Constipation
The old saying 'Prevention is better than cure' needs to be applied to constipation!
Daily ritual
- Each morning start the day with a glass of warm/hot water with a squeeze of lemon added.
- Then gently massage with some oil in a clockwise direction over the abdominal area.
- Then make a habit of sitting on the toilet every morning for at least 10mins. Do not strain but wait patiently. If no result you may get the urge later in the day.
- But also repeat the warm drink/ massage routine tomorrow morning.
Natural constipation Treatments
- Drink 2 litres of warm or hot water daily, not cold.
- Try hot prune juice or lemon juice in hot water half an hour before breakfast
- Eat plenty of fruit like Kiwifruit/ kiwicrush from most supermarkets.
- Make your own muesli with oats, seeds, nuts, linseed etc. Soak over night and pour off liquid.
- Or add LSA mix 1 desert spoon full to your cereal every morning.
- Avoid adding Bran as this absorbs too much fluid and can create dry stools.
- Take Probiotics or Slippery Elm powder which keep the gut healthy.
- 1 tsp freshly ground linseed with 1 tsp ground psyllium seed hulls with each meal is an excellent treatment for constipation
- Omega 3 fish oils 1000mg - 2000mg daily.
Haemorrhoids
Natural Haemorrhoid Treatments.
- Sit in a warm bath up to hips for 10-15 minutes at least twice a day. If there is minor bleeding after stool and considerable pain, Epsom salts may be added to the water.
- Drink 1-2 cups of stinging nettle and oat straw infusion per day. Nettle infusion is helpful for bleeding haemorrhoid's.
- Apply witchazel, or after a warm bath, apply Wizard ointment from Lincoln Mall Pharmacy or Weleda Haemorrhoid ointment.
- If haemorrhoid's do not bleed, try cold compresses. Soak a sanitary pad in cold water and put in the freezer. Once frozen place on haemorrhoid anal area and lie on your side for 10-20mins.
- Exercise regularly.
- Yoga can be an especially helpful as well as pelvic floor exercises. Gentle walking for 20mins a day helps the circulation throughout the whole body including helping to create regular bowel movements.
Homoeopathic Treatments.
- Nux Vomica
- If you are hooked on laxatives and need to break the habit.
- Characterised by itching
- Symptoms are better from cool bathing.
- Discharge of light blood after evacuating bowel.
- Constant ineffectual urging to stool.
- When your Haemorrhoids protrude and feel like a bunch of grapes by your anus.
If you require repeated doses, see your homoeopath for constitutional treatment.
- Sulphur
- You may have ineffective urging to pass a stool but do not seem to be able to go
- Burning at anus, alternating with diarrhoea.
- Your stools are hard, dark, dry
- painful to pass stool due to rectal fissure or 'crack'
- Itching and burning around the anus is made worse by bathing.
- When it all becomes worse by rubbing or standing.
- Becomes worse at night.
- Alumina
- Difficulty passing stool, even if the stool is soft and sticky
- Stools hard, dry, and covered with mucus
- Bryonia
- Stools pass with great difficulty.
- You are irritable and ill-tempered
- You have a large thirst for drinks of cold water
- Nat rum Mur
- Hard crumbly stool that causes rectal bleeding and soreness
- Contractions of the anus, bleeding and pain
- Graphites
- When there is no urge to pass a stool.
- May go for days without bowel movement and when it finally comes it takes the form of round balls stick together with mucus and is painful to pass
- The person who needs graphites is often obese
- Aescules
- Burning sensation in the rectum.
- Dull ache in the lower back and sharp shooting pain upwards.
- The lining of the rectum seems swollen and obstructs the passageway.
- The haemorrhoids look like a bunch of purple grapes.
- Worse from moving, standing or walking.
- Worse in the morning.
- Arnica
- Useful for haemorrhoids that develop after childbirth.
- Heals damaged tissue.
- Do not apply Arnica lotion or ointment take tablets orally.
- Collinsonia
- Sensation of sticks in the rectum.
- Usually constipated.
- Worse from cold, better from heat.
- Nitric acid
- Haemorrhoids feel like needles or splinters in the rectum and bleed easily.
- Pain after stool lasts for hours.