How and When to Be Your Own Doctor by Moser and Solomon (best classic books to read .TXT) 📖

When I first mention to clients that they need a minimum of 12

colonics or many more enemas than 12 during a fasting or cleansing program they are inevitably shocked. To most it seems that no one in their right mind would recommend such a treatment, and that I must certainly be motivated by greed or some kind of a psychological quirk. Then I routinely show them reproductions of X-rays of the large intestine showing obvious loss of normal structure and function resulting from a combination of constipation, the effects of gravity, poor abdominal muscle tone, emotional stress, and poor diet. In the average colon more than 50% of the hastrum (muscles that impel fecal matter through the organ) are dysfunctional due to loss of tone caused by impaction of fecal matter and/or constriction of the large intestine secondary to stress (holding muscular tension in the abdominal area) and straining during bowel movement.

A typical diseased colon

The average person also has a prolapsed (sagging) transverse colon, and a distorted misplaced ascending and descending colon. I took a course in colon therapy before purchasing my first colonic machine.

The chiropractor teaching the class required all of his patients scheduled for colonics to take a barium enema followed by an X-ray of their large intestine prior to having colonics and then make subsequent X-rays after each series of 12 colonics. Most of his patients experienced so much immediate relief they voluntarily took at least four complete series, or 48 colonics, before their X-rays began to look normal in terms of structure. It also took about the same number, 48 colonics, for the patients to notice a significant improvement in the function of the colon. In reviewing over 10,000

X-rays taken at his clinic prior to starting colonics, the chiropractor had seen only two normal colon X-rays and these were from farm boys who grew up eating simple foods from the garden and doing lots of hard work.

The X-rays showed that it took a minimum of 12 colon treatments to bring about a minimal but observable change in the structure of the colon in the desired direction, and for the patient to begin to notice that bowel function was improving, plus the fact that they started to feel better.

A Healthy Colon

From my point of view the most amazing part of this whole experience was that the chiropractor did not recommend any dietary changes whatsoever. His patients were achieving great success from colonics alone. I had thought dietary changes would be necessary to avoid having the same dismal bowel condition return. I still think colonics are far more effective if people are on a cleansing diet too. However, I was delighted to see the potential for helping people through colonics.

For me, the most interesting part of this colonic school was that I personally was required to have my own barium enema and X-ray. I was privately certain that mine would look normal, because after all, I had been on a raw food diet for six years, and done considerable amount of fasting, all of which was reputed to repair a civilized colon. Much to my surprise my colon looked just as mangled and dysfunctional as everyone else’s’, only somewhat worse because it had a loop in the descending colon similar to a cursive letter “e”

which doctors call a volvulus. Surgeons like to cut volvululii out because they frequently cause bowel obstructions. It seemed quite unfair. All those other people with lousy looking colons had been eating the average American diet their whole life, but I had been so ‘pure!’

On further reflection I remembered that I had a tendency toward constipation all through my childhood and young adulthood, and that during my two pregnancies the pressure of the fetus on an already constipated bowel had made it worse resulting in the distorted structure seen in the X-ray. This experience made it very clear that fasting, cleansing diets, and corrected diet would not reverse damage already done. Proper diet and fasting would however, prevent the condition of the colon from getting any worse than it already was.

I then realized that I had just purchased the very tool I needed to correct my own colon, and I was eager to get home to get started on it. I had previously thought that I was just going to use this machine for my patients, because they had been asking for this kind of an adjunct to my services for some time. I ended up giving myself over a hundred colonics at the rate of three a week over many months. I then out of curiosity had another barium enema and X-ray to validate my results. Sure enough the picture showed a colon that looked far more ‘normal’ with no vulvulus. That little “e” had disappeared.

What Is Constipation?

Most people think they are not constipated because they have a bowel movement almost every day, accomplished without straining. I have even had clients tell me that they have a bowel movement once a week, and they are quite certain that they are not constipated. The most surprising thing to novice fasters is that repeated enemas or colonics during fasting begins to release many pounds of undeniably real, old, caked fecal matter and/or huge mucus strings. The first-time faster can hardly believe these were present. These old fecal deposits do not come out the first time one has enemas or necessarily the fifth time. And all of them will not be removed by the tenth enema. But over the course of extended fasting or a long spell of light raw food eating with repeated daily enemas, amazing changes do begin to occur. It seems that no one who has eaten a civilized diet has escaped the formation of caked deposits lining the colon’s walls, interfering with its function. This material does not respond to laxatives or casually administered enemas.

Anyone who has not actually seen (and smelled) what comes out of an “average” apparently healthy person during colonics will really believe it could happen or can accurately imagine it. Often there are dark black lumpy strings, lumps, or gravel, evil smelling discs shaped like sculpted hemispheres similar to the pockets lining the wall of the colon itself. These discs are rock-hard and may come out looking like long black braids. There may also be long tangled strings of gray/brown mucous, sheets and flakes of mucous, and worse yet, an occasional worm (tape worm) or many smaller ones. Once confronted however, it is not hard to imagine how these fecal rocks and other obnoxious debris interfere with the proper function of the colon. They make the colon’s wall rigid and interfere with peristalsis thus leading to further problems with constipation, and interfere with adsorption of nutrients.

Our modern diet is by its “de-“nature, very constipating. In the trenches of the First World War, cheese was given the name ‘chokem ass’ because the soldiers eating this as a part of their daily ration developed severe constipation. Eaten by itself or with other whole foods, moderate amounts of cheese may not produce health problems in people who are capable of digesting dairy products. But cheese when combined with white flour becomes especially constipating. White bread or most white-flour crackers contain a lot of gluten, a very sticky wheat protein that makes the bread bind together and raise well. But white flour is lacking the bran, where most of the fiber is located. And many other processed foods are missing their fiber.

In an earlier chapter I briefly showed how digestion works by following food from the mouth to the large intestine. To fully grasp why becoming constipated is almost a certainty in our civilization a few more details are required. Food leaving the small intestine is called chyme, a semi-liquid mixture of fiber, undigested bits, indigestible bits, and the remains of digestive enzymes. Chyme is propelled through the large intestine by muscular contractions. The large intestine operates on what I dub the “chew chew train”

principle, where the most recent meal you ate enters the large intestine as the caboose (the last car of a train) and helps to push out the train engine (the car at the front that toots), which in a healthy colon should represent the meal eaten perhaps twelve hours earlier. The muscles in the colon only contract when they are stretched, so it is the volume of the fecal matter stretching the large intestine that triggers the muscles to push the waste material along toward the rectum and anus.

Eating food lacking fiber greatly reduces the volume of the chyme and slows peristalsis. But moving through fast or slow, the colon still keeps on doing another of its jobs, which is to transfer the water in the chime back into the bloodstream, reducing dehydration.

So the longer chime remains in the colon, the dryer and harder and stickier it gets. That’s why once arrived at the “end of the tracks”

fecal matter should be evacuated in a timely manner before it gets to dry and too hard to be moved easily. Some constipated people do have a bowel movement every day but are evacuating the meal eaten many days or even a week previously.

Most hygienists believe that when the colon becomes lined with hardened fecal matter it is permanently and by the very definition of the word itself, constipated. This type of constipation is not perceived as an uncomfortable or overly full feeling or a desire to have a bowel movement that won’t pass. But it has insidious effects.

Usually constipation delays transit time, increasing the adsorption of toxins generated from misdigestion of food; by coating and locking up significant portions of colon it also reduces the adsorption of certain minerals and electrolytes.

Sometimes, extremely constipated people have almost constant runny bowels because the colon has become so thickly and impenetrably lined with old fecal matter that it no longer removes much moisture.

This condition is often misinterpreted as diarrhea. The large intestine’s most important task is to transfer water-soluble minerals from digested food to the blood. When a significant part of the colon’s surface becomes coated with impermeable dried rigid fecal matter or mucus it can no longer assimilate effectively and the body begins to experience partial mineral starvation in the presence of plenty. It is my observation from dozens of cases that when the colon has been effectively cleansed the person has a tendency to gain weight while eating amounts of food that before only maintained body weight, while people who could not gain weight or who were wasting away despite eating heavily begin to gain. And problems like soft fingernails, bone loss around teeth or porous bones tend to improve.

The Development Of My Own Constipation

The history of my own constipation, though it especially relates to a very rustic childhood, is typical of many people. I was also raised on a very constipating diet which consisted largely of processed cheese and crackers. Mine was accelerated by shyness, amplified by lack of comfortable facilities.

I spent my early years on the Canadian prairies, where everybody had an outhouse. The fancy modern versions are frequently seen on construction sites. These are chemical toilets, quiet different than the ones I was raised with because somebody or something mysteriously comes along, empties them and installs toilet paper.

The ones I’m familiar with quickly developed a bad-smelling steaming mound in the center—or it was winter when the outhouse was so cold that everything froze almost before it hit the ground in the hole below. (And my rear end seemed to almost freeze to the seat!) The toilet paper was usually an out of season issue of Eatons mail order catalogue with crisp glossy paper. Perhaps it is a peculiarity of the north country, but at night there are always monsters lurking along the path to the outhouse, and darkness comes early and stays