Constipation

Constipation is often the body’s reaction to a diet lacking enough fiber. This can be corrected by eating less bread, pasta and junk and increasing the intake of fresh vegetables and fruit.

Another increasingly common cause for constipation is the use of opioids for the treatment of pain. This can be a fine balance of enduring pain and having normal bowel activity, or not having pain and not being able to move your bowels. Sometimes simply stopping the ingestion of opioids for a day can result in your body moving the bowels. You might consider taking a laxative in conjunction with stopping the taking of the opioid for a day.

In my opinion taking a laxative is pretty much a last resort, as the laxative does not allow your body to properly absorb the digested food that leaves the stomach and enters the small intestine. But it is a blessing when you are really stopped up.

Most people think that the laxative moves the bowels, but the opposite is true! The bowels move the laxative. The laxative is a substance that when ingested, makes the body think it has been poisoned. Of course it hasn’t, but the nature of the laxative (usually the herb senna) causes the body to try to move the bowels in order to expel this “poison” from the body.

The laxative can be a lifesaver, but if you find that you think you have to use it all the time, then you should consult your chiropractor to get your bowels moving in a more natural way once again.  Having your bowels chronically stopped up is a sure way to terrible illnesses. A century ago a great healer named Dr. Walker wrote a tract called “Death begins in the colon.”

What he meant by that is that what collects in the colon is toxic to the body. That is, the waste is a poison, especially if allowed to accumulate for too long a period of time. Water that is drawn off the waste in the colon is sent via a special vein to the liver where it is detoxified. If the water from the colon is too full of poison, the liver has a tough time handling it.

This can result in overloading and poisoning the liver, and that is not something that you would want to allow to happen. Remember that when your body is allowed to operate efficiently and normally and is fed well, good health will result. It is really pretty simple to stay healthy if you follow a few simple rules.

Another cause of chronic constipation (chronic means it was there a long time) is the misalignment of the vertebra at the base of the spine. The nerves to the colon or large intestine come forth from the spine at the level between the 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae. They are the last and second last bones in the lower spine. If the nerves are irritated by the low back vertebra being out of its correct position, the muscles in the large intestine can cease to function, and things just clog up down there.

In my years in practice I have adjusted constipated patients who had to stop ad a gas station on the way home to use their facilities as their bowels had awakened and the need to evacuate was great. In short, if you have trouble on the toilet, a visit to the chiropractor is in order to at least analyze your situation and perhaps do something meaningful about your problem.

Remember, if your problem has an answer in chiropractic treatment, no other treatment will help you. None! If the problem is one of nerve irritation due to spinal misalignment, chiropractic spinal adjustment is your only answer. Thank God it is a very simple one: non-traumatic, non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical.