Constipation: causes and natural treatment

Published: 10/20/2010 - Updated: 06/21/2016

If you evacuate bowel stool less than twice daily, if you spend more than two days without doing it, or if your stools are hard and you have difficulty while passing them, then you suffer from some form of constipation. In a healthy person, the evacuation of the faeces is given at least once a day, although it is healthiest to evacuate twice, once in the morning and afternoon. Otherwise, you need to pay attention to your body as you could be prone to constipation or in your gut may be accumulating waste material which could be harmful to your health if not treated quickly.

What happens when you're constipated?

Do you know everything that happens in the body when it doesn’t evacuate normally? All the toxins, bad fats, gases, dead cells and acid substances cannot be eliminated, the blood begins to absorb them, which begins to move contaminated with these wastes. If these wastes are for more than two days in the body, there may be fermentation. The fermentation creates alcohol, which affects the liver and other major organs, and putrefaction begins to generate much internal heat, especially when the residues are acidic. All this is known as toxemia, which is an internal heating (or internal fever) in the body because waste substances that have accumulated and cannot be eliminated.

Symptoms of constipation or bowel malfunctioning:

  • Spending more than a day without a bowel movement and is considered constipation.
  • Hard stool and straining to expel
  • Difficult to expel the stool
  • Stomach pain
  • Swollen belly
  • General malaise
  • Skin rashes of all kinds
  • When the intestines are not working properly, then the mucus from the lungs is increased (because the mucus is a way to expel toxins). Also, the eyes, the ears and the skin begin to respond to the emergency

Causes:

  • A diet deficient in fiber, high in refined flours and animal fats and low in vegetables and fruits or foods with fiber
  • Not drinking enough water
  • Lack of exercise, which causes intestinal immobility
  • Stress
  • Obesity
  • Excessive use of drugs and laxatives, which make bowel loose and will require increasingly strong laxatives because it is dependent on them
  • In infants, infant formula can cause constipation
  • Other reasons may be some bowel diseases, pregnancy, deficiency of activity of the thyroid or cystic fibrosis, mental health problems, neurological disorders or medication. Another less common cause is cancer of the colon.

Natural treatments and home remedies

Both children and adults constipated need to start a diet that will help the bowel to evacuate. You must include in the diet juice and fresh vegetable salads twice a day, and eat fruit juices alone, without combining with other foods. All vegetables and fruits should be fresh and avoid cooking. Please include in your diet, in addition, whole grains and avoid all processed and sugar, and milk and meat from animals while correcting constipation.

It is essential to drink at least 2 liters of water a day. In the morning, fasting, you should drink the juice of one lemon and a glass of hot water, as hot water stimulates the bowels and just sweep the toxins that the body picked up during the night. Lemon, on the other hand, debug intestines and blood depth, reducing the risks of toxemia or possible infections arising from constipation.

Food for constipation: flax, papaya, fresh apples, bananas, prune juice, strawberries, blueberries and berries, fresh orange juice, juice of aloe (aloe or cactus).

Olive oil with lemon fasting: is excellent remedy to help evacuate. Prepare two tablespoons of olive oil first cold pressing and add the juice of two lemons. Drink and then drink a glass of warm water. Take this medicine daily until you regularize your intestines.

Cleansing Diet: if you have constipation or feeling that you are not evacuating well, you have to put yourself to a day diet, eating only grapes, oranges, apples, plums or papaya (choose one of them). Eat only the fruit and drink 2 liters of water on that day. You will see how your body is purified. If you are obese, do this diet three consecutive days.

For infants with constipation:

  • 3 months to 6 months: try offering 2 to 4 ounces of fresh fruit juice. The most recommended are apples, plums or pears.
  • Give warm water during the day, 3 tablespoons every half hour.
  • Check if the formula you give is not causing an inefficient digestion.
  • Help your baby exercise stretching and bending his/her legs while lying down face up. This will activate the bowels.
  • Avoid at all costs the use of laxatives, suppositories or pharmacy products, which artificially irritate the bowel that can eventually cause the bowel to become lazy and wait for an external stimulus always.

About the author
  • K. Laura Garcés G

    Writer, therapist and lecturer. She is a lover of natural medicine and the power of mind and emotions in body and life. In addition, he has studied nutrition and develops appropriate diets to support this healing process.She has written more than 1500 articles in magazines in Spain and Mexico, winner of two literature contests. Linkedin.