Colonic Inertia

Posted August 07, 2007 01:19 AM
Hi everyone..I am a 33 year old mother of a 2.5 year old son and a ten month old daughter. I quit smoking in July of 04. The minute I quit smoking, my colon stopped working. I assumed it would get better after I adjusted to being smoke free, but became pregnant with my son just ten days after I quit. I made it through the pregnancy on enemas and assumed things would get better after he was born. They didn't. When he was ten months old, I realized this simply was not going to clear on it's own, so I got down to business. I started getting colonics, stopped eating gluten, sugar, red meat, coffee, alcohol. I started taking fiber supplements and cleanse caps & for the first time things started moving. I was really encouraged. And then I became pregnant with my daughter. I conceived her the day I started the new diet. When I ate gluten, my colon would become so paralyzed that a colonic would be totally unproductive. For an hour, water would go in and nothing would come out. I managed to stay gluten free and maintain a really good diet high in fiber and vegetable shakes throughout the pregnancy. But still, my bowels never moved without laxatives. I did colonics for the first six months of the pregnancy. When she was four months old, I stopped nursing and began parasite cleansing. After two months, I began passing pinworms. Once I saw them in cold hard reality, I realized that I couldn't remember a time that I didn't have symptoms of them. I am still trying to get rid of them. The entire family has been treated several times. The last two times I took everyone's medication (three doses each time) and they still come pouring out. I am actually symptomless at this point, so it's especially freaky. I have never seen them in my children's diapers even after they have been treated, so I am at a loss.

I consume 30-60 grams of fiber a day, drink plenty of water, take coconut oil and olive oil regularly. I live mostly on vegetable smoothies (Vitamix) which I fortify with 4 tablespoons of flax seeds. I ate a raw food diet for two weeks and I might as well have eaten pizza with a double helping of cheese topped with concrete. I saw Dr. Sgambati in Denver, had a colonoscopy and did the sitz mark study. It said....drum roll please....I am constipated. The colonoscopy revealed nothing out of the ordinary and the sitz mark study, I had to call the office twice to get the actual results. There were ten markers (of 26) left in my colon after seven days. Results were abnormal, diagnosis: Colonic Inertia. I am largely unimpressed with her office, so before having my colon removed, I am considering going to the Mayo clinic in Arizona to have their tests done.

Today was my true breaking point with this issue..and this is what I wrote:
The truth of this journey

I have reached the place where I can no longer emotionally withstand
this experience any longer. My last two options that exist are: 1. to
fly to Florida and see a Chinese master and hope he can prescribe
laxatives strong enough to unstop an elephant and something to kill the
worms that I assume live in my body and might maybe be causing something
here. and 2. Check into the mayo clinic in Scottsdale in October and
receive testing that confirms that I cannot take a crap and then end the
week with a surgery that sends me home without this colon.

I cannot leave the house anymore. I now take 8-10 herbal laxatives at
night along with 20 grams of fiber and still have to do 3-4 consecutive
enemas in the morning. I do 3-4 more in the afternoon and evening and
still go to sleep in pain. I have total relief maybe once every two
weeks. I am terrified to eat. But I cannot handle the demands of two
little children on tomatoes and cucumbers. But whenever I eat something
different I feel terrible. And, no I am not constipated because I feel
guilty. I am constipated when I feel happy, inspired, when I meditate,
when I wear blue, when I don't wear blue. I have listened to meditation
CD's while having unsuccessful enemas. I have no patience to deal with
my children when I have consumed enormous amounts of laxatives and still
have try to carve out what precious time I have to do an enema.

I have tried to be so patient. So strong. So sure this would get better.
But it isn't. If it's going to take five more years, I don't have the
emotional capacity to withstand those years. I don't have the emotional
capacity to get through this day doing another enema and having no real
relief. I fully understand the mind body connection. I have spent
thousands on psychics, healers, I have healed past lives, I have gone to
levels deeper than some people who are helping me heal. And this only
gets worse. I now just sit in the bathroom and sob. I feel better than I
ever have in every other aspect of my life.
I don't get it. And now I give up.

I have enough cleanse caps to get through the next two nights. We have 300.00 to get
through the next week and a half. And nothing in savings. I literally
have no idea what to do now. I am riddled with pinworms I cannot get rid
of. I have taken my entire family's doses of the medication - twice. I
have taken a total of eight pills. I have no symptoms, but when i take
the meds, tens of thousands of them leave my body. How can I rid myself
of any parasite with a colon that does not move - even while i spend
hours a day - literally - and hundreds of dollars to try to make it
happen. I have been doing an herbal parasite cleanser for five months now, and while
I do pass things that make you go more than hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....I still get no relief. Unless i consume
50 grams of fiber, take ten laxative cleanse caps, and then do five consecutive enemas the next day.
(I take one enema, release some water, take another, release some water)..It's beyond insane.

I am breaking down in every way because of this.

I can't believe it. I really believed that with diet and work on the emotional level
I could get through this. But I have reached my point where I can't emotionally withstand
it. My colon hydrotherapist even acts like I am crazy. I am constipated because I am
stressed out about it. Or because of bad traffic. Fight or flight! I tell her, "Yeah. If
traffic is going to cause me to be constipated, then I am in trouble. Unfortunately, this
life contains traffic." She had the nerve once to tell me that I was "impatient". Niiiice.
I assure you, I could be meditating inside the belly of Buddha and no **** will leave this
body.

Are there any constipation sufferers here who have not gone totally bonkers and can still speak in complete sentences? How has surgery helped?

My heart goes out to everyone living with severe digestive issues..this is a wild journey with so little support. This is a great site..I am glad I found it as a colectomy is looking like a very likely possibility in my future.

Heavenlyd,

Your situation sounds extremely rough. I can some-what relate. I can recall when my kids were small and I was in so much pain. I would lay on the livingroom floor for hours and watch them build with Legos and tinker toys. I just wanted to be close to my kids because I did not want to ignore and focus on my own pain. I used to have to take so many laxatives and I would still vomit. I would spend most of my day sitting on the toliet with a small garbage in my lap so I could puke. I would puke because I was so constipated that foods would come back up my esophogus.

I have tried everything natural.. In addition, I also do not eat any things that contains gluten. This is a challenge because even soups have wheat. Thank goodness for wheat-free foods. I noticed that reducing wheat helped me feel less bloated but I still could not poop. I am a natural herbal feak...if it is sold on the market, I have probably tried it. But, they did not help me.

I finally opted for surgery. My surgery situation is not the best; however, there are many success stories out there for you to read about.

I would seriously consider surgery and try to regain a normal life again. For now, try to focus on your children. They can give you great strength. I fould when I focused more doing service for others and less on my own trials in life, I was much happier.

Take care.

Hello, I am new to this and hope I can get some help! I'm 20 years old, and just found out today that I have colonic inertia. What exactly can I do to make it easier to live with? I have severe pain, nausea, weight loss (20 lbs in about 6 months), vomiting sometimes, unable to eat full meals, and not eating much throughout the day in general. I also have a borderline normal stomach. It takes a little bit longer to empty than a normal stomach. What can I do to make it easier to live with? My doctor wants me to try miralax? Also, what are the long term effects of this condition? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Heavenlyd
  Good Morning,  gosh I know how you feel...trust me.  If the sitz markers show that your colon is not working, trust me when I say this:  I had CI and a external sphincter muscle they said was so tight and nothing would come out.  They wanted me to do bio-feedback but I knew that would not help me.  So I sought out a surgeron on my own and he did one final sitz marker test and all of mine were in my lower right colon, had not moved.

So he did a total colectomy, he took all of colon and hooked my sm intestine back up to my rectum.  When he talked to my family while I was in recovery he told them, that this surgery should have been done years ago because my colon did not work at all.

It has changed my life already and it has only been 15 days since the surgery.  I can eat, and poo mostly watery type of stool at first now I have a little bit of flat wafer like stool.  I go at least 10 times a day and I love it and I can eat anything I want in small amounts and almost every hr I try to eat a little bit.

So no more anxiety about not being able to eat or if I ate the suffering I would go through, and the constant enemas sometimes daily for years.   Loving my new life that is showing itself to me already.  The pain is still really pretty bad and some nausia.

But I will tell ya get a different doc that will listen to you, get that dammmm colon out that is keep you ill.  So I will pray for you and hope you get back to life....Leslie