WHAT TO CARRY AWAY Constipation is not a disease; it is a symptom, indicating improper functioning of the digestive tract, and the large intestine shows its fault in exactly two ways: very hard stools, or stools very semi-solid but not watery enough to be called diarrhoea. "Normal" is the patient's opinion only: a person is constipated on effort and sensation — straining, hard lumpy stool, incomplete evacuation, a sense of blockage, manual manoeuvres, fewer than three motions a week — not on a number, normal habit running from about three a day to three a week.
The two directions are read from opposite flanks. Pain at Mu° — hard stools, the acidic patient, and that acidity is the root cause which leads to constipation; pain at Liv° — soft, frequent, undigested. The primary treatment is to reduce the acidity, and if there is no pain at Mu°, the acid treatment is not to be given. Beyond it, constipation is the cumulative result of four factors — too little water, too little roughage, a sluggish large intestine from sedentary habits or age, insufficient secretions — of which two your hands correct and two only the patient can.
Water in decides water out. At least one and a half litres are lost daily through breath, sweat and urine — almost two litres over a day of ordinary living — replaced with at least an equal quantity of pure water. Short of water, the body first stops water excretion from all its exit points, one of which is the anus, and the colon takes the water back all along and mostly on the left: highly alkaline at the caecum, extremely acidic at the rectum. For the constipated: a glass half an hour after a meal, then hourly — any drink other than pure water is a food, and cannot be a substitute for it.
The left run is the pipe in order — Spl · Const · Mu (mid-descending, and lubrication) · Mu° · Lt.Ov. — given in the same order in which the wave of peristalsis travels; and a point named for one organ raises blood in every organ of its region, so here Spl is given for the bowel, not the spleen. The thyroid is stimulated too, constipation being a cardinal symptom of the gland working too little — less secretion, slower movement, residue standing longer, more fluid absorbed, a dry hard stool, on a motility already low, so even a small change is enough. In children it shows as very hard constipation with mental dullness, in women as early or heavy menses . Adr before Thrd is the physiological order; the taught order reverses them to spare a second turn, and the treatment may then need one or two days longer.
Severe constipation is certainly accompanied by inflammation of the mucous membrane, shown as severe pain at Mu — the instant remedy (30) Medulla or Adr, the actual treatment (6) Adr three times, ninety seconds apart. If the bowel is still unsatisfactory, the intestines are not making enough secretion. Blocked in constipation and in the whole piles family: Gas Only , (10) Medulla , Dys — and Gas 'I' must follow Gas Only, or the constipation will increase.
Piles, anal fissure , fistula and prolapse of the rectum are all diseases of acid, one chief cause being hard constipation; prolapse of the rectum, prolapse of the uterus and hernia are three different diseases with one thing common — the flesh-muscles have become loose — and varicose veins and low blood pressure join them for the same reason. The Triangle strengthens the pelvic muscles and tightens the sphincters, pressure towards the head and never towards the ground, three times ordinarily and five or six for a day or two in very severe piles; not for those who pass little urine. S4–S5 is its exact opposite.
The Western seat does not aid easy defecation and strains the bowels and bladder , and straining makes the very family it comes from; an uncontrollable morning urge, often due to semi-solid stools, may follow a weak sphincter from an acquired habit of straining, or a congenital deficiency of folic acid. Record form, effort, minutes, finishing, blood, water and aperient, and re-ask three every visit — improvement arriving in order: effort, minutes, the sense of finishing, form, frequency, the tenderness, and the complaint she came about, last.
