Colon Cleanse

[CraigD]

So...all those disgusting pictures....

 

Are those people just anomalies?

I’m not sure. Neither I nor the nearest MD to me can recall any research to extracted and compared mucus-y glop from a sample of healthy and ill people.

 

A healthy person has a lot of beneficial intestinal fauna and flora in their intestinal tract - without it, we’d be unable to much digest our food, and would be seriously ill. Some of it, I know, is the color of some of stuff in bowl of stuff in Monomer’s post #9. So I suspect that, while nasty to look at in a bowl, what those pictures actually show is normal, healthy gut lining.

 

The average adult has 1-1.5 kg of intestinal fauna and flora. It’s pretty fast-growing – over 50% of the weight of your normal poop consist of it. The quantity in the bowl in Monomer’s photos looks to me to be no more that a few hundred grams, so I suspect whatever its person did to get it out didn’t do him or her any serious harm. This seems supported by the absence of reports from the clinicians I’ve talked to about this (early this year, after hearing an add for colon-cleaning on the radio during a long drive) or clinic or ER visits from people with failed digestion after using these products.

 

I doubt it did them any good, either.

Because if THATS inside of me I want it out NOW

I think your reaction is what the makers of these websites, medicines, and literature are counting on to sell their products, rather like having someone blow their nose, inspect the results, then try selling them a nose-cleaning kit.

 

There are a lot of important and beneficial parts and substances inside you that look and smell pretty disgusting if you take them out and look at them. My advice is: don’t take them out and look at them. If you can’t control your curiosity and just must see whatever you can, do so very carefully. And if someone trying to sell you something tells you you’d be better off without something normally inside you, be very suspicious.

[Queso]

Thank you. This was exactly the information I needed.

 

I just finished fasting (about 60 hours)

I was out in the forest last night with water, and a knife. Couldn't sleep.

All I could think about was cheesecake...and the armadillos that kept charging at me and then swerving around me.

 

During my fast, I thought about a LOT of old memories. It was strange.... A lot more so than I usually do. I wish I could see my colon. I don't know why I care so much.

Alive and well.

[CraigD]

All I could think about was cheesecake...and the armadillos that kept charging at me and then swerving around me.

I’ve a lot of experience with craving cheesecake, but none with charging & swerving armadillos. Some people get all the fun :)

I wish I could see my colon. I don't know why I care so much.

Alive and well.

Though it seems weird, so do a lot of people.

 

Though there’s so little risk in a short (30 cm or so) colonoscopy that I can think of no reason not to indulge your curiosity, there’s the practical matter that endoscopes, while cheap for medical equipment, are not so cheap that you’d be likely to be able to find one outside of a hospital or MD’s office (there’s not exactly a lot of them to be found in second hand stores, etc). I’ve seen something used to inspect engines and other hard-to-reach mechanical places that might be usable, but suspect it’s pretty pricey, too, and doesn’t look thick and strong enough to manage the tricky maneuvering (which requires a good bit of training to master – even some MD who have had the training have a hard time mastering it) required to get far enough for much of a view – not to mention anyone who has one would, I suspect, be reluctant to lend it for any such “voyage of personal self-discovery”. :shrug:Seriously, don’t try self-colonoscopy – the colon is more delicate than regular skin, and damage it can be life-threateningly serious.:hihi:

 

Your only viable options, as far as I can see, are to pay about $5000 to an MD willing to do the procedure electively, wait a few decades until you’re old enough that a routine colonoscopy is called for (and, hopefully, paid for by insurance, national health care, etc. By then, I wouldn’t be surprised if better imaging technologies have made our present-day colonoscopy techniques obsolete, which would be even better), get a job in healthcare and volunteer to have someone practice on … err … in … you, or volunteer for a medical study that calls for doing colonoscopies on young, healthy subjects.

 

Best, I think, is to conclude that the inside of your colon likely looks much like anybody else’s, and be satisfied with the many images you can find on the internet.