Colonics vs. Enemas

Note from the Future: I found I was washing a lot of very necessary minerals from my digestive track (probably Calcium most of all), which was giving me extremely low blood pressure and Night Cramps in my legs. So don't overdo those High Colonics and try to minimize the amount of water used in your enemas. Aim at only evacuating the lower colon. For the higher colon and the small intestines -- let them do their job of absorbing nutrients and minerals.

I had recently written about the benefits of enemas, but it occurred to me that I should also have examined the utility of colonics, and that I should have presented some kind of comparison between the two kinds of therapy, which have rather obvious similarities.

So I did some research, not as far as actually going out to arrange a course of colonic hydrotherapy treatment, and that is perhaps the greatest difference between enemas and colonics, that colonics are for the most part administered professionally.

I’ve searched up colonic equipment online, and found all the offerings to be very elaborate. These machines filter the water, heat the water while monitoring the heat and having safeguards against the water either becoming too warm or too cold, and pressure is regulated and monitored in the same way, to forestall any possibility that there might ever be a problem.

The way it is described, a colonic involves water being hosed in via a nozzle that seems almost smallish. The water is allowed to settle in order to soften or loosen hardened digestional debris, and then the water is drawn out. Some sites say that the procedure is repeated until the water runs relatively clear. Oh, the system is closed, and the water is viewed through a transparent hose. All return waters are run into a sealed tank. No unpleasant odors are allowed to obtrude.

Yes, the nozzles seem rather narrow. I suppose there is the concern that a large nozzle would scare away many of the clientele – any implement that seems too imposingly phallic would not only be emotionally offensive, but could also present concerns for comfort and even safety. But even with these valid considerations, one still wonders what good a little tiny nozzle can do if its job is to pass both incoming fluids and outgoing materials. While water and thin solutions can run through, it can hardly be imagined that any large amount of solids can make such a narrow transit. The descriptions of Colonic Therapy do mention that the patient is allowed afterwards to go to the toilet and evacuate what solids and fluids remain after the colonic apparatus is removed. So the little nozzle really is not intended to allow the passing of any significant solids. Just like with the enema, eventually one is left on the pot.

What I have noticed in these descriptions of colonics is that there is not really anything that can’t be done at home in the form of an enema. Yes, most enemas are described as using relatively little water, but one can use as much water as one likes. Yes, colonics machines control temperature, control pressure, and even filter the water. Here we need to remember that colonics are administered by Third Parties who, since they do not feel in their own bodies what is going on, need to be able to carefully quantify everything that is happening to their clients. But self administered enemas have none of these problems to worry over, as one would feel if the water was too hot, or would feel if the pressure had gone outside the bounds of careful comfort. Also, the failsafe machines used in the Colonics Industry help them to defend against charges of negligence. Really, with a trained individual standing by, with a machine that self guards against any mishap, the only way some predatory vulture living from lawsuit to lawsuit could make any hey with the Colonics Industry would be to actually poop himself and slip and fall down in it, breaking his leg, before walking out the door.

I would like to say that enemas must always be safe because nobody would ever do anything to harm themselves, as long before anything popped they would feel discomfort and pain, and so back off anything that they started to do wrong. But there is no accounting for some people. Some people have tremendous amounts of Will Power, which they often use to overrule the wisdoms and warnings of their own body’s safety signals. For instance, a person may get it into his head to pump a precise and exact amount of water into himself, disregarding all discomfort in a single-minded concentration to achieve what is really just an arbitrary or obsessive goal. People can hurt themselves, left to their own devices. For such people, Colonic Therapy, as it is administered by trained professionals using very safe equipment, would be definitely the way to go. But if one is not over-endowed with Will Power, strong enough to be Self Defeating, and has a good personal history of being moderate about most things, then enemas should not do any significant harm. Again, as in my first essay, one must discuss all of this with one’s Doctor (and, yes, we will pretend, in America, that we have doctors).

Anyway, once I had read up on Colonics, I somewhat varied my enema procedure. But first allow a short description of my usual procedure for those who had forgotten or not read my first essay. What I would usually do is insert 8 to 10 bottles of water, each bottle being 7.5 ounces, keeping in mind that the bottles cannot be entirely squeezed out and so I suppose each bottle probably only represents about 6 ounces. I guess that 8 or 10 bottles, as administered amounts to about 50 to 60 ounces – around a quart and a half or a liter and a half. One can really feel it as one fills up. After the water has been inserted the literature recommends getting down on the floor and assuming positions which place the abdomen below the water level, so to speak, to allow the water to run deep into the upper colon. I add a few jumping exercises, to help shake things up. The time for evacuation soon comes, and I would not recommend going too far afoot from the bathroom. When one begins evacuating, there is at first a burst of relatively clear water followed soon by digestional materials. Then a period of waiting begins. There are periods of water evacuation and then material evacuation. I usually use a small bucket of water to pre-flush the toilet, to bring its water level down to the bottom, so from there it is easy to judge when about the right amount of water has been evacuated from my bowels. Almost always the last bit of evacuation is loose stool, which usually comes before 20 minutes has gone by. Really, the routine is nearly always the same. But if I ever become impatient, I simply begin cleaning up and going about my ordinary business, and any leftovers announce themselves in the usual way and I go back to the bathroom for a minute. I’ve never had a problem after more than a half an hour. Once cleaned out and settled, then one is good to go.

But after reading up on Colonics, I decided to see what would happen if I were to repeat afterwards with more water. The first difference I noticed was that it seemed to take more water for a second run – a bit more than 2 liters where about 1.5 was about as much as comfort would allow on the first fill up. This is rather reasonably to be expected, since much digestional material would be evacuated on the first go leaving the bowels with much more empty space. Now, I was expecting that the water would run relatively clear, the second time, and it did, for a while, but what occurred and was unexpected was that there was a good deal of additional materials involved. Really, with so much from the first time, who would have guessed anything else was left inside. I suppose it can be explained by supposing that the second fill-up of water was reaching the next turn or twist of colon.

Regarding any second run, with an enema procedure, what I have found is that the second set of evacuations goes a bit slower than the first. Although one is assured of eliminating more material with a second run, I would wonder about the utility of taking all that extra time. Oh, there may be some concerns that one is washing out all of one’s food, but the fact is that I go two days between enemas, and so there is always at least a day’s supply of food being left undisturbed. I suppose if one has plenty of time then the cleaner the better. But, honestly, enemas using one fill-up have been so successful for me, that I can make no seriously compelling argument to take more than twice the time simply to be incrementally cleaner. There might be the possibility that one can be clean enough with just one go at a time.

To reiterate from my first essay, enemas are very useful in that they eliminate the straining that very often leads to hemorrhoids, while also putting one in danger of stroke or heart failure – bowel straining perhaps being an older person’s most intense exertion. Now, since these further experimental endeavors have ensued, I have found that it seems that one can stretch the enema, so to speak, into achieving the benefits usually attributed to Colonic Hydrotherapy, that is of significantly cleaning the lower intestine and keeping it clean.