Clearing Bowel Oestrogen

Medical fertility procedures typically include giving oestrogen. Anna Paredes, a colon hydrotherapist has found that excess oestrogen can find its way to the bowel where it causes problems such as constipation. Anna and her client Sam discuss the rationale behind hydrating the bowel to fascilitate oestrogen clearance.

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Anna Paredes, how are you? Good, thank you. Daniel, how are you? I am fabulous. And also welcome to Sam, who is a client of yours. Hi, Sam, thanks for having me. Anna, you are a colon hydrotherapist and nutritionist. What made you become interested in colon hydrotherapy? I was having the treatment myself and realised there wasn't enough education around gut health and the simplicity around merely hydrating the bowel is what people really need to know and take control and see how simple it is without complicating, taking things and just be mindful, basically. So how does it work? What does colon hydrotherapy do? It introduces water into the bowel, so softens up all the content that's sitting in the bowel. But the colon actually contracts as well once it's hydrated and just gets the rhythm again of natural contraction. So the mind remembers and the body remembers on a cellular level how to move again without it being stagnant. Presumably the bowel has got some stretch receptors in there, and when you fill it up with water, it expands and it triggers a reaction which makes it contract again. Is that how it works? That's right. And so, well, it's familiar with water. It's familiar with water, sure. That's right. So the solvent is the water. And the bowel never really gets enough water during the day its entire life. And once it's introduced to it, it's almost the good endorphins within the neurotransmitters just start to activate. Even if people drink enough water throughout the day, you're saying that not enough gets down there? Not really. So it depends on how quickly people are drinking. If they're drinking too quick, then it bypasses, go straight into the urinary tract, and so they're urinating most of their water intake through the day instead of it properly being hydrated and going down into the bowel. And does it make a difference if people drink with a meal or separately from a meal? Absolutely. What do you recommend? So I would recommend away from meals before, if they can start to drink before a meal and at least wait 20 minutes after a meal. So when you see a lot of the Asians drinking their hot tea with their meals, it's almost that concept of slight lubrication with the food in the mouth, but not drinking the whole cup. Of tea, that's really interesting. It just gives us a bit of context for what we're about to talk about. Sam, what made you go and seek a colon hydrotherapist? And was this your first time? It wasn't my first time. I actually was gifted about ten years ago, a groupon voucher to a colon hydrothermal cleanse. And I went and I found many benefits. And then most recently last year, I underwent about four rounds of egg freezing to collect some eggs. And I remembered kind of the feeling that I had from hydrotherapy and colon cleansing. And I decided to Google and Anna is close to my work, and I thought, I'll cheque it out and just took it from there. What was the connection that you had made between, if any, between freezing eggs and colon hydrotherapy? I didn't really at the time, it was more so I have a female health condition called endometriosis, and that affects the bowel mainly. Mainly in relation to IB's so irritable bowel symptoms. And obviously because I have a lot of inflammation around the female area, I found that when I am regular with bowel movements, I have less pain and inflammation. So obviously, after all the hormones and feeling quite terrible in relation to kind of being sluggish or craving sugar and my diet not really being right because it was quite a stressful experience, I decided to kind of, was kind of googling around because I like to do kind of natural therapies and then thought of the colon cleansing just to kind of keep me on track and regular again. And I think, Daniel, no one really gets told how much oestrogen is actually being pumped through women when they're doing egg freezing or ivF. And oestrogen lodges in faecal matter. So when you've got an abundance of hormones sitting in there, that's an excess of oestrogen. Within the normal measurements of oestrogen that a woman should have, it will give a constipation. It's like being premenstrual constantly with loading, lethargic lethargy. When I saw Amanda, I mean, she looks like a picture of hell. She looks lovely. Yes, and she's lovely. But when I saw her, she was erratic fluid retention, and she was not a happy camper. Yeah, because the symptoms of having too much oestrogen in women is. There's quite a few, isn't there? I mean, the weight gain mainly through fluid retention, the. It affects menstrual cycle, loss of libido, fatigue, as you mentioned, anxiety, depression. So did you feel a lot of that sort of stuff, Sam, or just a couple of those symptoms. Yeah, I think for me it was the pain around the bowel movements and especially when it was that time of the month as well as well as then all the normal things that Anna had already mentioned, the bloating, the fatigue, tiredness, but mainly really low energy. And then obviously feeling terrible as it is because I was quite bloated and had all these fluid retention and then not being able to, you know, go to the bathroom regularly on the back of the IB's, I thought I just need to. I need a reset. I need to do something different. That's kind of what kick started that process. And then since I noticed a big difference on the first session, but have had multiple sessions since and so much better. You know, you've been around natural medicine a little bit now, so you know that, that natural therapists love talking about poo. Sam, how often were you going? I started weekly, so we did three or four sessions weekly. What I meant to say is how often were you passing about motion? Oh, it changed. Sometimes I would have diarrhoea, and then other times I go to the bathroom for about three or four days in a row and I felt quite ill and nauseous and very kind of sluggish. Okay. Was that particularly worse after you'd had some hormone supplementation? Most definitely, especially because I had four rounds of egg freezing over this, about a six month period. I really noticed a difference after the second round of egg freezing. Obviously I was on quite a high dose of hormones as well, so that also impacted, because of my age having a bit of a lower egg count, I had to be on a higher level of hormones. And how long typically would you have been given the hormone supplementation for? I was injecting roughly for about ten to 15 days a month. And, yeah, and then I would have to go in regularly for testing, and then they would either prolong that or then I'd have a last injection and be in hospital about 48 hours later. So I guess in the month I would be doing needles for about half of that month. And then we have the day surgery to extract, and then you kind of come off that synthetic hormone. And the hormone was a mixture of oestrogen and progesterone, but probably mainly oestrogen, I'm guessing, correct? Yeah, you'd have the predominantly oestrogen injection. And then how long after would you notice that your bowels would start to. Not work properly or worsen, especially after the day surgery. So when I had finished the round and then after as well, because of the pain, around the kind of collection. And then I thought originally it was because I didn't want to push, but then it was the kind of backed up, non regular type of symptoms that happened straight after. And we had a brief conversation and you pointed something out to me which I never knew, and that said, oestrogen can increase the risk of constipation, which is high oestrogen. Are you seeing many of this type of thing through your practise? Well, that's what I was going to say. With the egg freezing. Yes, we are seeing more and more women coming through, but even with IVF, it's the same. It's like they really need to stimulate the follicles to start to reproduce a lot of eggs. And when they're reproducing a lot of eggs for extraction, you know, that's when women really, their mood does plummet. They do start to get depressed because of fluid retention, because of the imbalance of the chemicals that are circulating within their bodies as well. If you're taking oestrogen, it's causing constipation. How do you deal with that? As a colon hydrotherapist, I mean, do you see any risks associated with it? Oh, definitely not. We definitely want to get it out of the body. Okay. And so that way there's a balance automatically. Like them, for example, walked out completely different. You're offloading all that abundance of faecal matter trapped within the gut, within the large intestine, you can breathe again. So it does affect breathing the way we think. Why wouldn't someone in Sam's position or similar take fibre and or probiotics? Do they work? Probiotic wouldn't work in a case of constipation because it's focused on the small intestine more than the large intestine. Yep. So when you've got an organ that's so impacted, it really can't have space to contract. So it's like an accordion. If an accordion's totally full, you won't be able to get that contraction. You won't be able to move it until you start to offload and then it can stimulate normal contraction. So what we do is we hydrate from the EOS sigmoid all the way around to the cecum. And once you get that first good hydration, then the bowel starts to contract. We don't physically get it out? No, I understand. We just assist with the hydration and the client actually does their own contraction without using the abdominal muscles to bear down. And how long would that take once you've hydrated the colon sufficiently and it's reacting as you've discussed. How long would it take for an average person to start passing a motion? I would say good, 40 minutes of hydration, and then the rest is in contraction. So we have 40 minutes basic good hydration, and then 20 minutes is the bowel seeing it operate again, seeing it move? And there's nothing wrong with the client where many people would say, might be a redundant bowel. It's never the case. I mean, there's some studies that talk about the levels of oestrogen associated with egg freezing and ivf causing constipation. That's in the medical literature, but they're not quite sure why it happens. I know there's a few rat studies out there that talk about specific receptors being switched on or off, and there's other papers that discuss the impact of oestrogen on the microbiome. Do you have any thoughts around the mechanism as to why it happens with oestrogen? Well, I think you just simply. Let's go back to watching what happens with women when they're premenstrual. It's the same that there's an increase in oestrogen at the time, and we know this because the cravings for fatty foods, chocolate, are increased. And so you'll see levels of even Candida going up. So that's a good point, because we definitely see Candida when a woman's premenstrual just three days or four days before their menstrual flow. And it's the same principle. It's increase of oestrogen there, and it's an increase of oestrogen through the follicle stimulants. My understanding of vaginal candida is it's a change. It's not vaginal, actually. It's not vaginal. It's within the gut. Yeah, yeah. You can actually see it. But the symptoms come out vaginally for women. Sometimes not. And most of the time when I do see candida coming through and it's quite thick, meaning through the colonic procedure, I'd always ask the question, are you about to have a menstrual flow? And they'll say, yeah, in about three days, five days, in six days. But they'd never say anything about the strong odour or candida through the vaginal passage. Yeah, this is basically what the bacterias have caused, just when there's a change of dietary habits. So the dietary habit is that they've had an increase of chocolate or carbohydrates, which convert into sugar. And so all that fermentation causes candida, but only when the woman is premenstrual. So even if women have tests, they go to the naturopath, they see that there's a rise in Candida. Always ask the question, did you have the test while you were premenstrual? And it's basically 95%. Sam, how many sessions did you have to have with Anna before you started to feel that you were retraining your bowel to a point where you were comfortable? I definitely felt a difference on the third colonic that I've had, obviously, straight benefits from the first one, but really kind of getting myself into a good motion and no, like, pain in between. Less frequent IB's symptoms, so the less frequency between the diarrhoea and the constipation, and then that regularity of going that once a day, I definitely noticed, maybe even on the second, but on the third, it was like clockwork in saying that obviously I still have endometriosis and I still have issues around my menstrual cycle. And I've now just, you know, even before this, Zoom was talking to Anna about kind of that once a month, once every six weeks, until I kind of find myself out of the woods to continue and making sure I stay on track, because endometriosis is an ongoing issue for me, and that obviously does impact the bowel quite significantly. How often do you feel like you need to go back for a top up? I'm presuming you do. Yeah, about once a month. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, maybe six. Yeah. Depending on how I feel, if I've had a good month, maybe push it back to six weeks. I start to know because I can even start to see the impact on my body. I have more fluid retention. I have more painful, especially around when I get my menstrual cycle, even going to the bathroom and doing bowel motions because I'm quite inflamed. Even the pain that I'm like, okay, I'm due for a session. Anna, did you, with Sam, recommend any other dietary changes or supplements or herbs or anything else? We focused on her diet. Right. Okay. We made sure that the oestrogen stays low, as in getting rid of a lot of the carbohydrates and your sugars. What did you give? What was a typical breakfast and lunch, for example? So for Sam, we actually recommended that she doesn't have chicken. Okay. Because of these. No chicken, no eggs. Were you concerned about, or did you have any thoughts around organic chicken? Or was it just no chicken at all. No chicken at all. Okay. Geez. Tough. I'm here, I'm getting that. No chicken at all. And what other make? But she has improved. That was the major change. So you took chicken out of her diet and any other major changes? Increase of water, definitely decrease of alcohol. Which was a bit unfortunate. Okay, I got that. And did you find that you were able to exercise more or have more energy at all, Sam? Definitely. I certainly noticed a lot of differences that I didn't even think. I kind of assumed that I'd have more energy and I'd have improved bowel motion. But I was saying to Anna, I think it was on our second session, I feel like I can smell better. I know this sounds ridiculous, but my sense of smell tightened so significantly. Sense smell in particular. And also another strange kind of benefit that I found was my eye colour changed quite significantly. Hazel green eyes. And my eyes were a little bit dark like the actual colour. And I said to Anna, I feel like my eyes are so much brighter in colour.

And then obviously because I was sleeping better, I wasn't waking up around that 03: 19:42

00 mark, where I normally wake up and can't get back to sleep. So I don't know if it was a bit of an improvement in sleep patterns as well that maybe improved all of that.

Well, it sounds like that 03: 19:59

00 mark is when the liver starts to activate. So it all points to the liver detoxifying better. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you're reducing oestrogen, I guess it takes some load off the liver. Does that make sense for you? Absolutely. It's heading towards more of a balance. So, Sam, if your eyes were clearing up, you're going to send all the iridologists crazy with that. I know, exactly. Right. There's some erodologists that know about that, though. They get rid of toxins and the eye colours. Yeah, but my smell in particular ain't Anna. It sounds completely nuts, but I feel like I can smell a whole lot better. Like just things that I hadn't normally smelt before, or I'd be in the lift and I'd be next to someone going, wow. Like I just noticed all of that heightened smell. It was quite amazing. And when I did speak to Anna, we spoke about all those benefits as well as she mentioned chicken and eggs in particular. But what I found helpful was a part of the session. Anna gave me some eating right for my blood type, which I started looking at in particular, just kind of looking at all the things that I thought were healthy, like chicken or eggs from. I guess a calorie intake or a protein intake versus what is actually good for my body and trying to stay on track and what's going to irritate me or, you know, aggravate my hormones or my bowel. And I did notice, especially with the chicken, although that was quite hard originally to give up because I'm so used to having that a part of my diet. It took getting used to, but I definitely found the benefits of cutting out chicken. I was just reading an article the other day where they're thinking that the future archaeologists are going to find billions of tonnes of chicken bones because we eat so many chickens now. It's just nuts. Yes. Sam, are you. Have you finished your process with egg freezing now? I have. I finished at the end of last year. And how are you feeling overall? A lot better. But it's taken my body, because I had four rounds quite close together. It's taken my body a long time to get back to where I was before, definitely, you know, things like the colon therapy, and then I'm obviously into, you know, natural alternative therapies as well to assist. It certainly helped. What else do you do? I have, and Anna and I discuss this as well, like, I'm very kind of aware of. I do, I do yoga, I do meditation, I do acupuncture as well. And I really try and help myself to things like to help my sleep, I take magnesium supplements, anything that's going to assist my body to try and get back into the normal function. What I did notice a lot, especially around the bowel motion too, and obviously craving so much of those foods that I don't usually eat. I also had weight gain through egg freezing, so I put on roughly about four to five kilos the whole process. I have lost about two and a half of those kilos, but still got a little while to go. And obviously, too, because I'm getting older, I'm in my late thirties, kind of really taking care of myself and then increasing energy to actually go to the gym after work and do the cardio and sleep good and take care of myself, so. Good, yeah. And then obviously be careful of emotions and things like that. And Anna's been quite good at, you know, during our colon sessions because she knows I'm into that, talking to me about, you know, storing emotions in the bowel and releasing some of those things. So, yeah, I definitely believe in all of that. You're looking good from where I can see, Sam, that's just through a screen, but well done. Where is your practise in Surrey Hill, Elizabeth street. Okay, what's it called? Do you have a website? Coloncare centre. So it's ww dot coloncarecenter.com. dot au. Lovely. Okay, well, look, that was really interesting and I, I find it fascinating, you know, all these little things that we do in life and we just take it for granted. Like, you know, I do make freezing or do IVF. You just don't always understand or comprehend the knock on effects. And it's really interesting that you've opened that door for my thinking. So I appreciate that. And I hope our listeners also have, also have an increased awareness of what happens through these processes because it is quite hard on the body to be pumped full of hormones. Yes. All right. Well, thanks to both of you and thanks for your time. You're welcome. Thank you so much, Daniel. Really appreciate it. You take care. You too. See ya. See ya. Bye