Don’t ask me why I felt compelled to do what I did. I could say that I had a wild hair up my ass about it, but I also don’t like puns. You see, I’ve been on a bit of a health kick lately. With the addition to vigorous exercise and sensible dieting, what else could I do to make my body feel better? Enter a tube. Up my butt.
Listen, I’m not going to sit here and say that I’m a lady and ladies shouldn’t talk about such things. Yes, I am a lady. I wear high heels and even though I can tell a killer lewd joke, I’m usually pretty good with parents and the like. But the internet is a place of honesty, a place where you can safely Google your most private of questions about your body and get some sort of answer. This is dedicated to all of you with even a vague curiosity about colon hydrotherapy.
Here’s what the brochure says: “Colon Hydrotherapy is a safe and gentle infusion of warm filtered water into the rectum to cleanse the colon. This is a restorative and cleansing process that is a painless procedure. The procedure lasts about 30-45 minutes.”
OK, so yes, that’s what it is. But here’s what it’s really like, from someone who just had it happen.
First, I booked my session through Lifebooker, a site that I have recently become obsessed with. It’s nice for the somewhat cheap person who also likes to go to spas and get haircuts. They also offer this procedure for the cheap. I know that makes you nervous and it should, but it’s not like I’m going to some back alley to lay and a van to get this done. Everything is up to snuff, I swear.
The spa was fine, basic. I was glad that at least it smelled good. There were a few other ladies milling around which is always a good sign. I filled out a form with basic health questions and waited my impending doom.
I was escorted into this tiny room with an adjacent bathroom (very important to the story). A very polite woman came in and gave me a pair of slippers and a smock-thing and told me to take off all my clothes, so I did just that. The thing about situations like this is, the second the person leaves you remind yourself that your waxer/masseuse/OB-GYN/therapist has seen the whole situation many times before.
Anyway, there I am, nervously perched on this bed wearing a smock and waiting for whatever was supposed to happen. The lady comes in. She doesn’t tell me her name, which is good. I don’t want to say “Hello Irene, it’s a pleasure to show you my asshole.” She’s Eastern European and very calming. She gives off a great non judgmental vibe. I’m not going to say that it put me completely at ease, (because how could you be at ease in this instance) but it definitely calmed me. She’s a professional, she knows what she’s doing.
She showed me the tubing system, wrapped in sterilized plastic, pointing to which parts go where. Then she showed me the machine thing that the whole thing was hooked up to. “Fine.” I thought to myself, “Let’s just get this over with.”
It was when she started putting lube on the tube and asked me to sit on my left side that I freaked out a bit. Why was I doing this? What was I going to prove? How healthy could I possibly feel after everything was all said and done? It was too late to ponder these questions cause before you know it I was “online.”
(If you don’t want to know the dirty details, stop reading now)
It was uncomfortable. I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s also hard because you have to relax during the process but your downstairs muscles have quite the adverse reaction. Intruder alert! My therapist told me that first we were going to use cold water to stimulate the muscles. You actually feel the water entering you, traveling up your colon all the way through the winding intestinal track. It kind of hurts, in the sense of an intense cramp. That’s when I started to squirm a bit and my therapist quietly tsk-ed (she did this the whole session, a somewhat clicking that sounds like “Good good good”) and started rubbing my stomach. The water stopped coming in and started going out.
Now here’s the strangely interesting/ mostly gross part. Hooked up to the machine is a clear tube that takes the outgoing water into a mystery place (THE HUDSON!?). You can see what’s coming out of your body. The water moves in waves when the therapist massages my stomach in time. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it, but even still I was compelled to see.
Several sessions of this happen. Water goes in, water comes out. It’s completely fine when it’s coming out (it actually just feels like a prolonged session in the bathroom). It’s the water coming in that’s the strangest and you never completely get used to it. Then finally, after all the comforting affirmations from the therapist and the disgusting hypnosis of seeing things come out of my body, my lovely lady takes the tube out. She smiles and tells me to “dance around.” That’s honestly not what I feel like doing, but I do a little bit of the twist around the room.
She nods and tells me I’ll have to use the bathroom in a few minutes and leaves the room. I understand why the bathroom is adjacent within several seconds of the therapist leaving. I grab my phone because I know that this may be the perfect opportunity to get a high score on Temple Run. I’m going to be in there for a while. But there’s no rush. I take care of business. It wasn’t painful or overwhelming. It was what it was, which is natural.
I never saw my therapist again, which was fine. It was an intimate moment that two relative strangers had passing in this crazy world of holistic healing. As I left the salon I took careful stock of my body- how did I feel different? I felt lighter, relaxed. I feel like even my posture was affected. The closest thing I can compare it to is waking up from a really great sober sleep, refreshed and rejuvenated. Even my diaphragm opened up and breathing became a bit easier, which I consider a huge plus considering I am a smoker (OK, so I’m on a health kick except for that).
Even now a few hours later I feel good and have the feeling that I may even feel better tomorrow. Sure, parts of it were really uncomfortable, but sometimes that’s what it takes to feel a little bit better about yourself (waxing, ladies?). I would recommend it if you’re not the particularly squeamish type and the people looking for a total (yet if somewhat extreme) detox.
If you decide that this might be your cup of tea, here are some things to know:
-Pee before, you don’t want your bladder pinching the rest of your organs.
-Don’t eat a big meal before. Obviously.
-You can’t eat for a few hours after.
-Don’t work out after unless you want to be really embarrassed at the gym.
-Relax, relax, relax. Try to meditate, if at all possible. Be honest with your therapist and tell them when you feel the most uncomfortable.
-If you’re in your twenties, you should only get it done once or twice a year. This is not a weight loss program, nor is it a fix all for what ails you.
And above all, don’t forget to take mental notes so you can tell all your friends about the stupid things you do for work and health.
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Have you ever had a cleansing? Let me know in the comments!
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