Constipation is a bummer. Being constipated causes everything from bloating and gas to irritability to anal fissures. Let's explore some constipation solutions that work!

1. Keep track of your daily bowel movements. Better yet, make sure you're having a bowel movement twice a day! Yes, everyone is different when it comes to frequency, but if you aren't fully emptying out your colon at least once a day, you are constipated. Keeping track of daily bowel movements is the best cure for constipation. Why?

* If you don't know you are constipated, you can't do anything about it.

* A bowel full of a multiple days worth of stool is much more difficult to clear out.

* Not fully emptying the bowel daily causes the colon to enlarge, which takes a case of acute constipation and turns it into chronic constipation.

2. Drink a generous amount of quality water throughout the day. A good guide is a half cup of water every half hour. The colon depends on water in order to do its work effectively.

3. Make sure you have plenty of magnesium in your body. To determine your magnesium level, use the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis. Magnesium is an important food for the colonic musculature. When the colonic muscle isn't well-nourished, constipation will occur. If you do find yourself constipated, take 1 to 6 reacted magnesium capsules at bedtime. You may want to increase the dosage by one capsule each night. Once your bowels are moving well, consider sticking to that dose for long-term constipation relief.

4. Take a weekly coffee enema. A sluggish liver leads to constipation. Taking regular coffee enemas supports optimal liver function, which in turn is an effective and inexpensive cure for constipation.

5. Truly, the best cure for acute constipation is to take an enema series. Cleansing your colon with a series of therapeutic enema solutions will give relief to the most stubborn case of constipation.

6. If enemas make you squeamish, use an orally administered colon cleanse detoxification product like Ortho Molecular's Ortho Core Restore Kit. This week-long colon cleanse aid supports whole body detoxification, restores overall health, and is an excellent cure for constipation.

7. Seasonally, work through a colon cleansing program such as is laid out in my book, Ten Days to Optimal Health: A Guide to Nutritional Therapy and Colon Cleansing. A toxic body tends to slow down the body's metabolic processes. We live in an increasingly toxic world, which means our bodies need extra support to do their work well.

Please contact us at Optimal Health Network if you need support to cure constipation.

Labels: coffee enema, colon cleanser, colon health, constipation relief, constipation solutions, enema solutions, Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Yikes! Anal fissures are VERY painful. Avoid them, but (no pun intended) if you have one, YOU CAN HEAL FROM A FISSURE! And, contrary to what you may have heard, you can heal a fissure without surgery. This blog post explores some of the foods to eat and some to avoid when working towards curing an anal fissure.

Eat at least one large bowl of bone broth soup every day. Bone broth soups are rich in minerals like magnesium and potassium, rich in gelatin collagen, bone marrow, and cartilage, and high in easily digestible amino acids like proline and glycine. These are key nutrients to promote anal tissue healing and to reduce stress in the body, which can aggravate the condition. Bone broth soup also helps to hydrate the body, which is essential to optimal health.

How to Cook Bone Broth

• Use the bones and cartilage of poultry, beef, buffalo, lamb and fish. I don’t generally recommend pork bones and it is best to use high-quality bones from organic meats and natural, grass-fed animals.
• If possible, use kitchen scissors to break the bones into smaller pieces, ideally 2-3 inches long, increasing the surface area of bone exposed to the boiling water, therefore increasing the quality and nutrient value of the soup.
• Place the bones in a stockpot and just cover with cold water. Add a "splash," or about 2 tablespoons, of rice, wine, cider, or balsamic vinegar per quart of water or per about 2 pounds of bones. An acid such as vinegar is necessary in order to extract the minerals and nutrients from the bone into the soup. Lemon juice may be substituted for the vinegar.
• Garlic, onions, and ginger may be added for increased flavor, as well as coarsely chopped pieces of celery, carrots, mushrooms, onions, garlic, cabbage, zucchini, kale, collards, parsley, and many other vegetables.

Others Foods That Promote Fissure Healing

Ensure an adequate intake of healthy fats and oils, which will replenish cellular membranes with needed nutrients, strengthening cell walls. By maintaining the structural integrity of our cells, fats promote the full functioning of our rebuilding and cleansing mechanisms. The cell’s ability to renew itself leads to the healing of the anal fissure. Foods that are rich in healthy fats include: organic, grass-fed meats, avocados, organic eggs, olives, extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, raw nuts, raw seeds, and cold-water fish.

Foods to Avoid When Healing a Fissure

Common foods that can irritate an anal fissure or cause the anus to tear are foods with gluten, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, spicy foods, and pasteurized dairy. Don’t eat these foods for at least 10 days to determine if they are contributing to your anal fissure. If they are, you will need to avoid them until your fissure is healed. Once your fissure is healed, you can experiment with adding them back, one at a time.

Too Much of a Good Thing Can Irritate Fissures

Too much fiber and fiber supplements can cause more pain and damage to the anus. Make sure the fiber you ingest includes water-rich fruits, vegetables, and possibly grains. Good examples are grated carrots, apples, pears, grated beets, split peas, quinoa, and brown rice.

This is also true of citrus fruits: eat them, but not every day.

However, if you notice that your body likes or doesn't like particular foods, pay attention to that. If your body wants them, eat more, as long as you don't notice direct irritation to your anal area, mouth, stomach, or mood.

You Are Not Alone! Get Support for Dealing with a Painful Fissure!

For more detail on these dietary suggestions to heal an anal fissure, read Kristina Amelong’s Ten Days to Optimal Health: A Guide to Nutritional and Colon Therapy. 

For an anal fissure treatment, check out our anal fissure healing program.

Labels: anal fissure diet, best foods for anal fissure, eating to cure a fissure, heal a fissure

I went to my first estate sale ever! It was a blast. My daughter and I ran into it as we were going to Whole Foods to eat dinner. We had just bought our new house and we couldn’t resist. We found 4 wool rugs in excellent condition, vintage cut glass crystal, Christmas ornaments and an antique silver bed warmer.

Chris, the gentleman running the estate sale, and I got to talking. I discovered that he has been doing estate sales for years; he pondered that perhaps he has conducted as many as 1000 estate sales. Finding this out, I told him I am a colon hydrotherapist and help people to take enemas and get set up with enema equipment. His face lit up. He then told me about all the enema equipment, old enema cans and very odd types of enema devices that he runs into.

He said, with confidence, that 95% of the homes that he has conducted an estate sale in for the elderly have had at least one piece of enema equipment, if not two. He continued, "The oldest device that I came across in my estate sale adventures for the irrigation of, or the cleansing of the lower intestines, would be a device made out of a goat skin bladder, burlap, a copper reservoir and various intake and output rubber lines that had some type of cloth coating that was badly deteriorated. This device came out of a physician’s home for an estate sale that I did in Watertown and I would say it dates pre-1900."

Before the popularization of laxatives as a colon cleanser, most everyone used an enema. Enemas work. Regular enemas are healthier for the body than regular use of laxatives when colon cleansing. Looking to the history of the enema can assist us to trust the enema as a healthy and safe colon cleanse method.

Click here to learn how to take an enema

Click here to learn more about enema history

Labels: colon cleanser, colonic irrigation, enema devices, enema equipment, safe colon cleanse