Dealing with Constipation

Do you regularly suffer from constipation?

Alternative Answers for Constipation

Constipation results when food moves too slowly through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. About 80 percent of people suffer from it at some time during their lives. Brief periods of constipation are normal. Constipation is usually diagnosed when bowel movements occur fewer than three times per week on an ongoing basis. Other signs include when the stool is hard, dry or there is excessive straining. The stool can often be described as “rabbit pellets” or like “toothpaste squeezed from the tube”. Sometimes it is painful to pass. Sometimes the patient does not feel complete after a bowel movement.

There is widespread belief that everyone should have a bowel movement at least once each day. There is no “right” number of bowel movements. Each person’s body finds its own normal number of bowel movements. It depends on the food you eat, how much you exercise and past history. This kind of thinking has led to the overuse and abuse of laxatives.

Constipation can arise from lack of enough fiber and water, inadequate exercise, advanced age, muscle disorders and poor diet. Pre-menstrual and pregnant women can suffer from it as well but, the most common cause is usually dietary. However, constipation can be a component of irritable bowel syndrome or can result from a wide range of causes, such as a drug side effect or physical immobility.

Many medications, including painkillers, antidepressants, tranquilizers, and other chiatric medications, blood pressure medication, diuretics, iron supplements, calcium supplements, and aluminum-containing antacids can cause or worsen constipation.

Constipation can sometimes have an unknown or idiopathic cause. Some people have a good diet, drink plenty of fluid or do not have a disorder, which can cause constipation, yet become constipated. Their bowels are said to be ‘underactive’. This is rather common. Most cases occur in women. This condition tends to start during childhood or in early adulthood and persist throughout life.

Transit Time is the amount of time it takes for a meal to go from the mouth to the rectum. A healthy transit time is less than 24 hours. Constipation is the result of poor digestive and bowel habits, which slow down the transit time, allowing waste materials to sit longer in the intestines. Stool (waste products) builds up along the wall of the colon preventing healthy absorption of nutrients. Our stool is made up of our body’s waste including undigested food, toxic waste from the liver and billions of bacteria. As the stool sits longer in the intestines a metabolic process continues. The intestines continue to absorb water, making the stool harder and fermenting the bacteria. This starts the waste to rot creating toxic by-products, which are then absorbed into the bloodstream. This absorption of toxins is a form of self-poisoning, called autointoxication.

Symptoms of auto-intoxication include headaches, brain fog, depression, obesity, diverticulitis, PMS, bad breath, foul smelling gas, bloating body odor and include some autoimmune diseases.

Serious diseases, including colon cancer, can sometimes first appear as bowel blockage leading to acute constipation. Therefore, particularly constipation of recent onset should be diagnosed by a physician. Dietary and other natural approaches should be used by people with constipation only when there is a reason to believe no serious underlying condition exists.

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