A common complaint I see amongst patients is a feeling of bloating. Its not severe but its always there, usually worse after lunch or as the day goes on.
Many have changed what they eat etc to no avail, whilst overlooking a common underlying cause…
People often aren’t emptying their bowels as well as they think.
Whilst not standard conversation amongst friends and family, many people don’t know what ‘normal’ is when it comes to going to the toilet.
How often should I be going?
Some people think moving their bowels every few days, to even once a week is ‘normal’. In reality though, your bowels should be moving 1 to 2 times a day. Most importantly though, the movements need to be ‘complete’. What this means is you actually feel empty after a movement, not ‘there’s still more there to move’. In which case you could be going to the toilet a few times a day, but still not having 1 complete movement.
What this all causes is a ‘backed up’ system. In both Chinese and Western Medicine, the digestion can be visualised as a conveyer belt, it needs to keep moving. When something stops somewhere things go wrong. So if your bowels aren’t moving as often as they should, the assembly line keeps hitting a blockage and we get a traffic jam somewhere. This causes feelings of heaviness, bloating and discomfort.
Is more Fibre the answer?
We are always told to have more fibre to help move our bowels, this is partly true. A problem with this though is if you are chronically constipated -even only mild- it’ll just make it worse. There’s 2 parts to this problem, the forming of the stool and moving of the stool. Often I find people are lacking lubrication within their bowel, which is causing bowel movements to be incomplete or difficult. Adding more fibre at this point will only make things worse. Once the bowels are more regular, then additional fibre -if needed- can help keep the conveyer belt moving.
Drinking warm water can help moisten the bowel, but this mightn’t always be enough. The underlying causes as to why this is happening can only be attained through a proper diagnosis. Then we can work on restoring the balance in your gut and help your bowel’s move regularly.
As a general rule: you work on lubrication first, then fibre second to maintain movement. Stewed prunes are a simple home remedy that work very well. Obviously remedies and medication are not things people want to rely on all the time, but they are often necessary to initially get things moving.
Why Does any of this even matter?
Because how regularly and easily we are able to go to the toilet is an indicator of our gut and bowel health. What comes out is a direct reflection of how healthy we are inside. Often these are problems that can come back to haunt us decades later. Like skipping the odd service on your car; In the short term it’ll be fine, but in the long term, you’ll have major issues. The same goes with our health; the better we are able to eliminate things from our body from an early age, then better our long term health will be.
