Colonics and Enemas ~ What's The Difference?

The large intestine or "colon" ranges between 4 -- 6 feet in length. An enema merely flushes out the lower end of the colon where the waste matter (feces) collects. The average enema uses only about two quarts of water, while a colonic hydrotherapy treatment uses 15 to 30 gallons of water to flush out the entire lower bowel. Warm, purified water is introduced at the rate of one cup to two quarts at a time according to the body's comfort and tolerance. The fecal matter is expelled . This action can soften and wash away impactions lining the colon or "lower bowel".

For a description of the differences between "Open" and "Closed" Colon Hydrotherapy systems click here.

The closed-system colonic devise used at Oasis Colonics allows water to gently irrigate the colon in a slow, comfortable manner. During a colonic, the body's own natural peristalsis propels the waste material out by means of wave-like muscular contractions. The colon cleansing "machine" is NOT a type of internal vacuum cleaner or waste extractor, nor is it a pressure hose. It's function can be understood as a technologically advanced "enema bag" that administers water into the colon while simultaneously monitoring temperature and pressure ensuring safety and efficacy.

CLICK HERE, and scroll down, to see a picture of the Colon Hydrotherapy equipment used at Oasis Colonics in Portland, Oregon.

Are You Clean Inside?

We shower, brush our teeth and wash our hair on a daily basis, but we tend to ignore cleaning our insides until discomfort and disease sends us a wake-up call.

The colon benefits from periodic, thorough cleansing too. Constipation, skin eruptions, headaches, joint pain, gas, bloating, stomach aches, chronic fatigue, weight gain, parasites and digestive problems can all be signs of a toxic colon.

People often suffer silently from these painful, and often embarrassing, health conditions. Colon cleansing can help.

Getting colonics is like deep cleaning your home. Sometimes you need to move the stove, refrigerator and heavy furniture in order to deep clean the corners, nooks and crannies of your well lived-in spaces.



Your colon may also be the carrier of unwanted extra weight and toxicity. The uncomfortable bloating around your abdomen may likely begin deep in your bowels, and be a breeding-ground for unhealthy bacteria, and advancing disease. It's time for a change!

Comfortable and modest colonic treatments assist the body to eliminate old, built-up waste material. Colon hydrotherapy helps in reducing the toxic load on the liver. This process is especially effective in support of a detox program, cleansing diet and/or weight loss regime.

**Whenever you use ANY cleansing protocol, GET COLONICS. It's like cleaning your house with the windows open.

Oasis Colonics in Portland, Oregon uses state-of-the-art, sanitary, closed-system, FDA-registered colon hydrotherapy equipment with ultra-violet water filtration. Treatments are administered by an experienced colonic therapist.

For information about treatments and pricing visit:
www.crescentmoonoasis.com/price_colonics.html

Detoxification Outweighs Drugs For Depression

Recent research shows antidepressant use in the United States has doubled since 1996, along with a rise in the use of other psychotropic medications. According to the study, antidepressants are now the most widely prescribed class of drugs in the United States.

"Over 10 percent of people over the age of 6 were receiving anti-depression medication. That strikes me as significant," said study author Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City.

It strikes me as significant that those one in ten people likely feel crappy due to an excess of old and toxic waste in their colon.

Sherry Rogers, M.D. outlines in Detoxify or Die common toxins which have been found to cause depression, as well as damage to the nervous system. Chemicals and heavy metals are often trapped inside the average person's body.

Common chemicals include:
* Plastics (absorbed into foods wrapped and stored in them);
* Pesticides (in each non-organic bite you take);
* Mercury (from pesticides, fungicides, fish, "silver" fillings, vaccines and paints);
* Hexane from jet fuel (reported to be found in milk);
* Aluminum (found in antiperspirants, antacids, aluminum cans and foil and many cookware);
* Trichloroethylene (in most city water supplies);
* TCE (from dry cleaned clothes and carpets);
* Cadmium (from cigarettes);
* Toluene (from cigarettes, inks, nail polishes, cleaners, glues and many more sources);
* Home insulation (UFFI);
* Gasses from furnaces, diesel exhaust, carpeting, paint and wall vinyls.

In addition, many people suffer from intestinal yeast overgrowth, which is an all-too-common fungal condition due to refined, processed foods, antibiotic use and birth control use. Candida yeast and parasites copiously release toxins into the body daily.

The depressed 1 in 10 people will feel better when they make concerted efforts to remove toxic waste and poisons from their bodies, rather than adding more by taking drugs for depression.

Slow Food ~ Better Digestion

Below is an excerpt form an excellent article at Zen Habits:

You may have already heard of the Slow Food Movement, started in Italy almost two decades ago to counter the fast food movement. Everything that fast food is, Slow Food isn’t.

If you read the Slow Food Manifesto, you’ll see that it’s not just about health — it’s about a lifestyle. And whether you want to adopt that lifestyle or not, there are some reasons you should consider the simple act of eating slower:

1. Lose weight. A growing number of studies confirm that just by eating slower, you’ll consume fewer calories — in fact, enough to lose 20 pounds a year without doing anything different or eating anything different. The reason is that it takes about 20 minutes for our brains to register that we’re full. If we eat fast, we can continue eating past the point where we’re full. If we eat slowly, we have time to realize we’re full, and stop on time. Now, I would still recommend that you eat healthier foods, but if you’re looking to lose weight, eating slowly should be a part of your new lifestyle.
2. Enjoy your food. This reason is just as powerful, in my opinion. It’s hard to enjoy your food if it goes by too quickly. In fact, I think it’s fine to eat sinful foods, if you eat a small amount slowly. Think about it: you want to eat sinful foods (desserts, fried foods, pizza, etc.) because they taste good. But if you eat them fast, what’s the point? If you eat them slowly, you can get the same amount of great taste, but with less going into your stomach. That’s math that works for me. And that argument aside, I think you are just happier by tasting great food and enjoying it fully, by eating slowly. Make your meals a gastronomic pleasure, not a thing you do rushed, between stressful events.
3. Better digestion. If you eat slower, you’ll chew your food better, which leads to better digestion. Digestion actually starts in the mouth, so the more work you do up there, the less you’ll have to do in your stomach. This can help lead to fewer digestive problems.
4. Less stress. Eating slowly, and paying attention to our eating, can be a great form of mindfulness exercise. Be in the moment, rather than rushing through a meal thinking about what you need to do next. When you eat, you should eat. This kind of mindfulness, I believe, will lead to a less stressful life, and long-term happiness. Give it a try.
5. Rebel against fast food and fast life. Our hectic, fast-paced, stressful, chaotic lives — the Fast Life — leads to eating Fast Food, and eating it quickly. This is a lifestyle that is dehumanizing us, making us unhealthy, stressed out, and unhappy. We rush through our day, doing one mindless task after another, without taking the time to live life, to enjoy life, to relate to each other, to be human. That’s not a good thing in my book. Instead, rebel against that entire lifestyle and philosophy … with the small act of eating slower. Don’t eat Fast Food. Eat at a good restaurant, or better yet, cook your own food and enjoy it fully. Taste life itself.

Olive Oil and Colon Cancer

Spanish researchers suggest that including olive oil in your diet may also offer benefits in terms of colon cancer prevention. Their study results showed that rats fed diet supplemented with olive oil had a lower risk of colon cancer than those fed safflower oil-supplemented diets. In fact, the rats that received olive oil had colon cancer rates almost as low as those fed fish oil, which several studies have already linked to a reduction in colon cancer risk.

Click to read more...

PubMed Research
Olive oil, Diet and Colorectal Cancer:
An Ecological Study and a Hypothesis

Stress Plays Havoc With Digestion & Weight Gain

Marc David is the founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating

The History Of Bowel Wisdom

Colon Hydrotherapy, in various forms, has been practiced for many hundreds of years. The colon refers to the large intestine. Hydro means "water". Hydrotherapy is the therapeutic use of water. Colon Hydrotherapy uses water to gently rinse away toxic waste from the colon.

Dating back to ancient times, the description of enemas was recorded as early as 1500 BC in an Egyptian medical document called the "Eber Papyrus". There are numerous reports of the frequent use of the enemas by the Egyptians, with all of them referencing this notable papyrus. This document was obtained in 1873 by Georg Ebers, dates from XVIIIth Dynasty and is stored in the Royal Museum of Berlin .

Water cleansing of the colon is also mentioned in the writings of the ancient Sumerians, Chinese, Hindus, Greeks and Romans.

The Greek physicians, Hippocrates and Galen, advanced the use of enema therapy. Early enema treatments were administered in a river by using a hollow reed to induce water to flow into the rectum. Pare in 1600 A.D., offered the first distinction between colon hydrotherapy and the popular enema therapy of that age.

In early America, enemas were commonly used to help maintain health and stave off disease. Before the departure of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, a physician instructed them in the appropriateness of using enemas in cases of fever and illness. Many of us remember that our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up with the use of enemas as a widely accepted procedure for reversing the onset of illness.

In the early 1900's colon hydrotherapy gained the attention of such physicians as James A. Wiltsie, M.D., Joseph E.G. Waddington, M.D. and Dr. John H. Kellogg, M.D.

Dr. Joseph E.G. Waddington stated; “Abnormal functioning of the intestinal canal is the precursor of much ill health, especially of chronic disease condition. Restoration of physiologic intestinal elimination is often the first, but too often ignored, important preliminary to eventual restoration of the health in general”.

Dr. James A. Wiltsie contends that “our knowledge of the normal and abnormal physiology of the colon, and of its pathology and management, has not kept pace with that of many organs and systems of the body. As long as we continue to assume that the colon will care of itself, just that long will we remain in complete ignorance of perhaps the most important source of ill health in the whole body.”

John H. Kellogg, M.D. in Battle Creek, Michigan used colon hydrotherapy extensively on over forty thousand patients. In 1917 he reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that in all but 20 cases -- he used no surgery for the treatment of gastrointestinal disease in his patients.

"In times past, knowledge of the bowel was more widespread and people were taught how to care for the bowel. Somehow, bowel wisdom got lost and it became something that no one wanted to talk about anymore." Bernard Jensen, D.C.

The popularity of colon hydrotherapy reached a height in the 1920's, 30's and 40's. At that time, colon irrigation machines were regularly used in hospitals and doctor's offices. In the ensuing 50 to 60 years, the use of this valuable health treatment decreased. The current lack of knowledge regarding colon cleansing, together with the widely held belief by conventional medicine that such treatments are no longer useful, may be the single most important factor in the increasing ill-health of our population.

The popular return to using colon hydrotherapy has been bolstered by the development of sophisticated colon hydrotherapy instruments and techniques, which make these therapies both safe and convenient.

See Oasis Colonics for more information about colon hydrotherapy in and around Portland, Oregon.