Constipation

What constipation is

Constipation is not a disease. It is only a symptom.

It indicates improper functioning of the gastro-intestinal tract.

And improper functioning of the large intestine will show itself in two ways, and only two:

1. as very hard stools; or 2. as stools that are very semi-solid — but not watery enough to be called diarrhoea.

Those are opposite complaints and one finding: the large intestine is not doing its work. Which of the two a patient shows tells you which way he is leaning, and that is the beginning of the treatment.

A student hearing constipation thinks of a complaint the patient brings. Put that idea down. Here it is something you find, usually in a patient who came about a knee and has just told you his motions are perfectly all right. It belongs with tenderness at Mu° or a lined tongue: a reading you take, write down, and watch change.

Which is why the order of work matters. Having checked for pain at Liv° and Mu°, the next step is to inquire about the nature of the stools. The stool question is the second half of a finding you have already begun.

The two directions, read from the bowel

Patients with pain at Mu° tend to have very hard stools.

That is, they are acidic, in the language of this therapy — and that acidity is the root cause which leads to constipation. Patients with pain at Liv°, the alkaline side, show the other fault: soft or thin stool, stool coming again and again, loose motions, or undigested food appearing in it.

So the two commonest bowel complaints in the world are read from opposite sides of the same body and corrected from opposite directions. Hard stool is not simply less of loose stool. It is the other kingdom.

Constipation is a cumulative result

In actual practice, constipation is the cumulative result of a number of factors, each of which has to be set right.

The cause · The remedy

Not drinking enough water — hence the stools become hard · Advise the patient to drink water in small doses at specified intervals

Not having enough roughage — the reason for the poor motility of the faecal matter · Plenty of vegetables and fresh fruits, with their skins as far as possible

Sluggishness of the large intestine, due mainly to sedentary habits, or perhaps to age · Stimulate the descending colon

Insufficient quantity of secretions in the digestive tract · Stimulate the various organs of digestion

Two your hands correct and two only the patient can — and a therapist who forgets which is which will treat a man for eight weeks while he goes on drinking two glasses a day.

The primary treatment is to reduce the acidity, by the Acid Treatment Formula, given while there is pain at Mu° and repeated on subsequent days until that pain is removed. The formula and its two forms are taught in Correcting the Two Kingdoms, "Correcting the Two Kingdoms". Its standing warning is worth carrying from today: if there is no pain at Mu°, the Acid treatment is not to be given.

When the acid treatment is not enough

If the stools are hard even after the acid treatment, and he is drinking water in the right manner, then it means his descending colon is sluggish.

To rectify that, blood supply has to be increased to: the transverse colon, the descending colon, the sigmoid colon, the rectum and the anus.

Read the two conditions before the conclusion. The treatment was given and the water was corrected. A therapist who skips the second will diagnose a sluggish colon in a man whose only fault is a water pot.

The five points of the left run, and what each stimulates

Point · What it stimulates

Spl Left · The left end of the transverse colon and the beginning of the descending colon

Const Left · The area between the navel and the transverse colon, and parts of the small intestine

Mu Left · Mainly the middle part of the descending colon — and it increases lubrication in the intestines, so the residue moves forward easily

Mu° Left · The left kidney, which reduces acidity

Lt.Ov. Left · The lower descending colon, the sigmoid colon and the rectum

Between them, the whole left-hand run of the pipe from the bend under the spleen to the anus. It is not a scatter of useful places. It is the pipe itself, in order.

To cure constipation, why Spl, the spleen — and why Lt.Ov., the left ovary? Both are outside the alimentary canal.

Why a point named for one organ works on another

By these points we increase the blood circulation in the various parts of the abdomen all around the navel. Each point's name was given by keeping in mind the chief organ of that region. But when the point is given it increases blood flow not only in that organ, but in all the organs of that region.

Above and to the left of the navel the chief organ is the spleen — but the left terminal transverse colon and the upper descending colon lie there too, and all three receive the blood; and below and to the left, besides the ovary or testis, lie the terminal descending colon and sigmoid. In this work Spl is not given for the spleen at all, but for that part of the large intestine. Learn the names as addresses, not as claims.

The order is the peristalsis

The points are given in the same order in which the wave of peristalsis travels in the intestine — first the upper part of the transverse colon, then the middle, then the lower part, that is the sigmoid colon.

This is the deepest habit of thought in the therapy: study how the body does a thing, then stimulate the parts in that very order which sets right the body's own way of working. A hand that pushes downstream helps; a hand that pushes upstream is doing something else, whose effects nobody has taught you.

Two formulas rest on that principle and differ in reach. The Left Side Treatment Formula works the left run only and is the formula for chronic constipation — of very long standing. The Round Normal Formula is for ordinary constipation, and differs in that not only the descending colon but all the parts of the large intestine, from the ascending colon right through to the sigmoid, are stimulated in order. Both are taught in Water and Salt, "Water and Salt".

Its six points are anatomy you can carry to the mat tomorrow: Rt.Ov. the terminal ileum and the beginning of the ascending colon · Liv the middle of the ascending · Gal the upper ascending and the beginning of the transverse · Spl the terminal transverse and upper descending · Mu the middle descending · Lt.Ov. the terminal descending and sigmoid. Six points, and you have walked the whole large intestine in the direction the wave travels.

Severe constipation and the mucous membrane

Severe constipation is certainly accompanied by inflammation of the mucous membrane of the gastro-intestinal tract, and this shows itself as severe pain at the pain point Mu.

Wherever rubbish accumulates, a favourable environment is created for germs to breed, which takes the form of infection. So if someone has had constipation for a very long time, there will certainly be some infection in the intestines — and a chronic infection, one that stays a long time, changes into inflammation.

Therefore: along with curing the constipation, the inflammation must also be finished, or the patient will not get complete relief. Inflammation is corrected here by stimulating the adrenal cortex to produce cortisol.

Recap, learnt as it stands: pain at Mu indicates inflammation in the digestive tract. The instant remedy is either (30) Medulla or Adr — the actual treatment being (6) Adr, repeated three times, with a gap of ninety seconds in between. × 3

A complete account of long-standing constipation therefore has four faults in it — the acidity, the sluggish left colon, the thyroid, and the inflammation the constipation itself produced — which is why the formula for it stimulates most of the organs of the left side of the body and is named for that side.

Adr before Thrd — and the compromise that reverses them

The physiology.

Whenever Adr is given it makes the thymus hypo, and with it the thyroid also becomes a little hypo. So if both are given one after the other, giving the thyroid first and Adr afterwards will not give a full hundred per cent result; it comes out a little less. For a full result, Adr should be given first and the thyroid afterwards.

The problem. The abdominal points up to Mu° are given face up Supine ; Adr requires face down Prone ; Thrd face up again. The ideal order turns the patient supine — prone — supine: two turns, troublesome for the elderly, and for patients with back pain or heart trouble.

The compromise actually taught. After Mu°, give Thrd first and Adr afterwards — one turn instead of two.

And the honesty that goes with it: always remember this compromise was made for the patient's convenience. There is no harm in it, but the patient may need the treatment to be given one or two days longer.

If, after all the above, the bowel movement is still not satisfactory enough, then it means the patient's intestines are not producing the correct quantity of secretions, and the organs of digestion themselves are set right — see also → Setting the Stomach, "Setting the Stomach". Separately: individual treatment points alone do not set right a disorder, but they can give instant relief from individually annoying symptoms and can be used as starters, chiefly for the bed-ridden and those with severe joint pains, who may not bear the pressure of the regular treatments even by hand. The points which reduce the symptoms of acidity are Mukha Dhauti · Raman treatment · Round Arrow · Adr · Left Chest Only.