The Enema Virgin

I’ve always thought of my arse as a one way street, and that direction was down and out. Food goes in the top, works its way through the body, takes what it needs and the left overs come out the bottom end. This philosophy has, by and large, served me well, but as I get older, I’m finding that my body isn’t working as well as it once did, and my arse doesn’t alway behave.

Talking about your toilet habits is not always a welcome topic of conversation, but working as a doula and Mizan therapist, I find myself talking about poo quite a lot, and it seems to me that there are a lot of bottoms that are also misbehaving, and so in the interest of all who suffer with bottom troubles, I have set out on a quest to learn more.

I recently attended a course in nutrition with Becs Jones, while I was in the south of Spain over the winter. Becs blew my mind! All the knowledge that she imparted to us, especially the stuff around gut health and probiotics, was simply brilliant. She explained how important bacterias were for both gut and mental health and the growing awareness of the link between the two. You can read more about GAPS here. She explained that probiotics are one of the simplest and most effective ways of introducing good bacterias into your system, and one of those effective ways was via an enema. My heart sank, up until that point I was with her 100%, I saw the link she was making between gut heath and general well being, but I had sworn never to stuck a tube up my arse. I was concerned with disturbing the natural balance of flora and fauna up there. I was concerned that if I cleaned it out from the bottom up, that I would leave myself vulnerable, and exposed to food sensitivities or infection. Becs did her best to reassure me and told me that the colon is where most of the bacterias reside and so to combat the bad bacterias its best to introduce the good bacterias directly to the site, but I had some serious re-framing to do .

Now, while I was in Spain, I picked something else up too… a tummy bug. Let me tell you, it was not pleasant, I was shitting through the eye of an needle. My ring was red raw, and my belly was crippled. Luckily, the bug came and went within the space of about a week,  but my arse was never the same. I had to do something to help myself. The idea of an enema started to appeal more and more to me, so I started to ask friends if they had ever done one and what it had been like for them. To my surprise, I actually found that I knew loads of people that regularly did enemas and with great results! In the end it was talking to my friend over dinner (I know not the best dinner conversation, but I was a woman possessed, I needed to know), and she told me that her Granny swore by them and that she had lived to the rip old age of 102! There are many reported benefits of enemas which include; detoxing the body, relieving constipation, reducing body fatigue, colds, fevers and flatulence, and providing relaxation and relief for the whole body. “Ok!” I thought, “I’m going in!”

I had asked my various friends for their top tips, and what was the best way of going about such things.  They said things like, “do it in the bathroom, you don’t want to be too far from the toilet” and “use a lube when you’re inserting the tube” “lie on a towel that you can stick straight in the wash afterwards in case of any accidents” and the best tip I got was “make sure all the air is out of the tube before you let the water flow in, otherwise you’ll be crippled with wind the next day” Right! Got it! and so in my quest for optimal health, I ordered my enema kit, got my probiotics and thought about how to arrange myself on the bathroom floor.

It’s Saturday morning and my kit has arrived and I am ready to pop my enema cherry! I’m going in!

Ok, well that was interesting! I set up my bathroom with a nice cosy towel and a pillow on the floor, I put my enema pot up on the self (filled with body temperature water and a couple of probiotic capsules emptied and dissolved into it), a pot of balm I had made with olive oil and beeswax which would be used for both my lube and for massaging my colon, and I kept my chamber pot nearby.

I had been told that I may “have a sensation that I need to eliminate as the water goes in” well that was true enough. As soon as I felt the water going in, I felt like I wanted to get it out. It wasn’t painful, but I refer you back to my belief that “my arse is a one way street”, and this was a new sensation for my body. I managed to keep the water in for all of a minute and then had to sit on my potty. I felt the relief that one feels when eliminating a bad curry. However, I also felt that I hadn’t really given it my best shot, so I set it all up again and this time I managed to keep the water in for about 5 minutes. Long enough to give my colon a massage with sweeps going in an anti clockwise direction and lay on my right side. This helps to get the water (and the probiotics) to the end of the colon and to where they are needed. It was while lying on my side that i made a note to myself that next time (if there would be a next time) it would be a good idea to bring a book in with me, instead I had to stare at the underside of my bath and see how dusty it was under there, seemingly it wasn’t just my back side that needed a good clear our.

This time when I sat on my potty, I couldn’t believe how much came out. Not so much what came out, I was kind of expecting to see shit, but the amount of liquid that came out was vast, much more than what went up, i’m sure. I shudder to think what it was. Every time I thought I had finished and went to stand up, I got another bout of what I can only describe as rancid diarrhoea, only without the sting. (Sorry, but I’m assuming that as you’re reading a blog on enemas, you were expecting a few foul details. Second note to self: burn some incense.) Needless to say, I stayed close to the bathroom for a while afterwards.

And now? now that its all done, and I’ve cleaned up the crime scene, how do I feel? well, apart from a little nausea, I don’t feel so different. I had heard that people can feel really light headed and floaty, but not for me. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations, maybe I can’t expect big changes after just one enema. Would I do it again? ask me again in a few days…

So it has been a few days now since my enema experience, and I can report that I didn’t need the toilet at all for the rest of Saturday, or on Sunday, which was a little concerning as I do enjoy my regular morning “meditation” on the throne. But this morning, I birthed the most satisfying shit Ive had in months! was it the enema that cleared the way? I guess I’ll have to try it again and see!

Thanks for reading!