think I'm leaning towards not doing it.

Are any detoxes good? I feel in need of some sort of cleanse. Is fasting good? I remember fasting as a young woman and having a white tongue and odd smelling sweat which made me believe stuff was 'coming out'.

Doctors, in my experience, have some serious blind spots when it comes to the bodies own processes and in aspects of health which don't involve pharmaceuticals. I'm a big believer in homeopathy for example, and my faith is backed up by years of experience, but I know many doctors have no understanding of it.

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

Oooohh i got the wrong end of the stick, I thought you were talking about Colonic Irrigation - hence by "someone fiddling about with my bum" comment.

I have done LOADS of fasts etc. I can TOTALLY recommend it. A week or so on raw veg/fruit leaves you feeling AMAZING!

I wouldn't waste money on fancy herbs and shite like that. I've a couple of books by Leslie Kenton - she seems to have a slightly bonkers/crap website look at apple detox here but her diets/detoxes are good.

I did the 10 day one it goes like this . . .

Day one - raw foods - no tea/coffee/processed food/dairy/alcohol etc.

Day two - Apples

Day three - Apples or other fruit

Day four - eight - Salad and raw fruit and veg

Day nine & ten - Salad/raw veg/fruit and some protein.

All the way through drink shit loads of water, herbal tea etc. Eat lots of sprouts -v. nutricious.

The first couple of days are pretty hardcore and you may well get headaches and feel very tired so best do it over a quiet weekend. But after about day 6 you tend to feel Brilliant!

[Spidermama]

That's more like it Claudia. Thanks for that link. This is exactly what I should be doing.

Funnily enough I couldn't quite silence the voices about how the herb thing is a risible waste of time. The people who do it are fasting after all so any benefits the feel are probably just from that.

Right. This is just what I need. A slightly freaky, self indulgent week of fasting. Maybe I'll have a torrid booze fuelled night out before I begin though.

[Plonketyplonk]

De-tox doesn't work!!!! If you spend a few days or longer eating unprocessed food, lay off the bics, and leave out the booze, the effects will be the same. It's far easier in the long term!

Like ThingOne, I've had a medical bowel clear-out so they could shove cameras up there. Why anyone would want to do it privately or out of choice is quite bizarre!

[HolyGuacamole]

Yes, I'm with the non-believers.

Surely if the body stored things for years in this way (the popcorn) we'd all be huge?

There was also an experiment on tv once, that doctor guy (sorry I forget his name, will try and find it to link it), he tried various detox thingamys and none of them proved to work. They measured chemicals in his sweat and saw that they were no different from before he started the detox, during or after. He concluded that detox products were a waste of money.

A good healthy diet, plenty of water, fruit, veg.....cut out the coffee, alcohol and processed foods and you'll be doing fab.

[geordieminx]

Marking my place for once my dinner has digested.

[moondog]

Spider, you don't seriously believe popcorn would lie whole sand undigested in bowel for years do you?
Nothing will ever be as good as quite simply eating properly, lasying off booze and caffeine a bit sand doing some exercise, although noone wants to believe this? Why?
Cos it is free anf not hyped or marketed?

[LaurieFairyCake]

aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh my EYES WHY did I look at the PHOTOS ???!!!???

I am a fecking freak - some of those pictures of shites are 2 FEET LONG.

[mousemole]

I've done a few fasts/detox in Thailand, Turkey and Spain - all involving colonics. There may be no scientific proof that they do anything for your health but I have felt marvellous after each one and normally half a stone lighter. In Thailand a man we got to know who was doing the detox passed a piece of multicoloured 'plasic'. Turned out he used to swallow crayons when he was small. He was 40 when we met him !!! .I've done Jason Vale's juice detox at home a few times and that is great too.