It has been way too long, friends! A quick update on the outcome of my last cleanse and what happened since then.
I still don’t know if what I experienced was a healing crisis or the flu. One of my children did vomit during the night several days later, and my kids aren’t prone to such things, so it may have been a flu. Regardless, I’m still just so in awe of the connectedness I had with my body at the time. It’s amazing what our bodies will tell us if we listen. The illness I went through lasted a week, during that time I spent 2 days eating nothing but Ezekiel bread (a total of 6 slices) because that was all that I could stomach. I was set back by this illness in that my blood sugar went all wacky and once my stomach started to feel better I was insatiably hungry for days. It took a week after I recovered to get back on track with being able to juice until afternoon and eat raw until dinner and such. In the end I lost 5 pounds, bringing me down to 116, and lost 1 inch off of all of my measurements… I wasn’t too excited about losing weight anywhere but my waist. Tons of the bloat went down though, so that was wonderful
Then, we went on a trip for 18 days. This trip involved LOTS of road travel. I ended up eating way more grain than I should have and I was very uncomfortably constipated the entire time, despite attempts at enemas several times, most of which didn’t yield much.
I’ve been back home almost 4 weeks now and I’m still struggling to get back on track. I did stop eating grain a few weeks ago, but I am currently eating some fruit (grapefruit and apples). Trying to limit to 1 piece a day and only eat it after my morning juice. I’m not being perfect though. I’ve had a ton of gas (again, I thought we were over this after my last cleanse), and have gotten back into the afternoon slump habit where my energy just depletes around 3 pm. Despite all this I’ve managed to keep my weight around 118-119, which is great, I only go over 120 if I’m very bloated.
SO! I FINALLY made my appointments for those 2 colonics I got Groupons for. This was such an interesting experience because in a way I felt like things were coming full circle, like this validated what I believe and what I teach. I make a point not to ask people to do things I myself have not tried and found beneficial, but I do recommend colon hydrotherapy and have a very strong testimony that it IS THE key to health. Having the opportunity to experience it myself was so wonderful!
*****TMI WARNING, Here’s where I start talking about my colonic experience!!!!!*****
These colonics were done at Blue Nile Spa in St. Louis where an open LIBBE system is used, which is a gravity fed system. In the world of colonics the most gentle and thorough is the Woods system, but they are hard to find (you can check to see if there is one near you here http://www.detoxtheworld.com/knowledge-base-colon-therapy-directory.php). The next best thing is the gravity fed, open LIBBE system, and the third option, which is nowhere near as gentle and can cause some issues by further impacting waste, is the pressurized, closed system (basically it forces water into you and sucks it back out). There is no Woods anywhere near, so I went with the LIBBE gravity fed system.
My first appointment was on Monday January 31st at 1:15 pm. I was a mix of excited and nervous all day. Ideally, you would only take in vegetable juices before a colonic, but my blood sugar can’t handle that yet, so at best you should never eat within 2 hours of the appointment. I had goat cheese lettuce wraps about an hour and 45 minutes before. I didn’t realize how nervous I was until I got there and concerns kept spilling out of my mouth to the therapist (who, by the way, I adore greatly). After a consultation she took me into the room and explained what I was to do and left me to it. In the room there is a table, just like this http://www.aqualive.co.nz/colon_hydrotherapy_libbe.html. You can see the shape of the table allows for your legs to rest in a bent position. Notice the hole in the table. Inside that hole is a disposable plastic tube with a rounded tip that the water flows through. What you do is put on a gown and climb up on the table. Remove the plastic cover from the tube, put a latex glove on one hand and apply lubricant to the end of the tube and to yourself. There is a trash can sitting next to the table for you to discard things. Next, you insert the tube (which I was surprised was held rather tightly in place, you can’t pull it out or push it into the table) and lay back on the padded table. You’ve also got a large sheet to drape over yourself. When you’re all situated you push a little button that lets the therapist know you’re ready.
At this point she came back in… I have to interject and say I had major concerns because I’d had this painful hemorrhoid show up over the weekend and despite my suffocating it with cream, it just wouldn’t back off. I was very worried about the amount of irritation there would be from the tube and the waste leaving my body. She had given me some horse chestnut to help combat it and strongly suggested I got on a Candida cleanse, followed by a week or two of taking probiotics, and then repeat the process. She said that good bacteria are responsible for creating vitamin K, which is needed to keep blood vessels strong. Okay, so she came back in. This is where I realize I’m so nervous my legs are shaking. I’m afraid of nausea, because I have a phobia of vomiting. I always panic when I feel nauseated. Also, she’d said that toward the end your cells are so hydrated they go through this releasing of waste and you get hot flashes and might shake a little, that scared me too! Because I was so scared she started the water off slow and cooler than usual because the warmer the water is the more nausea people experience, but the warm water removes more waste. I wanted her to stay with me a bit, which she was a little surprised about because usually people just want to be alone and relax. It only took a minute for me to figure out why this is (and I laugh at myself now)… you’re basically pooping into a hole in a table while lying down and if it isn’t awkward enough to carry on a conversation with a tube in your bum, it certainly is awkward to poop in front of a stranger! So I just keep filling and filling with water, thinking maybe I just don’t get how it works because I’m so used to holding enemas. So she turns off the water and steps out. Literally, the moment the door closes it aaaaaaaall lets loose! I find this funny because the whole thing was very much like giving birth (minus the pain, thankfully). I needed to be alone to release, and this happened several times during my sessions. She came back in and turned the water back on, left me alone again and my body got in to the ebb and flo of the process. It did feel weird to be so full of water, but it was only nauseating when she did the “massage” which was basically pressing the palms of her hands hard into my abdomen following my colon in a clockwise motion. I came up on to my elbows, as she suggested, and felt just fine. I also found it easier to eliminate this way. I would get cramps like having a big bowel movement, or maybe mild diarrhea, followed by an elimination and relief from cramping. I have to say this, because it was my big question I couldn’t find the answer to beforehand, the tube stays in place during elimination. I’d hear that it “moves out of the way” and couldn’t understand what that means. It doesn’t move, the waste just goes around it, and more easily than one might think. I also want to say that the waste goes into a large clear viewing tube and there is a mirror so you can see what is coming out of you. I was FASCINATED by this! I really thought a lot more would come out of me though. When my time was up she came in and put a probiotic into the tube to go into me, its 3-4 ounces of liquid. Then she instructed me to spray off with a sprayer nozzle and dry with paper towels, then go sit on the toilet to make sure everything is eliminated.
After having this done a person is supposed to eat a liquid and blended diet for 24-hours. I was nervous about this because I have never been able to do that, my blood sugar gets low and I shake and get very weak. I drank an electrolyte drink she gave me and had 2 mason jars of juice afterward, then I had 2 mason jars of Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl (which is carrot just blended with ½ an avocado, 1 cup of sweet potato, pumpkin pie spice, and Stevia). Then my family and I headed to Costco. Up until this point I had a TON of energy, maybe from the colonic, maybe from the euphoria of overcoming a fear, maybe both, but I felt great and my eyes looked clearer to me. Anyway, while driving there I started to get dizzy, which often happens to me, especially while driving so I didn’t think much of it at first. Then I felt extremely tired and felt this urge to lie down, which was followed by intense nausea. It felt like morning sickness coupled with the stomach flu. I’d been feeling hungry as we were leaving the house so I wondered if that was the problem. After all, it had been 7.5 hours since I’d eaten solid food and I hadn’t had much blended food. All I had in the car were some Ak-Mak crackers (organic whole wheat crackers) I’d brought for the kids. I try not to eat grains, but this was a serious situation, so I ate 2. After a few minutes I started to feel less nauseated. I went in and did my shopping and as I was getting back in the car I felt sick again, so I ate a few more crackers and it eased up a bit. I had to force myself to eat, nothing sounded appetizing. When we got home I went straight to bed and slowly force-fed myself an apple. As I was finishing it I was feeling quite a bit better and wishing sweet potatoes baked faster because that actually sounded good, then the nausea came back. I stayed in bed for the rest of the night and felt normal the next morning… and my hemorrhoid was nearly GONE!!!! The therapist had explained that hemorrhoids are caused by not enough good bacteria. Our bodies need the probiotics to make vitamin K which our blood vessels need for strength, so the probiotic implant was definitely working!
My second colonic was on Wednesday the 1st of February at 10 am. I was far less nervous this time, no shaking, just a little bit of nerves because I know that every session will be a little bit different. For some reason this time the tube was less comfortable, despite the hemorrhoid being almost gone. More waste came out with the second colonic than the first. With both colonics I didn’t want the session to end. I felt like I could just stay there forever “giving birth to my past.” I coined that phrase during the first session when the therapist came in and we somehow got to talking about how it’s similar to giving birth and I made the comment, “I’m giving birth to my past over here.” I loved seeing all that poinson coming out of me. That is the headaches, and the IBS pain, and the depression and anxiety, and the muscle weakness… just leaving my body to be flushed and never heard from again! Seriously, I wish I could go every day.
Wow, this has turned into quite the novel! I’ll have to save the info about my next cleansing endeavor for another post…
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