Hi siderealion...It sounds like you're going to be spending a big wad of money ANYWAY...so why don't you just find a colon hydrotherapist and get an evaluation
and one colonic and go from there?

I feel like I'm in a desperate situation myself. And I've taken many of the cleanses and done a lot of the things that help most people...and they haven't
helped me at all.

I think you said you're in Los Angeles...so there has to be a ton of colon hydrotherapists in your area.

My situation has gone on for 7 years...but has become much worse in the last 6 or
8 months....probably because I have absolutely become obsessed with it. And I have
finally made an appointment with a Naturopath in St Louis...and we're going to have
to make a 3 hour drive one way...just to go see her. And if she feels she can help
me...we plan to make that trip several times in the next 2 or 3 weeks...to get me back on the road to health.

You've very young...so I know you've got to be very inexperienced with all of this.
I've been studying natural healing for decades and "I" would not go the route you're
going. Why don't you spend that money on a good hydrotherapist and let THEM help
you resolve your problem. The one in St Louis charges $75 a session...and I would
imagine they all charge about the same.

I think Valerie has a list of many colon hydrotherapists throughout the U.S. so maybe she could help you find a good one. And you do want to be sure you're getting a good one. I really hope you go 'this' route...instead of the one you're considering. Will you consider a colon hydrotherapists? Hope to hear back from
you. kathryn

Hi

It sounds like you have gone through a lot. I think you are on the right track but maybe these tips might aid your recovery.

1) Firstly finding your balanced diet that doesn't cause any digestive discomfort, bloating or pain, by eliminating all foods that irritate the intestine, colon, stomach, liver and kidneys etc

These foods are good to begin with:
organic raw vegan vegetable soup - carrot, pumpkin, onion, leek, brocolli

Then gradually introduce 1 new food at a time to see how your body reacts. I know its annoying and difficult having such a limited diet having to be so strict but when all else fails its safer to reduce your diet to the bare minimum excluding everything and introduce new foods slowly to find out what you can tolerate currently and what you can't right now. Gradually the body adapts anyway and your bodies ability to deal with some foods can and will improve once you are balanced.

These foods are problematic:
High Sugar foods - including honey, maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, grapes and mango, papaya, dates, prunes, dried fruits,
Citrus fruits - ( except lime and lemon) including pineapple, oranges
Complex Starchs - grains, most beans, potatoes
High fibre foods - including grains, brown rice, beans, psyllium, flax meal
High fat foods - including avacado, nuts - pistachios, cashews, macademia, seeds, coconut, olives, fried foods, hydrogenated fats, saturated fats, old oxidised fats - including flax / linseed
Cooked, processed - beans, breads, yeast, vinegar, pickles, alcohol
Yeast - including all fermented foods - vinegar and apple cider vinegar, soy, miso, marmite, old fruits, dried fruits, old wheatgrass, a day old sprouts
High Oxalic foods - beetroot, spinach. These foods excrete calcium from your body and can lead to more constipation.
Raw vegetables - including cabbage, lettuce, (except carrots, cucumber)
Cold foods - including salads, iced drinks, icecream
Dairy - especially milk and cheese
Nighshade vegetables - including potatoes, tomatoes, aubergine


These can irritate and inflame the stomach, bload the intestine, ferment in the gut, and feed bacteria.

2) don't eat before 10am or after 8pm.

3) Reduce meals to 3 small ones a day (nothing more than 2 handfuls)

4) Always chew every mouthful slowly - approx 20 times Not only does it break down the food, by the time you come to swallow your stomach has caught up with your apetite and you will feel full before you end up eating too much causing a burden on both the stomach acid and liver.

5) 1hr before the meal drink 2 glasses of water. I have found that drinking a shot of turmeric powder or other liver tonic herb or spirce with water before drinking glasses of water really aids digestion.

Any other point during the day if your hungry don't eat, and instead have something to drink. Its very important to drink more than you eat during a day to help expand the food and take the edge off it as it travels through yout digestive system, while also providing the most important thing second to oxygen - hydration. See the book - your bodies many cries for water.

6) If your still hungry after 2 handfuls during a meal drink 1/2 mug of hot herbal tea. Though this contradicts the principle that drinking dilutes your digestive juices its not too much liquid, it expands dry food a little easing the burden of digestion and It actually helps to relieve apetite.

7) Once you have tried this method of eating for a couple of weeks and not felt any pain then you can try doing a colonic cleanse. First and foremost find your balance before embarking on anything demanding of the body.

8) After a colonic cleanse, then you need to rebuild the intestinal wall. I would encourage not using psyllium and its very drying for the body. Also avoid dry grains - like brown rice, complex sugars like beans, and high dry fibre foods. Stick to soluble fibre foods like fruits. This will help take the burden off the intestine while it heals. Use slipperly elm instead, as a fibre.

9) Once you feel you have cleansed yourself of parasites and fecal matter etc, then get yourself some easily assimilable protein source, brown rice protein, pea protein etc to help build up the gut again.

These are a few tips i have learned. Since drinking 2-3 litres a day and eating less I have found so much relief. And i go through regular bouts of indigestive problems - periodically about every 2 weeks.

good luck

My constipation problems started many years ago and I've tried everything - Oxypowder , psyllium, enemas, magnesium, probiotics, digestive enzymes...the list does go on. There is plenty of valuable information on this site and individuals with a tremendous store of knowledge on the subject of internal health but you do have to find it.

Given that, my opinion is that the approach you outlined will not solve your constipation issues. You do have a history with meds and you probably know that they wreak havoc on your system.

My history, as brief as I can manage: 5'10", Male, 140 LBS, tremendous bloat and a distended stomach (honestly, same as you). I was involved in an accident that perforated my intestines at 22. I wore a colostomy for 3 months and thankfully, it was reversed. The accident exacerbated my constipation problems but I never complained as I was very lucky to live through it. While my diet was extremely good, I still couldn't resolve the constipation.

Fast forward through years of supplements, enemas, liver/bowel cleanse etc. My stomach became the most distended it had ever been 5 months ago. For 6 weeks, I consumed nothing but fruits, veggies (juiced), home made soup and anything I could easily digest. Still, I had no luck. I stumbled across Barefoot's forum and spent hours reading the posts and the information on his site. I tried his LBB formula of herbs and could not believe the difference. Within 1 week, my bloat had diminished and I have heavy 2-3 BM's.

I still have constipation issues but this is the best situation I've ever experienced. I really do believe that this can be overcome with his theories on health and the herb blends he produces, but it will take time.

You will not be successful if your diet resembles the SAD in any way. There are no exceptions. The most difficult thing we can do is to make a commitment. When you breach that threshold, your goals will be realized. I don't mean to sound corny but losing weight, quitting smoking, eating healthy is an easy path only when you overcome the hurdle of committing to change. Your diet, exercise and LBB formula will help rebuild the peristalsis function that has been compromised.

I've rambled on but do want to stress that you should continue to research your problem. Read the posts in the 'Ask Barefoot' forum and spend some time on his site. Don't take the path of relying on supplements and invasive procedures to hopefully cure your constipation. I would never recommend a colonics.

As for your colonoscopy, don't expect your GI doctor to find any issues. Mine was negative. That's the day that I swore to never see a doctor for digestive health issues. The text-book answer just doesn't work.

With the measures outlined in your replies for help, I would strongly advise you to carry out some form of exercise, which has a profoundly beneficial effect on digestive health and elimination.

The form I would recommend is "Rebounding" exercise building up slowly from mild to moderate; it is the ONLY cellular exercise in existence and also the ONLY exercise recommended by NASA for their astronauts.

There are many testimonials on the web as to the efficacy of this statement, including my own: no bloating; no constipation; regular bowel movements and so on.
Do a little research yourself and you will see what I mean.

Best Wishes.
chrisb1

Another way to go is to learn to juice fast (with homemade juices) A 10 day fast will really clean your colon out. The Champion Juicer is a good mid-priced one to check out. Juciceing becomes part of a lifestyle.

A $5.00 emema kit from Walmart used once or twice daily during the fast including some coffee enemas and a Liver Flush at the end of the fast will do wonders for you.

Colon cleansing and getting the organs in shape is a process that takes some time, patience, and diligence.

A great book that explains how to do all of the protocols is A Cancer Battleplan Sourcebook By Dave Frahm, ND. Doing what the book says eliminates ALL illness, not just cancer. It gets the body in great shape.

Another good book is Steve Meyerowitz book Juice Fasting and Detoxification... tells all about juice fasting.

After taking all of those meds for so long, you would benefit from liver flushing. The coffee enemas help the liver expel toxins too. Get your liver working right and everything else improves.

Why Liver Flush w/Directions at Liver Flush Support Forum

//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=182920


Everyone recommends water (1/2 your weight in ozs. daily), any kind of excerise daily, good diet, good attitude.... all are nesessary.

I took a look at the unit that you are thinking of buying. You have to sit up to do the cleanse. I just do not see how this will allow the solution to easily cleanse the whole large intestine. Its a matter of gravity. That coupled with the fact that it is is only 2 1/2 gallons makes it seem to me that it would not be very effective. Plus they indicate that the tips should not go more than 3 inches into the rectum. How do you keep it from going in to far when you have to sit on it?

I personally use the unit by Ultimate. They are the first ones to produce and paten the blue deluxe one piece units you see on the market today. The unit comes with a fully plumbed 5 gallon solution container, so you just flick a clamp and the solution flows. No siphoning. They are also the only company that I found that offers a 30 day money back guarantee on the board itself. And a lifetime replacement guarantee if the board should ever break during normal usage. You said the unit you are looking at runs $120.00. Ultimate's unit is a little more then that, I think about $115.00 more delivered. Oh and they also offer a neat little product called the EZ fill. It snaps easily onto your faucet, filters the water and sends it up to your solution container.
http://www.myhomecolonic.com
is their web address. I think they still sell on ebay also under "colonic".

When I cleanse I don't stop at 5 gallons, I prefer 7 to 10 gallons. If I stop at 5, I find that I have to run back to the toilet several times after. Plus if you have a colonic done on a professional system, they tend to use quite a bit more than 5 gallons.
Well what ever you choose, I wish you luck.

Happy Cleansing,

Leelie

So ive spent the past two weeks researching, fleshing out a program, and buying equipment. The plan is to do two colemas a day, 5 gallons a pop for 7 days. I wont be eating solid food and ill be taking intestinal cleanser and nutrient support.

Thats 70 Gallons of distilled/filtered water.
I was originally going to buy it in 2.5 gallon bottles, but when I looked at the price, I figured I might as well spend a little more and buy myself a water filtration system and get drinking water out of the deal.

So I got on ebay, searched for Reverse Osmosis water filtration systems (I had heard RO is the best method), and found a nice model which installs under the sink and has a nice chrome, lead-free faucet for $130 shipped. For $180 you can get one which does ultra violet filtering, and for $70 shipped you can get a portable counter top model which can connect to your shower, garden hose, or standard sink faucet. I am technical minded so installation wasn't too bad. I could see what I was up against after poking around under the sink for 15 minutes. With the advice of a handyman it took me 3 hours including rereading the manual cover to cover 3 times and a trip to the hardware store (for a metal cutting drill bit) to install.

Then I researched reverse osmosis water. Apparently reverse osmosis robs water of its minerals in addition to all impurities it filters, resulting in a slightly acidic (5.5-6.5PH) water. You need special faucets for reverse osmosis systems because the now acidic water will corrode the piping quicker and cause lead to leak. You can re-miniralize (and raise the PH of) the water by adding Epsom's salt
(anhydrous magnesium sulfate), calcium carbonate, baking soda, and potassium chloride to the water. It occurred to me that I should look into what types of plastics are corrosive so as to not use them to hold my water.
===========================================
Heres a little cut of an article on RO water reconstitution
===========================================
“if you want to reconstitute 50 gallons of RO water you would
take four and a half 600 mg calcium tablets, crush them and stir them into
the water. Also, with a 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon, measure out and mix
in six and a half 1/4 teaspoon measures of Epsom's salt, four and a half
1/4 teaspoon measures of baking soda and three 1/4 teaspoon measures of
potassium chloride.

Chemical dose/ dose/ measurement
100 liters 50 gallons unit

epson's salt 3.5 6.5 1/4 teaspoons
calcium carbonate 2.5 4.5 600 mg tablet
baking soda 2.5 4.5 1/4 teaspoons
potassium chloride 1.5 3 1/4 teaspoons

The composition (after the pH drops) should be

dose/ dose/ measurement
100 liters 50 gallons units

calcium 15.0 14.3 mg/l
magnesium 4.7 4.6 mg/l
sodium 8.9 8.5 mg/l
potassium 11.8 12.4 mg/l
bicarbonate 69.4 66.0 mg/l
sulfate 18.4 18.0 mg/l
chloride 10.7 11.3 mg/l

general hardness 3.2 3.1 degrees
57.1 55.0 ppm as CaCO3
alkalinity 3.2 3.0 degrees
56.9 54.1 ppm as CaCO3
Na/(Ca+Mg+K) 0.27 0.26 molar ratio
total dissolved solids 79.8 78.9 mg/l”
"


Another thing I was concerned about was the chloramine content (chlorine and ammonia) in my tap water, since reverse osmosis doesn't kill it. I found out that vitamin C neutralizes chloramine, so I figure adding fresh squeezed lemon juice to the water would reduce the chloramine. Apparently lemon juice turns alkaline once ingested which is a plus.

I ended up going with a standard colema board fixture and not the thing which sits in the toilet. The nice thing about the in toilet thing was that it was portable, small, not mess to clean, and cheap. But I would rather be lying down for 45 minutes on a soft blue board than squatting and cutting off my circulation.

=============================
NUTRIENT SUPPORT:
=============================
Kelp
Chlorella
Liquid Chlorophyll
Alfalfa
NAD
Wheat Germ Oil
Flax Seed Oil
Cod Liver Oil
Rose Hips
Plantcreatine (Enzyme supp)
Beetjuice
Acidophilus
=============================
Intestinal Cleanser:
=============================
1 Part Powdered Slippery Elm bark
1 Part Psyllium Husks
3 Part Bentonite
3 Part Apple Cider Vinegar
3 Part Honey
1 Part Ground Garlic
50 parts water
50 parts apple juice
(gross but just chug it)
=============================
COLEMA WATER (Per 5 Gallons):
=============================
1/2 oz food grade H202 (Hydrogen Peroxide)
Juice of 3 Lemons (PH Balance) (Reverse Osmosis water is acidic, we want alkaline)


My board should be arriving within a week. Comments advice anyone? Did I make any horrible mistakes?

I like your idea getting the reverse osmosis system. Clean, fresh water is one of the best things you can do for your body, and overall health. One thing that caught my eye was your bloating and distended gut. I recently battled a condition with my gallbladder that resembled what you describe, to a degree. I would get full after only eating a couple of bites of anything. Unable to eat I began a systematic approach to discover my problem. My search eventually led me to the water I was drinking, and specifically the chloramine in the water. I found this out by drinking only bottled, distilled water for several days in a row, and was noticeably better. Then went back to filtered tap water and the symptoms returned. Through testing I narrowed it down to the chloramine in the water, and that in turn got me on a search to a clean water source. I too used an r/o system. But to rid my water of the chloramine, I added a deionizer cartridge to my system, then another carbon filter. As an added precaution I installed a tds meter on the incoming and outgoing water. Now my water has 0 tds, no chloramine, no chlorine, no ammonia, nothing but water. And I feel great. I had been battling this condition for over 7 years...and it coincided with my move to texas where they add chloramine to the water supply. In Colorado, where I used to live, only chlorine was added and that was completely removed by the carbon filter. Just a thought, and not that expensive to try and see if it helps. And at the very least, it won't hurt to have clean water to drink. As a side note, I am so sensitive to chloramine...eg. skin rashes that up until recently couldn't be explained, I have recently installed a whole house backwashing centaur carbon filter. And the rashes are gone. Give it try. You could simply try the bottled distilled water for a week and see where it gets you. That coupled with a high fiber laxative should help you eliminate.