Pssst! Do You Have Constipation?
Are you weighed down by the “C”-word? Come in closer...do you have constipation?
In Eastern medicine, there are several reasons why you may have constipation. In my practice, I often find that constipation can be related to fatigue! Indeed — your body needs energy to remove waste materials! Feeling physically tired can be the reason why the motility in your gut is sluggish. This type of presentation is recognized as spleen weakness. If you have spleen weakness, you will likely have cravings for sugar, bruise easily or bleed easily, have loose stools, have the feeling of dragging your body, poor appetite, lack of thirst, and/or inflammation. The degree of presentation of these symptoms will relate to the degree of spleen health — or in this case weakness.
Recovery time from spleen weakness depends on the degree of spleen health, which you can partially gauge by how many symptoms you are experiencing, but there are of course other factors.
The spleen is a vital organ in eastern medicine which over time can impact other organs like the kidneys, lungs, heart and liver. You can recover the health of the spleen by stimulation of acupuncture points with a needle (and in some cases — without a needle). This can directly improve the health, and efficiency, of the spleen’s function. But what if you don’t have any of the above symptoms but you still have constipation, or slow transit bowel health?? What if relatively, you have lots of energy?! Another possibility is that your constipation could be from excess heat! Excess heat relates more to stomach, liver and heart meridians — stay tuned for another article on that... and yes, there are acupuncture points to remove excess heat in certain areas of the body — I’ve got you covered!
Regardless of your spleen health, drinking at least 2L of water, at room temperature, is essential for colon and GI health. Hydration is key — and will help your whole body, not just your colon! Our body is on average 60% water. Do you really want your body to function with recycled water? Not to mention when the bowels are sitting for a long time in our colon, the body will absorb water from the bowel, further drying it out, making things more difficult to move along to the exit door. Personally I try to recommend staying hydrated and on top of your bowel health — because who wants to re-absorbing their bowel waste!!?
For anyone who finds laxatives may help temporarily but aren’t the cure — this is likely because there may be lack of body fluids moistening the colon, physical fatigue, or excess heat. In general, I recommend trying to avoid neglecting body weakness before things accumulate and other symptoms manifest. These are only some of the most popular dysfunctions I see in the clinic relating to constipation. I am happy to connect personally and help you — there are other reasons that constipation can develop. It’s easy to get to the bottom of it — acupuncture can help, it’s time to flush constipation out of your life!
– Heechan Lee, Registered Acupuncturist (R.Ac)