What is Colonic Hydrotherapy?

Colonic hydrotherapy is a safe and gentle technique used to clean the colon, which in turn, is beneficial for the whole body.

We most frequently do not die through old age but a life time of acidic accumulation.

Colonic hydrotherapy is an internal cleansing of the colon, using purified water. It allows an in depth removal of waste, mucus and gases, helping the colon towards better nutrient absorption, and to re-tone and re-shape it. The water circulates throughout your bowel in order to encourage and stimulate its elimination. Waste products are then passed out of your body. It gives a sensation of lightness and clarity both physically and mentally.

It can be extremely beneficial to the whole body and helps:

Alleviating bloating and heaviness
This is a very common situation when one would like to feel less bloated and lighter. A colonic is a quick relief for bloating sensation and usually, once the treatment is completed, enough gases are passed out of the bowel in order to relief the bloating sensation. It is important afterward to follow my guide which you will be given before you leave. This after-care guide is to help your bowel to avoid the build-up of too much bloating again once you had a colonic.

Improving digestion
Naturopathic medicine states that when the bowel doesn't work to its optimum or there is a malfunction, it affects the rest of the body since the bowel is the main pillar in maintaining health of all other systems of the body. Think about the domino effect and how much relevant this statement becomes when you start having acid refluxes, headaches, extra weight, water retention, discomfort after meals, moodiness, sugar cravings etc... One might take digestive enzymes to help the stomach break down the food for better digestion, or use pharmaceuticals such as antacids to relief belching when in fact, the bowel has been compromised and the digestive enzyme or antacids simply don't work (or only for a little while until the symptom returns). I witnessed many of my clients regaining a better digestion after having only a few colonics, sometimes just the one treatment is enough to recognise a positive effect on lessening their issue and improve their digestion.

Feeling healthy and rejuvenated
A colonic brings deep hydration into the colon because of the use of purified water for a 30 to 45 minutes period of time while the cleanse takes place. Just imagine the satisfying sensation you feel when you drink a glass of water after a Yoga session or a run and how healthy and rejuvenated you feel! That's one of the comment many people make after their colonic treatment.

Re-shaping and re-toning the colon
The stimulating effect of the water entering and exiting the colon intensifies its muscles movement throughout the treatment (30 to 45 minutes). It is quite common after your colonic to feel like you just had an "abs" work-out! You might feel slightly achy indeed for a day or two afterward on your abdomen area. This muscle movement trains your bowel to pass its content more fully in time. The frequent comment that I hear from my clients is that their bowel movements feel more complete after they had a colonic and also becomes more regular.

Clearing skin
The hydration effect of a colonic will naturally brings lubrication to your gut, clearing out its waste content which might possibly be the cause of a skin break out in the first place (overloaded gut with old matters lodged deep within it, polluting the body). The skin is part of the detoxifying organs of the body and when the gut is not able to clear out properly, then the skin takes over and this is when one might see a break-out of spots on their face, neck, back or other places on the body. Many people pick up on the glow of their skin after having a colonic (if they don't notice it, a colleague, friend or relative will and make a lovely comment about how healthy they look).

Improving mental clarity
A colonic will allow you to learn how to re-connect with your gut as it helps restore the healthy gut-brain connection. A fundamental link between the gut and the brain is rebuilt throughout a colonic because the water constantly flows in the bowel triggering its waste evacuation. Therefore they both, the brain and the gut, pick up on this very important neural pathway, learn and remember it so it can re-create it over and over again until it is back to a healthy mechanism again. I also personally engage you with your bowel, teaching you methods for you to incorporate into your daily life, so you can turn your health around and re-gain control of your body. I use breathing, visualisation and massage techniques which will help you make a real difference in your behaviour for when you leave the clinic.

Providing the perfect platform for a total detox
The reason you should have colonics throughout any Detox program is simply because detoxing is a very toxic process to the body. As ironic as this may sound, adding colonics to your Detox is meant to accelerate the exit of toxins, therefore giving you a deeper and more successful cleanse.

Improving circulation
Dr Bernard Jensen said: "The colon is the key to life. Every tissue is fed by the blood, which is supplied by the intestinal system. When the intestines are dirty, the blood is dirty, and so are the organs and tissues. It is the intestinal system that has to be cared for, before any effective healing can take place. We most frequently do not die through old age but a life time of acidic accumulation".

The lymphatic system runs by the side of the circulatory (cardiovascular) system. Any unwanted residues from the circulatory system are collected from its neighbour, the lymphatic system so it can be taken out the body to avoid intoxication, otherwise the body would pile up with toxins and jeopardise our health. Colonic irrigation is a good choice of treatment in facilitating this mechanism due to the water helping the drainage of those toxins. Of course, if your lymphatic system is not working to its optimum, the detoxifying effect becomes sluggish, and you'd start feeling the effect of toxins overload (ie: water retention) therefore the use of colonics is extremely helpful in this situation.

Allowing vital nutrients to be re-absorbed easily
The colon is responsible for the synthesis of certain vitamins (namely K and some of the B's plus others) and the absorption of water-soluble nutrients into the body. Since our body directly absorbs vitamins and nutrients through the colon's wall, a thoroughly cleaned colon's wall is evidently vital to ensure the best physiological exchange of nutrients, electrolytes and water. If you are on a supplementation regime and after one month of intake, you don't feel any different, you might need to either question the quality of the supplements, their dosage, or you simply might need a colonic in order to improve the absorption of those supplements to benefit their optimal and therapeutic effects.

Enhancing the overall body functions
Severe constipation is caused by many different factors from a stressful lifestyle, eating processed foods, a lack of fibre and water in our diet, or even ignoring the call of nature too often and not doing enough exercise. Iron supplementation and the use of some medication such as narcotic-type, pain-killers including codeine, and some other medicines used to control blood pressure, are also known to cause constipation. Constipation is a clear sign of a stressed or simply malfunctioning colon, having a knock on effect onto the whole body systems, and leading to a diversity of diseases and disorders. Colonic Hydrotherapy is a great method for alleviating constipation. This powerful holistic tool could help you with a kick start to a healthy living, and also highly hydrating, improve your gut's health, the core of your well-being.


The Colon

Our colon, one organ of our Digestive System, contains smooth muscles (muscles that are not under voluntary control) within its walls. These wall muscles, allow our colon to move and propel food and liquid as well as mixing it. This motion called peristalsis also occurs in the oesophagus, stomach and small intestines. It is very much like an ocean wave moving through the muscle.

Whilst the colon plays a vital part in the everyday function of eliminating waste matter from our body, it also plays an essential role in protecting the body from infection and disease. Additionally, the colon is responsible for the synthesis of certain vitamins (namely K and some of the B's plus others) and the absorption of water-soluble nutrients into the body. Since our body directly absorbs these vitamins and nutrients through the colon wall, a thoroughly clean colon wall is evidently vital to ensure the best physiological exchange of nutrients, electrolytes and water.

What are the major functions of the large intestine?

  • Supporting and massaging the organs of the abdominal cavity
  • Recycling water, electrolytes and nutrients back into circulation
  • Producing serotonin, our mood-regulating neurotransmitter that also plays an important role in digestion and absorption
  • Producing Vitamin K and some Vitamins of the B group
  • Producing stool-fermenting enzymes and fermenting wastes
  • Storing and eliminating wastes
  • Supporting the body’s immune system and organising protection against pathogens by hosting the bacterial population

Detoxify

If you look up for the definition of the word "Detoxify", you will notice another word, "removal", stated in that definition. Detoxify is also an old Latin word, "toxicum", meaning poison.

There you have it! You can call it toxin, pollution or virus, these words, all mean the same and if not removed from our colon, can cause all sorts of damage to our body from physical to psychological illnesses, diseases and disorders. These few lines sum it all up and give you a good reason as to why you should consider trying Colonic Hydrotherapy as a supportive tool to your health maintenance.

Our body is bombarded from every direction with substances we have to process or eliminate:

  • Air pollution
  • Chemicals in everyday foods
  • Everyday beauty and household products
  • Central heating and air conditioning
  • Alcohol
  • Cigarettes
  • The Western way of life!

We forget the water cycle
and the life cycle are one.

Jacques Cousteau



The colon is the body's dump or sewage system. If the toxins present are not removed, the result is auto-intoxication; the waste materials untended for a healthy exit, become reabsorbed into the blood stream and re distributed around the body. These toxins have free run of the entire human body, where they proceed to land on and collect in organs and other areas, wreaking havoc. As the years continue to pass and an unhealthy life is maintained, the body becomes overwhelmed by toxicity and subsequent health problems and complaints could occur:
  • Arthritis
  • Migraines
  • Skin problems
  • Heart diseases
  • Overall stomach complaints and diseases
  • Constipation
The UK is the most constipated nation in the world with 20,000 new cases of bowel cancer every year!


[The colon is a sewage system but by neglect and abuse it becomes a cesspool. When it is clean and normal, we are well and happy; let it stagnate and it will distill the poison of decay, fermentation and putrefaction into the blood, poisoning the brain and nervous system so that we become mentally depressed and irritable; it will poison the heart so then we are weak and listless; poisons the lungs so that the breath is foul; poison the digestive organs so that we are distressed and bloated, and poisons the blood so that the skin is sallow and unhealthy. In short, every organs of the body are poisoned and we age prematurely, look and feel old, the joints are stiff and painful, neuritis, dull eyes and a sluggish brain overtake us; the pleasure of living is gone. To reverse this condition requires a change of diet, exercise and cleansing procedures].

(Resume of the proceedings written in 1912-13, a 380 pages report which is on the file at Royal Society of Medicine library in London)

Although this was some years ago, it is very relevant to the present time, and probably even more so. Since that time, more nutrients have been removed from food, fertilizers and insecticides chemicals increased and antibiotics and hormones were fed to our animal stocks, all of which had added more toxicity to the system.
I look forward to welcoming you and shall assist you in developing a holistic solution in improving your lifestyle.

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History of Colonic Irrigation

It is difficult to identify the exact time in history that colon hydrotherapy emerged,
but many historians trace it back to the ancient Egyptians. They would practice it in its more basic form called “enema”.


Herodotus, a Greek historian at the time wrote: “The Egyptians clear themselves on three consecutive days, every month, seeking after health by purging, using enemas for they think that all disease comes to man from his food."

The use of enema was also known to be used by the Greeks and Romans, Nigerians and Africans. Some would use it for a diversity of body disorders, to replace the use of laxatives or treat intestinal worms and fevers. From pure water to a various types of enemas including the use of oil and honey, enema evolved to early 12th Century. At the time of a famous English surgeon, John Arderne, who’s introduced it to the public to relief constipation, it continued to grow strongly, and was used extensively in England by women of the day.
He recommended that each person constipated or not,
should be purged three to four times a year to maintain good health.

Through to the 15th Century, when Louis XIV became another adept to this ritual, the apparatus was still very much self-administered. The 17th Century became as “the age of the enema”. It was fashionable in Parisian society to have as many as three or four enemas a day, believing that those “lavements” were essential to well-being. People then gained access to it for personal use rather than having to go to a Doctor to get it administered. It came in all different make from copper to porcelain or even mother of pearl and silver! Aristocrats at that time wanted to make sure that people knew they owned a large collections of such instruments.

The real growth of the enema happened when it became a self-operated system by the middle of the 18th Century.
Edward Jukes developed two types of enemas apparatus units, that might have been the precursors for Colon Hydrotherapy equipment today, and Vincent Priessnitz was the individual who finalized the apparatus and made it into a systemic form of therapy.

During the late 19th and early 20th Century, the use of Colon Hydrotherapy, and enemas, slowly died away among the medical community as laxatives and other drugs became more commercially available and easier to administer. We’d have to wait until Dr Kellogg practiced into this field so to revitalize the therapy. Some records show in the 1917 Journal of American Medicine, that he had more than 40,000 cases of gastrointestinal diseases and in all but twenty cases, he had used NO surgery for the treatment of gastrointestinal disease in his patients.

Dr Kerr Russel would come up with the term Colonic Irrigation as he liked to make a distinction between the word enema, which was a self administered treatment, and only reached a limited area in the colon (sigmoid), and the word irrigation, which was used for a modern self-operated system to thoroughly cleanse the walls, remove abnormal mucus, and also empty the bowel. The tone of the colonic muscle would improve and the blood supply increase.

One of the original pieces of equipment was first introduced in 1898 which allowed the client to receive the treatment in a reclined position. Another apparatus was introduced where the client would lye down on their back with the legs at a right angle to the torso and knees also bent. Many different systems were then being introduced throughout the years, as a progression to easier and more convenient use for the client and therapist at the time, until the 1940’s, when Colon Hydrotherapy equipment were still evolving.

By the early 1950’s, the therapy was growing in the United States. The renowned Beverly Boulevard in California was then known as “Colonic Row”.
Unfortunately, towards the mid 1960’s, the use of Colon Irrigations slowly died away one more time until the early 1970’s when most Colon Hydrotherapy equipments were removed from hospitals and nursing homes in favor of the Colostomy, Fleet enema and prescriptive laxatives.

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If you need anymore information, please, email or call me on 0207 247 7742 within the hours of 9.30am to 8pm Monday to Saturday,
I will be happy to answer any enquiries you might have.

Your therapist at 4 Balance and Health, Edwige Cabanetos



Therapies offered at 4 Balance and Health are not substitutes for traditional medical care by your GP, they are complementary therapies that may be used in conjunction with conventional medicine. Should you be aware of any reasons why these therapies are contra-indicated to you or you have a serious health problem, please consult your GP prior to their use.