Today, I'm going to talk about key tips for using enemas for constipation. So stay tuned.
Hi, there. If you're new here, welcome. My name is Amanda Malachesky. I'm a Certified
Functional Nutrition Health Coach and a Digestive and Allergy Detective. For tips and tricks on how
to resolve your digestive challenges from the roots, please consider subscribing to
my channel and be sure to hit the bell to be notified when I post a new video every week.
Enemas are a safe and relatively easy way to manage either chronic or short-term constipation.
But a lot of you have asked me quite a few questions about how and when, and how often to use
them. So by the end of today's video, you'll know a little bit more about how often it's safe to use
enemas for constipation. I have several clients who are using enemas really pretty regularly
to manage their constipation. So let's get your questions answered and get some of that challenge
out of the way so you can be feeling better. First of all, if you're enema curious,
but you haven't ever actually tried doing an enema, or you don't know how to do one,
I did make an earlier video called How to Do an Enema at Home. I will leave a link for
that below this video. So if you're at that stage in the journey, go ahead and check out
that video when you're done watching this. All right. Now, for those of you who have
done enemas before, let's talk about some of the questions that you might have about when
to use enemas for constipation. The most frequent question that I get from viewers is, "How often
is it safe to do enemas?" Or, "Can I do it this many days a week?" Or, "Should I only do it this
amount of days a week?" So let's talk about that. There's really a range of options about this,
so bear with me while I talk about some of the nuances of the situation.
As a general rule of thumb, I like to consider two to three times a week, kind of a regular maximum
for doing an ordinary enema for constipation use. Now, if you're somebody who is really backed up
and you are never able to go to the bathroom on your own without any outside support,
and you're not already using some kind of either over the counter or
prescription medication from your doctor to help make sure that you're eliminating daily,
daily enemas might be a good idea, as long as you don't have any negative
side effects from doing them that frequently. So ultimately the thing to pay attention
to is how is your body responding to that frequency of enemas? Are you feeling lighter,
more energetic, clearer in the head, your belly feels less bloated? You feel
good and you're not too hungry? Sounds like you're tolerating those enemas pretty well.
On the other hand, if you are experiencing an increase in digestive symptoms, pain, or
bloating or sensitivity in your belly, or gas, or worsening of your constipation, or also if you're
feeling really fatigued and hungry all the time from the frequency of your enemas, that's a pretty
good sign and indicator that your body would like a little bit less frequency. Or it could
also be a sign that you need to focus a little bit more on hydration before and after your enemas.
Okay. So a lot of you have asked me about enema additives and what should you or should
you not add to your enemas? I did make an earlier video where I talked a little bit
about antimicrobial additives that you can add to your enemas. That video is called Parasite Home
Remedies. I will leave a link for that below this video, if you want to check that out.
But for general purposes for ordinary enemas, I really like to stick with plain water,
sea salt, or Epsom salts as additives. I don't really see any reason to add anything beyond this,
unless you're doing a really particular protocol. A couple of people have asked me about using
things like goat milk soap or Dr. Bronner's soap or things like this. I just really think that soap
is pretty irritating for the mucus membranes and probably, though it might help clean things out,
it might also be really irritating for your skin and really thoroughly change the environment and
microbiome in your gut. So I'm not sure that I would recommend soap as an enema additive.
The enema additives that I mentioned in the other video, which for example, included
things like making a tea out of eucalyptus leaves as an anti-parasitic enema additive
are really things that you should probably be undertaking with the support of a practitioner
who knows a little bit about what they're talking about. Either a naturopath or a health coach or
somebody who's knowledgeable about that. That step would really be something to be
working on after you've already taken on the foundational steps of dealing with your diet,
making sure your diet's really well and cleaned up, and that you've already incorporated some of
the other foundational digestion practices that I talk about in the Roadmap to Gut Recovery. These
include things like chewing really well, reducing your stress levels, handling things like enzymes
and stomach acid and probiotics. So handling gut infections is kind of something you really want to
handle after you've laid that foundation in place. If you rush to the part of dealing with the
parasites or other things, assuming that they're there, you often end up in a
situation where you feel worse and you're just not able to overcome those infections
without those foundational steps in place. Okay. Now, if you're someone who is really,
really, really backed up and you just really need some help clearing out your gut,
you might want to consider something called Colon Hydrotherapy. Colon Hydrotherapy is basically
large volume enemas that are done in an office with a Colon Hydrotherapist. You can just get a
lot more liquid into the colon at one time than you can with an enema. They're usually done in
a series of 10 to 12 visits, ideally weekly. In this way, you're able to really work on clearing
out the backlog of stored material in your colon, if you have a really backed up colon.
Last year, I made a video interviewing my local Colon Hydrotherapist so that you all could have
a front-row seat to understanding a little bit more about what that's really like.
So if you're curious about Colon Hydrotherapy, you can check out that video. I will leave a
link for that below this video. It's called Colon Hydrotherapy Benefits for Digestion.
Something else people ask me about is what to do if you want to include probiotics in your enema
to implant probiotics in your large intestine. I think that the best way to do this is to use
a small volume enema. Normally you might use one and a half to two quarts of water, but I might
go with just a couple of cups of water, open up your probiotic capsule and empty it into the enema
water, give it a stir around to help it digest, and then put the enema water inside yourself
and try and hold that enema as long as you possibly can before releasing it.
I think that's probably the best way to introduce probiotics into your colon with enemas.
Finally, I want to talk a little bit about coffee enemas, because a lot of people are
very curious about coffee enemas. The purpose of a coffee enema isn't necessarily really to
clean out your colon and move waste along. The purpose of a coffee enema is to really
stimulate the release of bile from the gallbladder and the liver. A lot of people report actually
experiencing a sensation like squeezing in that area when they do the coffee enemas.
Indirectly, that of course, may help stimulate your digestion and move things through. But if
the purpose of your enema is really for cleaning out constipation and backed up fecal matter,
the coffee enema's not really the thing that you really want to be focusing on.
You want to be working more on just a plain water enema with higher volume.
I will be making a video on coffee enemas soon. So if you're curious to hear more about that, you
might want to subscribe and click the bell so that you get a notification when that video comes out.
Do you have a question about enemas for constipation that I didn't answer? Please be sure
and leave it in the comments below. I will be sure to reply to you and try to answer your question.
So that's the scoop on enemas for constipation. Generally two to three times per week is a general
rule of thumb, but over and above everything else, as always, do listen to your body's
feedback and adjust your strategy accordingly. If you're struggling with constipation and you're
ready for some professional-level help, there's two main ways that I can help you.
First, I invite you to download my gut guide called The Roadmap to Gut Recovery.
It talks a lot about how to handle some of these foundational steps that I was mentioning earlier
in the video that need to be handled before you can move on to some of the more intensive
approaches to resolving things like constipation. I also include access to some of my key tools
for how to work through this and map out the process of where you need to go to
resolve your gut symptoms from the source. If you'd like to grab a free copy of that,
you can head to confluencenutrition.com/roadmap and I will leave a link for that
below this video for certain. Or if you've already tried a lot of things
to try and improve your constipation and other digestive challenges, I'm an expert at helping
you sift through all the details and come out on the other side with a doable contextualized plan.
If you would like to meet with me to talk more about working one-on-one with me, please schedule
a free 30-minute assessment session. I will take a look at your situation and have a sense of what
might be the next best steps for you. You'll have a chance to ask me questions about what it might
be like to work together. You can schedule that by going to confluencenutrition.com/contact and I
will also leave a link for that below this video. All right. I hope this video helped you feel more
comfortable using enemas for your constipation and helped you better understand how to use them
and in what context. If you liked this video, please click "Like" or share this video with
someone who you think could benefit from it. I will see you next time. Take care.