FWIW, Penn & Teller’s show, Bullshit (found on Showtime) did an episode on colon cleansing. As you might expect from their show’s title, they did not endorse the idea. I don’t have a link, unfortunately, but the show was entertaining (the sight of shit being extricated from their volunteer, who was paid $500 to undergo a colon cleansing, was a little disgusting, though).
Heh, I felt sorry for that poor bastard. As soon as the crazy lady showed him what she was going to stick up his butt, you knew he was thinking “Why did I think I needed 500 bucks THIS bad?”
A belief that massive quantities of waste need to be magically expelled from one’s guts is typically symptomatic of massive quantities of waste having taken up residence in a somewhat more elevated organ.
One of my girlfriends was interested in holistic heath and other “alternative” approaches to health. She wanted to try colon cleansing to see if it would help her with her health problems, but she was too shy to do it. So I did it and reported back to her.
The only health benefit I received from my cleansing was psychological - the process was very relaxing and relieved some stress I was feeling. It also relieved me of $150. I was impressed that Lila, my practitioner, was able to identify what I had eaten by viewing my feces. It’s a good party trick, but I don’t think I’d want to go to that party.
Didn’t Dr. Kellog have a huge obsession with “colon cleansing”-his patients/victims were subjected to enemas, yohurt enemas, all-grain diets, and other forms of tortures . I wonder how many people died as a result of these weird treatments-seems like he would have had quite a few cases of ruptured intestines.
Also, I would expect these “cleansing” treatments to result in malnutrition-the mucous of the intestine wall plays a big role in the absorption of nutrients.
The colon does play a role in the absorption of water and electrolytes, but the small intestine is far more important when it comes to nutrient absorption. You’d probably have to be a major devotee of colon “cleansing” to develop malnutrition, though I’m sure there are some real enema freaks out there.
The use of colonic irrigation devices and the like does pose a small risk of infection or rupture, but the main hazard is dislodging all that money from your wallet, plus having a “hobby” that you can only really talk about with other cleansing fanatics.*
*“Wanna see this neat photo of sludge and parasites I found in the toilet after my last cleanse? No? Hey, come back…”
Bravely stands up
Hi, my name is ivylass and I’ve had high colonics.
(Hi, ivylass.)
When I was a senior in high school, I came down with this awful itchy rash all over my legs, the inside of my elbows, and the front of my neck. Constant fiery itch. I scractched so badly I drew blood. My mother dragged me to various dermatologists before finally settling on a “holistic” doctor.
Pure and utter quakery. I was told to spray “Willard water” on my rash, a special ionized water, and it would stop the itching. (It didn’t.) I was given allergy tests, consisting of rolling a ballpoint pen-like device over my finger. This showed I was allergic to everything from lettuce to pork to Ranch dressing (I’m not.)
I was given chiropractic adjustments and weekly high colonics. I was not getting better. My mother finally decided to consult a doctor across the state, and after the office visit, I was asked to bring in a stool sample.
My mother gave me an empty margarine tub and told me to poop into it. I’d had it. I was 17, a senior in high school, low self-esteem because of the way I looked, and the weekly high colonics had given me, shall we say, an unfortunate emission problem that I could not always squelch in school. I was not about to poop into a margarine tub so my mother could freeze it until the next office visit.
Funny thing is, when I went away to college, the rash cleared up and never came back. I think it was a combination of stress and a sudden onset allergy to cats. I went to the “holistic” doctor after I was fine again but they’d closed up shop.
Before my first (of 3) colonoscopies, the attending nurse said that the worst ones are those who have eaten chopped collards!
My wife had to drink some kind of special pinkish-orangish stuff. If ordinary laxatives would have done the trick, then our doctor pulled the wool over her. There was like a half gallon of that stuff.
There are any number of standard routines that doctors tell patients to use for the cleansing prior to a colonoscopy. They vary both because of individual preferences among doctors and because individual patients may need or or need to avoid certain laxatives.
The gallon of pinkish stuff I assume to be polyethylene glycol, which is sold under a variety of brand names like GoLYTELY and NuLYTELY. NuLYTELY comes in cherry flavor, which I would bet is pink.
I believe that is a prescription-only product. However, there are many variants of pills and liquids that are strictly over-the-counter and are used instead. I’ve had three colonoscopies and never had to drink the polyethylene glycol or use any prescription medication.
So my point is that while prescriptions may be required for prep, ordinary OTC medications can and will do the job just as completely.
Why your doctor told your wife to use the polyethylene glycol I can’t say. If it was particularly bothersome remind the doctor that there are (somewhat) better alternatives and see if any of those would be acceptable. Of course, they might not be for reasons he or she would best know.
Polyethylene glycol is a much more reliable cleaner of the digestive tract than the other products mentioned. When taken as instructed, it delivers a squeaky-clean colon for inspection far more dependably than those other products.
It’s been a few years since I did sigmoidoscopies, but it was always so distressing for all concerned to have an incomplete prep, and have to abort the procedure due to “Code Brown”.
Yes, that’s what they gave me. I shit out *next *weeks dinner. :eek:
I sure hope your doctor’s name wasn’t Willard. And if so I hope it wasn’t a “pump-spray”. And if so I hope…
My apologies then…
sincerely
FML
There’s not much information, but here’s the link. The episode, “Detoxing,” is also available now on Showtime On Demand, if you’ve got it; coincidentally, we watched it last night.
Great episode, though pretty graphic. When the lady was pointing to the, uh, “stuff” coming out of the poor fellow and telling him it was “residual waste,” I loved Penn’s response: “No, lady, that was gonna be tomorrow’s dump!”
I had a friend who did this so-called “Master Cleanse”, and swore up and down that very strange (but apparently good) things happened with regards to her bowel movements. Unscientific, I know, but interesting nonetheless.
The strange thing is that it is not very hard to find websites dedicated to colon cleansings, and they will often have photos of really strange black things evacuated from people’s bowels after some special colon cleansing method. What is really odd about this is that apparently, according to doctoral rebuttals I’ve seen online, gastrointestinal specialists have never seen such things in their offices and hospitals. I am very curious about this discrepancy. I somehow doubt that the photos were staged (since many of these, the master cleanse included, require only the use of commodity goods, no proprietary merchandise is needed), but yet, I can’t dismiss the doctoral commentary either.
Let’s see. On the one hand you have sites dedicated to selling their products or individual testimony dedicated to proving that what they were doing isn’t really as stupid as everybody else says it is and on the other hand you have doctors whose observations mean literally life or death.
Now, which one to believe?
:smack:
Like I said, many such sites are NOT selling anything, but are promoting a certain diet or the usage of a homemade elixir that you can make yourself. As for the ones that you say are there because people are trying to prove themselves not stupid: that doesn’t make any sense. If you were trying to keep your acts a secret because you felt they were dumb, you wouldn’t broadcast them over the internet. Look, I’m not discounting the medical profession, but I don’t necessary believe anyone just because they have an MD. There are morons and people who are unable to see outside of their own preconceptions in every field. I am neutral with regards to colon cleansing, because I simply don’t have enough information, either scientific or anecdotal, to make a judgment on it.
This is exactly the opposite of reality. The more people feel defensive about their personal beliefs, the louder they get in support of them. Take a look at the threads about politics and religion as prime examples. Conspiracy theorists are even worse. The same holds true for health, diet, and nutrition. People who believe in fad diets, quack therapies, and the virtues of unproven additives will proclaim their value to every part of the earth and refuse to listen to any negative feedback.
But I have. And unlike many aspects of health and medicine, this is an easy one. Total quackery on one side, total science on the other. I don’t understand why you don’t have enough information to make up your mind which way to go. Have you ever studied the subject at all? Or have you just read testimonial websites?
You are making a ridiculous blanket statement. While I agree with you to some degree, you are being highly reductive in saying that every time you see someone making a statement that runs against mainstream logic they are necessarily being “defensive” and ignoring evidence. Just because you’ve seen it once somewhere doesn’t mean it’s always the case everywhere.
Oh, really? Do fill me in on the details on your elaborate research.