Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles to w Chuck, Brian over there, Jerry's here,
Speaker 1: so bend over and let's get started. Everyone warning, body horror. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is about Enema's trigger warning. Obviously if you see
Speaker 1: the title, you're gonna know what's going on. But you
Speaker 1: know there's gonna be some gross stuff. And there's also
Speaker 1: a small section that does uh you may not want
Speaker 1: your kids to hear. Uh. I would just say, if
Speaker 1: this is probably not family road trip material, yeah, just
Speaker 1: skip to the next one. Yeah, unless that next one, no,
Speaker 1: it's probably safe lately. Oh yeah yeah yeah. And it's
Speaker 1: really just that one part to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: And even then it's not like we're being like, you know,
Speaker 1: lascivious or body. No, it's nothing to be ashamed of it,
Speaker 1: like you just just tread carefully with kids around, everybody's like,
Speaker 1: what are they talking about? I've never been more intrigued
Speaker 1: via Stuff you Should Know episode and you'll know when
Speaker 1: did we get there? So keep your pants on? That
Speaker 1: was terrible but great also at the same time, um,
Speaker 1: so we're talking enemas and yeah, they were probably about
Speaker 1: seven eight times researching this where I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna faintly, yeah, and I'm really surprised that I've actually
Speaker 1: gotten high colonics before, like I've done this stuff. I
Speaker 1: think I remember that. And you were into this, right, yes, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to put it. I was into
Speaker 1: it for a while. Um and because there were times
Speaker 1: where I would get one and be like, I've never
Speaker 1: felt more positive and energetic than I've ever felt my life.
Speaker 1: Then other times I would get them and I would
Speaker 1: feel like gray and couldn't look anybody in the eye afterward.
Speaker 1: Like it's really strange how it can affect you. But
Speaker 1: you know, when it does make you feel it, you
Speaker 1: can understand why people do it. The thing is is
Speaker 1: we'll see the reason that I was doing high colonics
Speaker 1: and why most people do high colonics, especially outside of
Speaker 1: a formal medical setting. It's just basically bunk. That's true.
Speaker 1: I remember now you talked about this in our live
Speaker 1: Dr Kellogg episode. Yeah, because I remember you when you
Speaker 1: said you felt gray. That's how I described it on stage.
Speaker 1: There's no other way to put it. That always gotta laugh. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Also gotta laugh. That's true. Jokes, No, for sure.
Speaker 1: So um, I'll talk a little. I'll pepper this episode
Speaker 1: with with my memories of that. How about that? Great?
Speaker 1: But instead, I've never done it. You've never had an
Speaker 1: anima even, no, no, nothing like that. Okay, alright, exit
Speaker 1: only so far and so in that ruling anything out.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing. So like Ed helped us with
Speaker 1: this one, and he specifically spells out, there's no reason
Speaker 1: for you to do this. That's true. And just let
Speaker 1: me correct myself real quick. I did have my colon
Speaker 1: oscar be so I'm officially not exit only. Oh congratulations, man,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing to do. No one told me
Speaker 1: two things going into this, one of which is that
Speaker 1: the people coming in there to do it walk in
Speaker 1: like wearing rubber smocks basically, and when you see it,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, sure I would do uh. And the
Speaker 1: other thing no one ever told me, and I think
Speaker 1: people don't tell people this maybe just because it's a
Speaker 1: fun surprise, is that all you do afterward for thirty
Speaker 1: minutes is fart. I don't remember that I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: but pre op they brought a guy out next to
Speaker 1: me behind the curtain and he was just blowing gas
Speaker 1: every fifteen seconds, big ones, and I was dying and
Speaker 1: the guy I was it was so funny to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean still five years old. The guy
Speaker 1: came in to wheel me in the anesthesiologists and I
Speaker 1: was like, is that him? And he that's everybody, and
Speaker 1: I went so all day long and he went a
Speaker 1: cacophony of farts and I was like, what a job,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of laughed and he said it'll
Speaker 1: be you two. And I came out and I was
Speaker 1: in that beautiful propof all haze and I told the lady,
Speaker 1: I said, I gotta go to the bathroom right now,
Speaker 1: and she went, you just have to pass, honey. She
Speaker 1: would just go go ahead and start doing it, and
Speaker 1: sure enough I just started. I just started blowing heat
Speaker 1: for how long? Because I really did that. I must
Speaker 1: have been like just basically out while I was doing it.
Speaker 1: Now maybe well Emily didn't remember either, but she I
Speaker 1: was in there with her and she I think was
Speaker 1: pretty farty. So anyway, all that to say, uh, I
Speaker 1: did have the camera, uh you know, going inside of
Speaker 1: my body. So you have been an inny now not
Speaker 1: just that, I guess, so I was looking for the
Speaker 1: right word and any sure, so um, well, let's just
Speaker 1: let's get to the nitty gritty here. Okay, Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: an enema. It's when you have fluid injected through your
Speaker 1: anus into the rectum. Sometimes, depending on the amount of
Speaker 1: fluid introduced and how long you can hold it, it
Speaker 1: can make its way up to the large intestine, which
Speaker 1: is five ft or one and a half meters long,
Speaker 1: so it can be a lot of fluid, almost two
Speaker 1: leaders from what I saw. Um, and then you try
Speaker 1: to hold it and then after a while you pass
Speaker 1: it and you're basically pooping a bunch of water out.
Speaker 1: And hopefully if you're doing this for basically a non
Speaker 1: medical reason, you're you're clearing out any remaining poop material
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, which is when you go in for
Speaker 1: a calonic, they have you instead of doing a calonic
Speaker 1: or or a cinema, they give you the stuff to
Speaker 1: drink where you do nothing but poop for you know,
Speaker 1: twelve to eighteen hours or whatever for a colonoscopy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they don't want they don't want anything in there either, No,
Speaker 1: and because they can they can like not make it
Speaker 1: past whatever chunks are in there, or they can um
Speaker 1: they can kind of um block there the data that
Speaker 1: they're getting from it block their view. Who knows, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the uber right, like when I had to go one
Speaker 1: more time and I actually stopped the guy right as
Speaker 1: we were going in and said, I think you have
Speaker 1: to go one more time? Is that a problem? And
Speaker 1: he went no, please do say oh right, of course,
Speaker 1: it's like you want all of it out. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about where you're actually holding this water when you
Speaker 1: get in Eama. Yeah, to the five people still listening,
Speaker 1: you think, no, I don't know. I think there are
Speaker 1: some people that are I mean that listen to the
Speaker 1: poop episode. If they're into that, they're into this sure
Speaker 1: for sure. So um in your guts, you've got your
Speaker 1: digestive tract, which basically is your guts, you get your mouth,
Speaker 1: you're faring to your esophagus. That's where the food goes
Speaker 1: into the stomach, and from the stomach it goes into
Speaker 1: the small intestine. And the small intestine is long. It's
Speaker 1: really long. It's like twenty two ft long, all bunched up,
Speaker 1: and it's longer then large intestine. But it's much narrower,
Speaker 1: and that is where we suck all the nutrients out
Speaker 1: of food, right, and then once we suck all the
Speaker 1: nutrients out of food, it goes produp into the large intestine.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right. So from this point, uh, you're
Speaker 1: at the end of the small intestine, right am, I
Speaker 1: in the right part of the body. I feel like
Speaker 1: you shrunk me down and I'm listening to you on
Speaker 1: like out of here. Uh. You've got the liquid food
Speaker 1: material at this point, and it's going to pass through
Speaker 1: the iliosecal valve into the secum. And we talked about
Speaker 1: all this in the poop in the Digestive episodes, but
Speaker 1: it's a nice refresher and I think appendix too. Yeah. Probably,
Speaker 1: it's always fun to talk about it because it's such
Speaker 1: a weird system to that, like the answer is twenty
Speaker 1: two ft of intestines. Yeah, but it's just such a
Speaker 1: beautiful idea or such a great systems. It's pretty cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: So the secum is on the right side of the
Speaker 1: body and the lower abdomen, and then it's going to
Speaker 1: move into this the colon, which is that big, larger
Speaker 1: segmented tube that goes up the right side and takes
Speaker 1: a little turn actually not a little turn or very
Speaker 1: sharp turn across the body, uh, in the upper abdomen
Speaker 1: and is kind of curved and tucked underneath the stomach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then it goes down the other side and makes
Speaker 1: kind of a j at the bottom, and that's where
Speaker 1: it connects with the rectum. And colon, by the way,
Speaker 1: is just another word for the large intestine. Um. There's
Speaker 1: different types of colon depending on what section you're talking about.
Speaker 1: But the point is, as it's going through this wild
Speaker 1: ride in your large intestine, although the nutrients have been
Speaker 1: removed now the water is being removed a lot of
Speaker 1: the liquid so that you don't get dehydrated every time
Speaker 1: you poop, and that makes your poop not dry, but
Speaker 1: less moist than it would have been when it entered
Speaker 1: the large intestine. The point is this, when it gets
Speaker 1: to erectum and goes out of your anus, what you're
Speaker 1: doing is pooping. And the whole point behind enemas as
Speaker 1: it stands, and they've been around for a really long time,
Speaker 1: is the idea that maybe there's something stuck in there.
Speaker 1: And if there's something stuck in there and it's gross,
Speaker 1: we should probably try to get rid of it and
Speaker 1: we'll probably be healthier as a result. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think even beyond stuck, I think some people like the
Speaker 1: idea of just cleaning the pipes out really really well,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Sure, I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Like if they could get a one of those like
Speaker 1: test tube brushes, you can't, yeah, like a pipe cleaner,
Speaker 1: but you can't. And so the enema has come along,
Speaker 1: and and I think a lot of people still do
Speaker 1: it for that reason. They just like, maybe that's why
Speaker 1: you were doing it, like let me clean myself out. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I was doing it for the idea of like toxins
Speaker 1: being removed that kind of stuff. Um, which is it?
Speaker 1: It dates back to John Harvey Kellogg but even further
Speaker 1: as we'll see. But yeah, I think some people do
Speaker 1: just want to be cleaner. And I saw that there's
Speaker 1: a shower extension or attachment that is home and you
Speaker 1: can basically just give yourself an enema every day in
Speaker 1: the shower. Whether you should do that or not is
Speaker 1: highly debatable, and if you asked the doctor, they'll say, no,
Speaker 1: I don't even do it once, But some people do anyway. Interesting, uh,
Speaker 1: all right. So if you want to go back through history, um,
Speaker 1: you it's one of the earliest sort of medical procedures
Speaker 1: that you could get. Uh. It is in ancient ancient
Speaker 1: medical texts. Uh. We always talk about Pliny and Herodotus,
Speaker 1: they both wrote about enemas. The Egyptians were using enemas. Uh.
Speaker 1: That was apparently a bird called the ibis that they
Speaker 1: thought gave itself enemas with its beak, when in fact
Speaker 1: it was just expressing oil glands near the anus with
Speaker 1: its beak. But they looked at this bird and said,
Speaker 1: I guess, well, hey, if it's doing it, then maybe
Speaker 1: we should do um. But a lot of times with
Speaker 1: the Egyptians it was sort of a post um. She's
Speaker 1: almost said, postpartum, post die, post posthumous. Yeah, oh cheeze,
Speaker 1: its posthumous post. I was gonna cut all that out,
Speaker 1: but I should just own it, right, It's up to you. Now,
Speaker 1: you're gonna own it. I was. I could not think
Speaker 1: of the word posthumous. It was something they did after
Speaker 1: you died. Yeah, they would put a bunch of cedar
Speaker 1: oil up your poop shoot and let you, um, let
Speaker 1: your inners just basically dissolve that way. But they were
Speaker 1: also using it while they were alive, not using cedar
Speaker 1: oil obviously because that would have been horrible, but um,
Speaker 1: using other stuff like typically water sometimes oils um to
Speaker 1: basically clean themselves out. Again, that's long been and still
Speaker 1: is the basic idea of an enema for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: That's right. So as far as equipment goes, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: over the years, it's definitely uh, things have come and
Speaker 1: gone and what was available to them. Uh. Syringes have
Speaker 1: been around a lot longer than I thought actually before
Speaker 1: I researched this stuff. But depending on where you were
Speaker 1: and how much money you had, you might not have
Speaker 1: access to something like a medical syringe. Um. But one
Speaker 1: thing they would use is in certain parts of the
Speaker 1: world where bamboo tubes uh, and you would, you know,
Speaker 1: stick this up someone's butt and you would be very
Speaker 1: careful not to inhale with your mouth on the tube,
Speaker 1: and you would blow, uh blow in and you would
Speaker 1: force liquid in through there. And this was something that
Speaker 1: they used. I think bellows came along because people actually
Speaker 1: would occasionally inhale and that would lead to very poor results. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because a lot of times you were getting animals for
Speaker 1: things like colera, and if you accidentally like coughed and
Speaker 1: inhaled while you're what you're supposed to be blowing, you
Speaker 1: could inhale color infested stool and you were in big,
Speaker 1: big trouble. Or even if it wasn't colera infested, it's
Speaker 1: just a very poor day, it really is. And they
Speaker 1: were like yeah, and like this is a it's a
Speaker 1: really basic idea, but over you know, the centuries, people
Speaker 1: added things to it, like you said, the syringe. When
Speaker 1: it started to become more widespread. Um there was a
Speaker 1: Dutch physician named Rignier de Groff who in the six
Speaker 1: hundreds realized that a lot of people could probably benefit from,
Speaker 1: you know, an enema, but they were too modest or
Speaker 1: embarrassed or something like that. So he really started to
Speaker 1: try to figure out how to make um enemas self administered,
Speaker 1: also to free the poor person who had to blow
Speaker 1: the water through the bamboo tube as well. It was
Speaker 1: way better if you could just do it yourself without
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Sure, uh, you know things like
Speaker 1: water bottles that used these days in certain applications. Back
Speaker 1: then they would use like animal bladders and things like that.
Speaker 1: Because they again like you said they tried to make
Speaker 1: it early on. I think even way back then they
Speaker 1: were they said, this is probably something we should try
Speaker 1: and get people to do themselves, no matter what tools
Speaker 1: they're using, Like, we gotta think of something to get
Speaker 1: everyone else out of the room. So, just like everything else, Um,
Speaker 1: there was an age of the enema and this actually
Speaker 1: happened during the the court of Louis fourteenth, who I
Speaker 1: believe rain during the eighteenth century. Correct, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think it was yeah, like early sixteen thirties to
Speaker 1: early seventeen hundreds. Okay, alright, correct, so I was half right.
Speaker 1: So during this time, like it was, it was just
Speaker 1: just as fashionable as as it could be to get
Speaker 1: enemas self administered or otherwise. And being the king Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth was like, um, I don't have to administer
Speaker 1: these myself. I'll have somebody administer them to me. And
Speaker 1: also being the king, I will just I'll take visitors
Speaker 1: during these sessions as well. Yes, and he loved these things.
Speaker 1: Reports say that he had over two thousand enemas during
Speaker 1: his reign. And uh, why this hasn't been like at
Speaker 1: least a movie scene at some point I have no
Speaker 1: idea where he's just kind of holding cord or taking
Speaker 1: a meeting while he's getting an enema. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: high society, the Parisians, they would show off there. They
Speaker 1: were called clister uh syringes, and they had several different ones,
Speaker 1: somewhere like mother of Pearl and very fancy, and they
Speaker 1: would they would, you know, say, oh, look at mine,
Speaker 1: I have several different you know, enema syrenches. And it
Speaker 1: was just a thing people did a lot, yes, until
Speaker 1: the around the nineteenth century, and they started figuring out
Speaker 1: that that they could make laxatives and pillform and it
Speaker 1: was way easier, and they started prescribing those instead UM,
Speaker 1: and it fell out of favor until John Harvey Kellogg
Speaker 1: came along and for much much greater detail in his
Speaker 1: um experience with enemas. You could go listen to our
Speaker 1: live Kellogg Brothers episode. But he he brought it back
Speaker 1: with a bang, and since then, his ideas that you're
Speaker 1: cleaning out toxins that otherwise will cause disease in you
Speaker 1: is still just the premise of enemas outside of the
Speaker 1: medical setting. That's right. Uh. A another couple of things
Speaker 1: that I know, I know one of them you mentioned
Speaker 1: and I couldn't remember, but I guess it was the
Speaker 1: drowning episode. Was they used to in England perform tobacco
Speaker 1: smoke enemas to revive people after drowning or if you
Speaker 1: lose consciousness, And I knew that sounded familiar. And then
Speaker 1: when it hit on the drowning part that had to
Speaker 1: have been the episode. But they would blow tobacco smoke
Speaker 1: up your butt with a rubber hose and will wake
Speaker 1: you right up. I guess yeah. Well, actually I think
Speaker 1: they found that it didn't actually work very much. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you want to take a break and come back
Speaker 1: and talk more about animals. Hey, let's stuck. I don't
Speaker 1: know that you know it stuck and stuck. It's a
Speaker 1: great name. That's the name of that. It's a great name. Alright,
Speaker 1: stuck within with an X. Right, So let's talk like
Speaker 1: the actual medical anima, right and how it actually works. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: The first thing you want to figure out is how
Speaker 1: much liquid to put in um and it varies. There
Speaker 1: can be situations where they're basically kind of flushing you
Speaker 1: in and out where there are gallons of liquid that
Speaker 1: are used. Uh, sometimes you might get a CT scan
Speaker 1: to actually determine a real volume to use, like how
Speaker 1: much space do you have to hold this liquid? And uh,
Speaker 1: usually though it's about a leader or so roughly, Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I saw that the volume of the average coal in
Speaker 1: the large intestine is about one and a half leaders
Speaker 1: to maybe three. I think you're on the side of down.
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, if you're using a leader,
Speaker 1: say two leaders, you're filling up your entire large intestine
Speaker 1: with water. Lucky for you, there's that um ilo seql
Speaker 1: ealv um that prevents backflow from going from the large
Speaker 1: intestine back into the small intestine. Um. But that's actually
Speaker 1: like a big, big risk with UM self administered or
Speaker 1: non medical enemas or colonics is there's a concern that
Speaker 1: that could actually breach that and you would be in
Speaker 1: big trouble because you'd be infecting yourself with stuff that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be infecting yourself with. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: one good reason not to do it yourself exactly, So
Speaker 1: you're gonna probably be on your side. There's a doctor
Speaker 1: nurse who's going to be you know, administering it, and um,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what you think. They put a tube up
Speaker 1: your butt. They put the water whatever it is, into
Speaker 1: your anus, which goes up to your rectum and then
Speaker 1: possibly into your um large intestine and while you're while
Speaker 1: you're sitting there, you were overcome by the urge to poop.
Speaker 1: And it's not just that you're full or distended um.
Speaker 1: It's that the liquid actually can trigger the mucosa lining
Speaker 1: the rectum to to poop. It's basically like, there's two
Speaker 1: ways it's making you want to poop, and brother, do
Speaker 1: you want to poop? Right? So one is your full
Speaker 1: and the other is that mucosa is just start spasming
Speaker 1: because it's triggered. Uh. And that's why I use apparently
Speaker 1: why they use soapy water um or not always, but
Speaker 1: there is such a thing as the soapy water enema,
Speaker 1: and that soap is a lubricant which helps obviously for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons, but it also can be extra irritating to
Speaker 1: the colon and guess make you want to poop even more.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure there's people out there who presume that
Speaker 1: soapy soap water enemas are used to clean you out
Speaker 1: extra yeah, which is not the case, right, No, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's just for making you your colon spasm right, so UM,
Speaker 1: while you're holding this, like sometimes you have to hold
Speaker 1: it because there might be a bunch of um like
Speaker 1: impacted poop in there or something like that that they
Speaker 1: want to kind of soften up over time, so they
Speaker 1: may make you hold it for a while. You're going
Speaker 1: to cramp because you're not used to being this full.
Speaker 1: And also don't forget that you're your colon is spasming
Speaker 1: wanting to poop, and you just have to hold it
Speaker 1: for as long as you can and then finally you
Speaker 1: get to poop it out and you go home and
Speaker 1: cry for a couple of days. So I guess we
Speaker 1: should talk about some of the valid reasons before we
Speaker 1: get to like the reasons why you probably shouldn't just
Speaker 1: do one at home yourself to clean yourself out. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of valid medical reasons why you want
Speaker 1: to good with doctor or if you're in a hospital
Speaker 1: or something to get an enema. UM One is if
Speaker 1: you have UH, and we're not talking about just your
Speaker 1: garden variety constipation that happens to people. We're talking about
Speaker 1: constipation that has not responded to any other treatments UM
Speaker 1: or possibly if it gets so bad, something called fecal
Speaker 1: impactation can happen, which is just really long term I mean,
Speaker 1: it's what you think, it's really long term constipation where
Speaker 1: you're feces are just so hard and compact and dehydrated
Speaker 1: that it's probably not even possible to get him out
Speaker 1: other than with an enema, right, Um. And that's where
Speaker 1: you just sit there and hold it in for a
Speaker 1: while and just kind of let it loosen up, probably
Speaker 1: with like some warm water that's just breaking it up,
Speaker 1: maybe celine water too. Um you all right, Um, you
Speaker 1: also want might want to do it, like you said,
Speaker 1: for you, if you're going to go get a colonoscopy,
Speaker 1: they might have given you an enema back in the day. Um,
Speaker 1: although I wonder how long they've been doing colonoscopes. At
Speaker 1: some point, enemas and colonoscopes cross paths. But now since
Speaker 1: they figured out they can give you like that that
Speaker 1: magic drink that just makes you poop, poop, poop, they
Speaker 1: don't really need to do enemas any longer. But I
Speaker 1: think that was a that was a point at some time.
Speaker 1: They met in a bar one night. Yeah, we seem
Speaker 1: to have a lot in common. Yeah, I couldn't think
Speaker 1: I really wanted to. That was great, Chuck, there it is,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um here's another reason before having a baby.
Speaker 1: A lot of times when when someone has a baby,
Speaker 1: they can they can poop, And for a long time
Speaker 1: they said, well that's not a good idea because there
Speaker 1: could be bacteria in the feces. This is called cause infections,
Speaker 1: so you get an enema before you have a baby.
Speaker 1: But since the early nineteen eighties that has UH kind
Speaker 1: of gone the way of the dodo because there was
Speaker 1: a paper meta study in n that found that it
Speaker 1: did not reduce UH infection and it basically just added
Speaker 1: another stressful procedure UH to you know, pre birth that
Speaker 1: they didn't want people to go through. Yeah that yeah,
Speaker 1: you just why make it even even more stressful, you
Speaker 1: know exactly. Um. Also, if there's something wrong with your colon,
Speaker 1: they might give you an enema of barium sulfate, which
Speaker 1: um shows up as opaque on X ray. So if
Speaker 1: you have a colon full of barium sulfate, when the
Speaker 1: X ray you, they're going to be able to see
Speaker 1: every nook and cranny of your and it really helps
Speaker 1: quite a bit and you just get to poop out
Speaker 1: some barium. It's the bonus of that one. Uh. This
Speaker 1: one is something I'd never considered, but it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Uh. If you have to have a
Speaker 1: certain kind of medication, like for your colon, getting it
Speaker 1: there that way maybe a really good idea. Because if
Speaker 1: you think about it, if you take it, like maybe
Speaker 1: if it's alterative colitis or something, uh, and you take
Speaker 1: something orally like a steroid, you're gonna maybe metabolize a
Speaker 1: lot of that on the way down, and your body
Speaker 1: is also gonna have uh probably more of a risk
Speaker 1: of side effects because it is being metabolized in your
Speaker 1: whole body, Whereas if you just go right to the
Speaker 1: spot and get that steroid in there, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a one stop shop. Yeah. And also if the steroids
Speaker 1: just meant for the treatment of alterative colitis, say you
Speaker 1: don't want to like move steroids across your entire body,
Speaker 1: which will happen if you get it through ivy or orally.
Speaker 1: This is like it's just super laser focused medication, which
Speaker 1: is great, that's right. Um. And also that it's the
Speaker 1: same it's the same thing with suppositories too. Um. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll use a suppository if you can't keep something down
Speaker 1: or if they're trying to target that area because there's
Speaker 1: so many um blood vessels in your anus and rectum,
Speaker 1: I think particularly in your amus that um, they'll just
Speaker 1: take that medicine and food shoot it right through that area. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is where ed the Grabster points out he
Speaker 1: helped us put this one together, is uh. He said,
Speaker 1: you'll notice that none of the medical reasons were you know,
Speaker 1: just to clean yourself out. Uh. That that is something
Speaker 1: that has you know, Uh, come on. I was about
Speaker 1: to say more recently, but Kellogg was doing it obviously
Speaker 1: a long time ago. And so we're the Egyptians, so
Speaker 1: never mind. There's also there was one other um reason
Speaker 1: for it that I thought was pretty cool. If you
Speaker 1: end up like Needing our Desert Survival episode one day
Speaker 1: and you're overheated, you show up at the hospital, they
Speaker 1: might give you a cool water enema and that will
Speaker 1: help reduce your core bo do you temperature real quick
Speaker 1: inside out method. That's pretty cool. But that is awful,
Speaker 1: but I'll bet it's I'll bet afterwards you're like, that
Speaker 1: was amazing. I can't believe that worked. But it didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe so alright, chuck, how about our second break. We're
Speaker 1: making it. Man, I haven't felt faint once yet. I
Speaker 1: haven't either. Okay, good, Um, So we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: break and come back and finish up enemies. Stuck. I
Speaker 1: don't know that you know it. Stuck. It's a great name.
Speaker 1: That's the name of that. It's a great name. Alright,
Speaker 1: stuck within with an X. Alright. So it's been a
Speaker 1: pretty wild ride so far. We described the process medically speaking. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of the liquids that you can use medically speaking,
Speaker 1: regular old tap water, UH, soapy water, which we talked about.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it will be saline water, uh, salt water enemas,
Speaker 1: different concentrations of salt. Depending on what you want to do,
Speaker 1: whether or not you want to draw water into the
Speaker 1: intestines or draw water out, you're gonna use different concentration
Speaker 1: layer levels of salt. Makes sense. What else we mentioned
Speaker 1: burying sulfite, but also oil, right, Yeah, I think if
Speaker 1: you're if you've got the your poop is just not
Speaker 1: coming out, um you, they might give you some sort
Speaker 1: of oil to really kind of break it up a
Speaker 1: little more. To kind of oil, I have a guess
Speaker 1: mineral oil probably to right, that would be my guess. Okay,
Speaker 1: sure that makes sense. I think so too. So. Um,
Speaker 1: you talked about how there's reasons that some people would
Speaker 1: want to be clean, Um, and there are times where
Speaker 1: you might want to be clean. There are sexual activities
Speaker 1: that you might want to be clearer for, and one
Speaker 1: of them is anal sex. Right, that's right. You just
Speaker 1: pass that right along pretty quickly, didn't you. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Apparently in the porn industry, Uh, it is very common
Speaker 1: practice if you have an anal sex scene on camera
Speaker 1: to get really cleaned out beforehand. Never really thought about that,
Speaker 1: but apparently that's the thing I didn't either. I also saw,
Speaker 1: um that it's fairly common, at least according to Vice
Speaker 1: magazine among bottoms in the gay community. UM, that they
Speaker 1: will they'll basically give themselves animals before sex. And in
Speaker 1: this article, the whole premise of it was like essentially
Speaker 1: that this doctor was saying, like, you don't need to
Speaker 1: do that, first of all, like most of like any
Speaker 1: remnant poop that's in there. Like here's the other thing,
Speaker 1: this is why you shouldn't do this in the first place,
Speaker 1: no matter what the reason, outside of a medical setting,
Speaker 1: you don't need to because most people who's like works
Speaker 1: are functioning properly, are expelling almost all of the poop
Speaker 1: that ever goes through their body. There's so little left
Speaker 1: over um that this is really unnecessary. And then also
Speaker 1: it's um with with anal sex in particular, you're rarely
Speaker 1: reaching the rectum. It's almost all anus, and there's not
Speaker 1: really any leftover poop in the anus. It would be
Speaker 1: in the rectum. Yeah. Plus if you get that bidet,
Speaker 1: it's crossing over with all kinds of episodes. You're clean
Speaker 1: up there anyway, exactly, You're yes, for sure. Uh. And
Speaker 1: along these same lines, the sexual pleasure is another reason
Speaker 1: somebody might uh want to do this, like and we're
Speaker 1: not just talking about um anal sex. We're talking about
Speaker 1: b D s M practices. Uh. It is the thing
Speaker 1: in that community where some people might be into, uh
Speaker 1: like a humiliation fetish where you are forced to hold
Speaker 1: in an enema as as part of control, or maybe
Speaker 1: a medical fetish. And this happens in the b D
Speaker 1: s M community. And that's another reason you might get
Speaker 1: an enema. Yeah, and not it's like the dy animal.
Speaker 1: It's not prepared ring for a sex act. It is
Speaker 1: in itself the sex act, right, that's right, part of
Speaker 1: the sex act. So I was reading about that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I saw it was like humiliation, like you had
Speaker 1: to ask permission to to go finally, Um, that that
Speaker 1: was part of it. But I also saw, um, it
Speaker 1: can also be treated as like a loving gift or
Speaker 1: something like that. It just all depends on how it's approached. Basically,
Speaker 1: gotcha and that parents was the aforementioned section and now
Speaker 1: it's over. Did we talk about anything kids can't know about? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on how open minded you are and hold
Speaker 1: your kids are. I think I was teasing, I know.
Speaker 1: Uh so I talked a little bit about it being
Speaker 1: a fad, but then I walked it back. But it
Speaker 1: is a fad and it has been for a while now.
Speaker 1: Um the notion like we've kind of harped on that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not super expensive. It's you can usually
Speaker 1: get like an enemy kit for not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of money, Like, it doesn't take a lot of high
Speaker 1: priced equipment, and it's something that you can do in
Speaker 1: the private to your own home. And I think along
Speaker 1: with like uh, fasting and juice cleanses, it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of in that same category as as this stuff where
Speaker 1: you're where you at least you're intending to clean toxins
Speaker 1: out of your body. And plus also it has a
Speaker 1: real goop vibe too, you know. And Gwyneth Paltrow's coup
Speaker 1: not just well well said yes yeah, so um again
Speaker 1: yes if you're if you're doing this and you're you're
Speaker 1: fine medically, if you don't have digestive issues, um, then
Speaker 1: there's no reason for you to do this. It's superfluous
Speaker 1: and it can also be potentially dangerous. That's the point.
Speaker 1: I don't think like the doctors who are saying like,
Speaker 1: don't do this if you don't need any help with
Speaker 1: your digestive tract are just trying to like, you know,
Speaker 1: pooh pooh, anyone's fun. But um, what they're saying is
Speaker 1: is like there's there's actual risks with this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that you could injure yourself and in some really
Speaker 1: horrific ways. I think this is where the fainting for
Speaker 1: you really kind of stepped up. Yeah. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: well I guess we'll just start with uh perforations. Sure. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you are inserting something uh you know, into your anus,
Speaker 1: up into your rectum. There is a chance that you
Speaker 1: could perforate something. Uh. You could have one of those
Speaker 1: nozzles go through the wall of the rectum. You can
Speaker 1: make a even the tiniest hole in the wall of
Speaker 1: your colon because of the pressure of that fluid um.
Speaker 1: None of this is a good thing at all. It
Speaker 1: could lead to scepsis. Uh. It is all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you have um things that aren't sterile where they
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, and it's just not a good idea, right. Um.
Speaker 1: You can you can um infect your parietal peritonium, which
Speaker 1: holds your abdomen or your abdominal organs in place and
Speaker 1: doesn't want any poop water in there at all. It
Speaker 1: would be a bad jam. You can also even just
Speaker 1: do more minor damage to where you just kind of
Speaker 1: scrape it or dn't or something like that, and it's
Speaker 1: not going to feel very good. And the reason why
Speaker 1: you're at risk of perforating or denting or scraping your
Speaker 1: rectum is because it's not like a straight shot from
Speaker 1: your anus up to your rectum up to your um
Speaker 1: your large intestine. It's your anus goes one way and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden it starts to double back
Speaker 1: and that's your rectum. So you really have to have
Speaker 1: some finesse here, and if you go too far, you
Speaker 1: can really be in some big trouble. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: we talked about drawing water out. That could obviously lead
Speaker 1: to some pretty severe dehydration if you lose a significant
Speaker 1: amount of water. Um sodium phosphate. Uh, if you use
Speaker 1: an enemy that contains sodium phosphate, that can really lead
Speaker 1: to severe dehydration. And we're talking like you know where
Speaker 1: your kidneys and your heart could be damaged. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking electro lights here, so the electrical
Speaker 1: conductivity of your heart depends on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So yes, if you have a heart condition, you should
Speaker 1: probably not be doing animals, especially sailine animals for sure.
Speaker 1: But also even if it's not sailing, if you introduce
Speaker 1: too much water into your body, you can suffer from
Speaker 1: water toxicity, which is basically like the opposite of that
Speaker 1: kind of imbalance of too much salt, you have too
Speaker 1: little salt, and that can cause problems too. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: aside from heart conditions and high blood pressure, which they
Speaker 1: don't recommend you get self administer animals in those cases,
Speaker 1: if you have any kind of complications with your coals,
Speaker 1: your colon, uh, any kind of underlying condition there. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be giving yourself anenema just to clean
Speaker 1: yourself out. Okay, got it? You got anything else? I
Speaker 1: got nothing else. I feel like this is pretty short one.
Speaker 1: We spent through this one somehow. Well, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: we have a few minutes I could share my experience
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, because you didn't really touch on any
Speaker 1: of it. So if you go and get a colonic
Speaker 1: um or colon, hydrotherapy is what it's often called. At
Speaker 1: like a medspa, they often have them. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: like administer an enema to you. They actually have a
Speaker 1: machine at that. All I owe is you to self
Speaker 1: administer a continuous enema that they basically leave on for
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes. And it's a really kind of weird
Speaker 1: ingenious contraption. But essentially it's like a the the kind
Speaker 1: of table that you would um give birth on, so
Speaker 1: your legs are kind of spread apart, but then in
Speaker 1: the middle of the table is a hole with a
Speaker 1: tube coming up from it, and that tube is what
Speaker 1: you have to like lower yourself onto. That's where you
Speaker 1: put the umbrella this un umbrella that's right, and then
Speaker 1: around the tube is where everything comes back out. Right,
Speaker 1: So UM in front of you is like a little
Speaker 1: shower nozzle and it's invariably UM the cheap home depot
Speaker 1: ten dollar like fake cut crystal plastic shower nozzle. You
Speaker 1: know I'm talking about UM. So you turn it on
Speaker 1: and and you're in control, so you control how much
Speaker 1: is going in at any point in time because you
Speaker 1: can feel it immediately start to fill up in your
Speaker 1: in your colon and your guts and UM. You'll probably
Speaker 1: try to hold it as long as you can, and
Speaker 1: you might think that that's gonna be a minute or
Speaker 1: ten minutes if you're really optimistic, but it ends up
Speaker 1: being like eight to ten seconds the most you could
Speaker 1: possibly hold it. For me, at least it was. And
Speaker 1: then when it comes back out, it goes through that
Speaker 1: tube or through that hole around the tube, through a
Speaker 1: plastic tube that goes to the that takes it out
Speaker 1: as waste of drains it away. And like I said,
Speaker 1: this contraption is really ingenious. They set a mirror up
Speaker 1: so you can see it coming through the tube, so
Speaker 1: you can see what's coming out of you and uh,
Speaker 1: it's really something. They leave you in there for about
Speaker 1: half an hour, and like I said, UM, you can
Speaker 1: either walk away feeling like wow, I really feel like
Speaker 1: a million bucks, which I still to this day don't understand.
Speaker 1: But it was not placebo effect because I'd had it
Speaker 1: before and that hadn't happened. This wasn't like the first
Speaker 1: time like it was, I don't understand what the mechanism
Speaker 1: could have been. Um. And then other times you can
Speaker 1: feel like really just just violated, is the only way
Speaker 1: to put it. Like you violated yourself somehow. So it's
Speaker 1: either walking on sunshine or a Smith's song pretty much. Wow.
Speaker 1: So is there a human in there with you? That's
Speaker 1: what I didn't gather. The human um explains it to
Speaker 1: you and then leaves and then runs and you see
Speaker 1: a little dust cloud. Basically. Yeah. The only time that
Speaker 1: the human will come back in while you're doing this
Speaker 1: is when you haven't inserted the tube far enough into
Speaker 1: your anus, because water starts spraying out and they'll they'll
Speaker 1: you'll basically be like, I think something's wrong, and they'll
Speaker 1: come in and really like you you don't have this
Speaker 1: far enough up and you're like, no, I really do,
Speaker 1: I really do, And they're like, you don't. You have
Speaker 1: to put it further up, and you have to put
Speaker 1: it further up, and then once you get it up
Speaker 1: there correctly, the water stop spraying out and you can
Speaker 1: get down to business. One thing I didn't look up
Speaker 1: was the coffee andema. Do you know what the deal
Speaker 1: is with that? Is that just a variation of the liquid?
Speaker 1: I yeah, as far as I know, I don't understand
Speaker 1: what it's used for, but I know that, like, because
Speaker 1: there's so many blood vessels there, you would be pretty
Speaker 1: hyped up on caffeine if you use like fully caffeinated coffee.
Speaker 1: Well that's probably the purpose, right, Well, yes, And then
Speaker 1: we should also say tangential that people have used alcohol
Speaker 1: in animals before, and that is potentially deadly, actually probably deadly,
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of alcohol you put in there
Speaker 1: and how often you do it. Um, because you're just
Speaker 1: absorbing alcohol way faster than you would if you would
Speaker 1: drink it, so your blood alcohol M volume can get
Speaker 1: really high, really fast, and you can give yourself alcohol poisoning.
Speaker 1: So under no circumstances do that. Oh my lord, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with people? I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: nothing else. I'm just I'm in a feuge state. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I don't have anything else either. Um, well
Speaker 1: that's it for animals. Everybody chucks in a feuge state,
Speaker 1: which means, of course it's time for listener mail. Uh.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of replies, and this is, um,
Speaker 1: in lieu of you your assertion that there would be
Speaker 1: no cocaine in small town Michigan in the nineteen and nine.
Speaker 1: One person really schooled me. Yeah, I don't think this
Speaker 1: was it. Uh, this is from a West Virginian. No,
Speaker 1: this is the guy. Really. Yeah, not in a hostile manner.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that it took me to school. I got you. Um,
Speaker 1: I thought you meant in a you know, get in
Speaker 1: there and take your enema like a big boy way. Right.
Speaker 1: I have to ask permission. Greetings from a long time
Speaker 1: listener in West Virginia. I'm writing in regards to death
Speaker 1: from astral Projection, where the autopsy report determined that Robert's
Speaker 1: death was due to a cocaine overdose. Josh expressed skepticism
Speaker 1: about cocaine being in Ann Arbor and seventy five because
Speaker 1: of the high roller image. I can't speak to that directly,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean, But I can tell
Speaker 1: you that cocaine was absolutely in Morgantown. Is that Morganton
Speaker 1: or Morgantowntown. It just sends like it'd be one of
Speaker 1: these places. It says, no, it's Morgan. Well, I said
Speaker 1: it was Morgantown, so that means, of course it's uh.
Speaker 1: And we sure have never been the epicenter of financial
Speaker 1: markets or a hang out of the rich and famous.
Speaker 1: But I was a college sophomore then, and it was
Speaker 1: in more than one room where it happened. A lot
Speaker 1: of the illegal drugs that make it to Morganton Town
Speaker 1: come from Detroit, and to this day, drug arrets here
Speaker 1: often involved people from there. If cocaine made it to
Speaker 1: the m town home of West Virginia University in nine,
Speaker 1: it's pretty much a certainty that also made it to
Speaker 1: ann Arbor. I love the podcast, of course, this is
Speaker 1: anecdotal's still I love the podcast. I'm happy to have
Speaker 1: a chance to write in and shed a little more
Speaker 1: light on an interesting mystery. Should you read this on
Speaker 1: the podcast, please don't use my name. If my ninety
Speaker 1: three year old mom got wind of this, she'd still
Speaker 1: ground me. So that is from Jeffrey Charles. That's anonymous.
Speaker 1: That's great, Thanks Anonymous, that was a fantastic email. I
Speaker 1: really feel like, yes, it is anecdotal, but they make
Speaker 1: just about as good a point as you possibly could,
Speaker 1: so I rescind it. I still don't understand why this
Speaker 1: this yogi would have suddenly gotten into cocaine. Agree with
Speaker 1: that when everybody in his life says no, including friends,
Speaker 1: not just his mom and his friends too. But but
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy makes a pretty good point. It's possible.
Speaker 1: It's possible. If you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us and let us know what's possible, we're always looking
Speaker 1: for that kind of thing. You can send it in
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.