Tell me about colonic irrigation - anyone had it? Would it be good for this?

[Colonicq]

I have a really healthy diet and lifestyle. But, I think because of hormone changes (peri) I can have periods of being painfully constipated. I eat dates and chia seeds and loads of fruit and veg and drink a LOT of water and exercise all that stuff, but it still happens.

I’m wondering if I should book a colonic to “clear it out” and start from scratch?!?

Anyone who has had one have any advice?

If managing your diet isn't working, movicol/laxido is available over the counter at pharmacies and is the best laxative going.

Coffee and a daily magnesium sorts me out most of the time. Be wary of the low carb suggestions, it can often cause or worsen constipation but this varies person to person. It makes it worse for me but I keto for other health reasons.

Absolutely don’t do colonic irrigation.
it will damage your good bacteria and there is a risk of perforating your bowel!

The same thing happens to me sometimes and I have a similar diet. I just take two senna laxatives before bed (1 pound in Savers!).

8pm evert night homemade muesli ( with soluble fibre- oats and insoluble fibre- nuts seeds) and live yogurt. Plus a type of bean/lentil in your food everyday.

No, it's not effective long term. And cutting out carbs means cutting fibre which you don't want to do. If you don't want to or can't up fibre anymore (either dietary or supplement) I would also recommend Movicol.

Dairy intolerance more often manifests as diarrhoea not constipation so I would think that less likely.

If you are really backed up, fibre can be the worst thing. You are basically adding to the back up and the fibre alone is not enough to get things moving.

I'm a fan of movicol, it's not an irritant laxative so it's not going to lead to dependency. Sometimes if movicol on its own is not enough to trigger a decent movement, adding an irritant laxative in the short term works well.

I love them and feel so much better from them. The best practitioner I knew made it a very comfortable experience and she would really remove blockages - you could see the dark hard compacted matter coming out.
there’s a long history of CI being used to great benefit for people’s health and well being.
However, a bad practitioner is v painful.
ultimately too if your diet is bad then it’ll make no difference. You may eat fruit and veg but if you’re still eating dairy and meat you’ll undo good work

Horrified! My GP told me to take senna last week as I'm suffering with post surgery constipation' Ive taken one or two. 'Max' a day for a week. Dulcolax didn't work, fybogel didn't work.

Worrying now!

Eat the yoghurt version. I use the biotful quark, which I mix with Fage 0% and fruit. It's lovely.

My colleague likes sweet stuff and adds honey to hers. They do make flavoured ones but they are full of sugar.

Not tried it but also used to have chronic constipation regularly. I was one extreme to the other for years. It was very miserable.Turned out to be IBS. Doctor prescribed Movicol and never had an issue since unless I eat something iffy.

My mum takes senna for constipation. Her gp has given her movicol before, she won't take it now as she goes the other way on it! Every time! So you could try movicol

Personally I've thought about ci for myself, I have a few work colleagues who have done it and recommended it

This is very interesting! Perhaps I’ll try diet things first like kefir - I do like it!

Anyone advise probiotics? A quick google suggests they can be good?

I take a lot of vitamins too and I sometimes wonder if that makes things worse and not better!

One really interesting thing is that even with similar symptoms, what works for one person doesn't for another and can actually make things worse for some!
I got referred to an NHS dietician when the NHS was still functioning, and she put me on an exclusion diet. It was reassuring to have an expert monitoring what I was doing every few weeks. You could see if anything like this is available.
I suggested senna but I only use that when my diet's gone astray and I need a quick fix. And only take it once. I can't take movicol, it works far too brutally for me!
So, get support if you can, or lots of research, and trying things out if you can't.
Hanging around for the probiotics recommendations!

Pears tinned in juice with porridge in morning is great remedy.

I have had some really good results with Symprove. I also take Psyllium Husk once a week to help with bowel movements.
I noticed that sugar and oily food triggered bloating / cramping.

Dulcoease capsules, I suffer from constipation due to being on codeine based medication. I take 2 to get things moving & then 1 every 4 hours to a maximum of 5 in 24 hours, drink as much water as possible after taking, I can usually go after taking the first 2 & then 1, 4 hours later at the latest. I then take 3 a day as a maintenance dose for about a week until things are back to normal, then reduce to 2 a day after that.