Colon Hydrotherapy Review: Anything BUTT Therapeutic

It was a beautiful spring day when my boyfriend and I decided to insert plastic tubes into our rectal cavities. Spring is, after all, the season for new beginnings and after a weekend of cleaning out our apartment, we thought it perfectly appropriate to “spring clean” our bodies too.

We had just finished a seven day herbal detox and thought “what better way to end this health kick than with a colon hydrotherapy session?” It was something many of our friends raved about and growing in popularity among health enthusiasts worldwide.

“Colon hydrotherapy is a non-invasive and relaxing treatment that gently purges the digestive tract of debris & toxins to ease chronic pain, promote weight loss & restore organ function.”

It all sounded wonderful so we booked ourselves in at a ritzy colonic “spa” nearby , excited to relax and rejuvenate– probably like a couples massage, we thought.

Little did we know that colon hydrotherapy would be anything BUTT therapeutic.

Upon arrival, we were placed in separate rooms. In the middle of my room was a lay-down toilet– a “porcelain bed” if you will.

To my left was a long, clear plastic pipe system that ran from the bottom of my toilet bed, across the floor and up the wall. Here is where I would watch my feces (I mean “toxins”) flow out of me and into the abyss.

I was instructed by the strange, flamboyant Asian man who owned the “spa” to remove my pants, rub some vaseline onto the end of the small tube he had given me, attach it onto the pipe in my toilet-bed and finally, stick it inside my “balloon knot” then let the cleansing begin!

Well, that part was easy and non-invasive– so far so good. The trauma, however, came on quickly as he turned the water on. Within seconds, I could feel my intestines fill with water. What a horribly awkward and unpleasant feeling. Thankfully, the spa owner came to my rescue and started to rub my stomach, telling me to “relax and push.” With him coaching in my corner, I truly felt like a mother giving birth…. out of my anus.

For 30 minutes straight, I pushed and I pushed, constantly staring up at the clock, hoping and praying the torture would soon be over. Panic-stricken from start to finish, I would glance over to the right, at the painfully slow ticking of the clock then over to my left to watch the brown globs of “toxins” move through the long pipe like children down a water slide. As sweat dripped down my face, I just wanted it to be over. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life and a miserable half hour I will never get back.

Unlike my boyfriend, when it was all said and done, I listened to the owner’s instructions to squat over the toilet bed and allow the last of the water to empty out. My poor boyfriend, on the other hand, had to make an emergency stop at a burrito shop five minutes into our walk home to anally urinate out his excess water. In our four years of dating, never had I seen him run so fast.

The whole experience was truly disturbing from start to finish. But probably the weirdest part of all was the owner showing us his “before” picture revealing a portly Asian man compared to the borderline man-orexic character who stood before us. Colon hydrotherapy, EVERY DAY for the last two years, he said, had changed his life completely.

Now I’m not one to judge (unless I’m scrolling through Tinder profile pictures.) Hell, I’ve done a lot of weird shit (pun intended) in my day too. But I did a little research on this stuff after my traumatic experience and learned that some people are seriously addicted to colonics as a form of weight loss. And flushing out your intestines too often can’t be healthy.

Did I feel good afterwards? Yes, I suppose I did. But I also just finished a week long herbal detox of eating nothing but whole, unprocessed foods.

Was my stomach svelte and flat following the tube torture? Yeah, it actually was. But was it enough to justify paying $100 for 30 minutes of pure hell?

The more I researched colon hydrotherapy, the harder it was to find any REAL evidence supporting claims that it offers ANY benefits at all. And actually, a number of studies instead noted side effects such as cramping, bloating, vomiting, electrolyte imbalance and kidney failure.

I’m sure there are constipated folk out there who swear by these treatments but I’m vegan and with the amount of fiber I’m eating, I definitely don’t have any problems in this department.

So there you have it. My random thoughts on yet another random topic. And yes, I am a hot chick and I poop.

– Sam