From: "Jan" <jdrew63929@aol.com>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 7:44 AM
Subject: Colon Cleanse Product

That was interesting.

In that study there were four groups of children. The second two groups,
"c" and "d", involved congential malformations.    Group "a" is the one
where the children were retentive.   The med response to that actually
sounds quite "wholistic", in that it included a combination of dietary
changes,  a cognitive and behavioural approach (so the children learn to
overcome their fear of going to the toilet), as well as laxatives to
actually get things moving again.  Now if the laxes were something as
natural as cascara,  and assuming the dietary change recommendations were
optimal for the problem, then it would be difficult to fault the overall
program, going by the information in that abstract.

However in many cases, I agree that more natural approaches do seem to be
overlooked. Part of the problem may be that the possibility of early stage
intervention is often disregarded by both the patient and doctor, so that
by the time action is taken, surgery, for example, may be the only viable
option.

---

Here is a study showing that colonic irrigation may be a helpful
alternative treatment in diverticular disease:

J Chin Med Assoc. 2003 May;66(5):282-7.
A potential alternative treatment of uncomplicated painful diverticular
disease by trans-colonoscopic irrigation technique: a preliminary report.

Chen WS, Lin JK.
Division of Colorectal Surgery, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, National
Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.

BACKGROUND:
Colonic diverticular disease is a common disorder in elder
patients. Medical treatment was usually recommended as the first line
management for this disease. However, the recurrence rate of such disorder
is still high. In patients with severe complications such as abscess or
fulminant inflammation, non-invasive diagnostic examination, abdominal CT
scan for example, is recommended. Its most common symptom is repeated
abdominal pain with disturbance of bowel habit. Many patients are found to
be with diverticular disease only after colonoscopic examination. The aim
of this study is to introduce a new irrigation-draining method and to
evaluate its efficacy in treatment of uncomplicated painful colonic
diverticular disease.

METHODS:
To reduce the risk of recurrence of acute diverticulitis
and other severe complications, we introduce a transcolonoscopic irrigation
technique for patients of uncomplicated diverticular disease by flushing
out the obstructed fecalith from the diverticular sac in order to improve
the drainage from the obstructed diverticular sac.

RESULTS:
Thirty-two patients
of uncomplicated painful diverticular disease with obstructed fecalith
impacted were treated by this technique. Clinical symptom improved in all
of them and no complications developed during the mean follow-up period of
46 months.

CONCLUSION:
The results of this preliminary study suggest that this
technique accomplished in the colonoscopic examination without additional
therapeutic procedures. It provides another potential alternative to the
conventional medical treatment for patients with uncomplicated diverticular
disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=A
bstract&list_uids=12908570