Treating Chronic Constipation in Five Easy Steps
Of all the digestive system disorders, chronic constipation is one of the most painful ones. It is most commonly accompanied by painful abdominal swelling, and at times the backup of feces may result in undue pressure being exercised on the stomach, thus leading to a reflux of stomach acid into the esophagus and feelings of severe heartburn. Children in particular have a hard time with constipation because going to the bathroom is now equated with pain and straining, and many a younger child will seek to avoid this pain, which of course does little more than aggravate the condition.
Fortunately, it is possible to engage in a regimen treating chronic constipation in five easy steps.
1. Analyze your diet with respect to overall fiber and water intake. You will be surprised in retrospect when you realize how much of your food choices revolve around protein and fiber to a much lesser extent. In the same vein, you will want to look for non-soluble fiber in your diet, as this is frequently referred to as nature’s broom and will ensure your body’s ability to evacuate any waste. Increasing the water intake will serve to adequately liquefy the food ingested to promote a simpler digestion process.
2. In extreme cases, you will be wise to add prune juice to your meals. Prune juice mixed with the nutrients ingested will provide for the body’s ability to evacuate the foods once the nutrients have been extracted in the colon.
3. Decrease the calcium and iron supplements you ingest, or in the alternative ask your physician for a gentler formulation that will not harden your stool. At times it becomes obvious to a physician that you might be intending to do good with your dietary supplements, but because you are taking either the wrong dosages or are using a formula that does not apply to your station in life, the supplements are doing more harm than good and may actually be indicated in your suffering from digestive system disorders that may be more far reaching than just chronic constipation.
4. If your chronic constipation does not respond to the change in diet and the increase in both fiber and liquids, you may benefit from a colonic irrigation which is done at the office of a physician. The goal is to clean out your colon and remove the hardened feces that may have becomes so embedded against the colon’s mucosa that in effect they have narrowed the pathway for future evacuation of waste from the body.
5. Follow up a colonic irrigation by ingesting probiotics – for sale at any health food store and even in various supermarkets – or by using a yogurt enema to repopulate the useful bacteria that inhabit your colon and are instrumental in the proper digestion of food.
It is vital not to reach for commercial laxatives that seek to undo any nutritional damage simply by relieving the discomfort of symptoms without changing the offending problem. You gut might actually become dependant on laxatives and when this occurs, you will find that chronic constipation has becomes so much harder to treat.
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