Today’s entry is aimed specifically at those who’ve had colonics before and are wondering when would be the right time to come back for a follow-up session.

Most people who follow our 14 Day or 21 Day programs incorporating a series of colonics (usually three) in conjunction with our cleansing diet plan, find at the end of it that the body has reset to a healthier place and everything feels and works better.  So when discussing when to come back in, I always say do it in when you feel you need to. How long that takes obviously varies greatly depending on the person’s state of health, how they look after themselves and finally their goals with their health. I’d say though that most of us living anything like the standard city lifestyle these days, benefit greatly from doing a 2-3 week “detox” every three or four months.

Dr Alejandro Junger in his book “Clean”, makes the point that “toxins that cannot be eliminated in a timely manner, remain in circulation, causing irritation and damage. Cells and tissues trap these toxins and coat them with mucus in an attempt to buffer the irritation. This survival mechanism, like inflammation, is life-saving for a while, but can turn fatal when turned on continuously for a prolonged time.” Further he points out that in Eastern traditions one of the first things practioners check is the ability of the body to eliminate toxins. Indian Ayuvedic doctors or Chinese medicine practitioners hunt for clues to toxic-waste retention or accumulation. They want to know if you have regular bowel movements, urinate a lot or a little, and when and how much you sweat to gauge your ability to detoxify. These Eastern traditions consider the ability to detoxify – to eliminate toxic waste and toxic thought and emotion as the “root” source of your physical and mental health.

The loss then of your body’s ability to effectively detox helps explain why you might experience loss of vigor, headaches, bowel irregularity, allergies, bloating and unidentifiable pain among a host of other ailments.

Of all the elimination channels ( lungs, skin, kidneys and colon), the colon is the major elimination channel. If this channel is not eliminating optimally then we retain the toxicity which our bodies are trying to release and put extra pressure on the other elimination channels.

So as part of any good detox, anything to assist the colon to eliminate toxins becomes vitally important. This is why I say when it’s time to detox, it’s time to have a colonic.

Most detox programs these days all seem to include something like herbal formulas, salt flushes or advocate colonics to assist in the elimination stage of a detox. Whilst the various orally taken formulas can be effective, nothing is more effective, or I believe safer than colonics. A point to consider when you’re detoxing too is as toxins are removed from the cells and tissues, they are removed via mucus which is dumped out into the blood circulation and then eventually passes through the intestinal walls into the lumen of the intestines.  During a strong detox, this sticky mucus matter accumulates on the intestinal walls if it is not moved out.

Mucus overload in action

I observe people on detoxes all the time, from elimination diets, to juice fasts and even water fasts.  A recent example of an experience I had with a client who was water fasting I think illustrates well my point about how mucus may accumulate in the intestines during a strong detox. This particular client had prior to beginning her water fast regular bowel function. When she visited me on day 16 of a 21 day complete water fast she had last had a bowel motion on day 4 of the fast. Once the colonic started it took about 20 minutes of repeated water flushes before any waste started being released through the waste tube. Once waste started moving through it certainly made up for lost time. I’m rarely surprised at what I see these days but what started flowing out was thick grey coloured matter, 3-5 inches in length, over and over again for the next 20 minutes – an incredible amount of waste was removed. Remember this client had not consumed anything other than water for the last 16 days and had regular bowel function prior to going on to the water fast.

The question then is where had this enormous amount of matter come from and if it was (as I believe) mucus that had accumulated due to the intense detoxing from tissues and cells , then how was this going to get released without help? This client had been doing all this detoxing and whilst she’d been releasing a lot of toxins out through her lungs, skin and kidneys her major elimination channel had been blocked with this sticky mucus matter which took a lot of water flushing to eventually start removing.

True, fiber or excellent herbal laxatives might have still do the job but if the bowel condition is already weakened then those toxins may not be effectively removed. If that is the case then those toxins will be reabsorbed and there will be retox with the detox. Colonics has the advantage of introducing water which can soften up any sticky remained material, along with being able to remove a lot of trapped gas as cycles of fills and releases are repeated over and over. With herbal laxatives, many contain senna, casara sagrada or pyllium all of which can be very irritating to the intestinal lining and again if the bowel is already in an overwhelmed state then even strong herbs may not be effective in removing the waste.

Coming into the Summer season, it’s time to detox and shape up – if it’s time to detox, it’s time to book your next colonic.

For those of you looking to return to Boda in the weeks ahead, our Summer 2010/11 promotion includes a free bottle of Liquid Spirulina with two or more colonics booked.

Source:

Junger, Alejandro M.D. Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself. Harper Collins 2009.

Group, Edward Dr, The Green Body Cleanse, Global Healing Centre 2009.