UK Edition
Can a 'spiritual colonic' cure my IBS?
Stephanie Theobald tries out the A-listers favourite remedy to banish the bloat
I’m lying on a medical treatment table in a pristine white room in Knightsbridge. So far, so conventional, although the small picture of the Indian goddess behind the machine with plastic tubes coming out of it is a clue that science might not entirely rule the roost here.
But frankly, I’m a little over science. I’ve had enough of going to doctors for female-related maladies where GPs narrow their eyes and tell me it’s all stress-related and would I like some antibiotics? I’m pretty sure I’ve had IBS for three or four years now on a sliding scale of diarrhoea to constipation. For the past few months, everything I eat - be it brown rice or a glass of water, seems to fill me with huge amounts of gas. Is this a sign of the imminent menopause or Diverticulitis (an inflammation of the pouches of the digestive tract) or am I just neurotic?
My friend thinks it’s hilarious that I haven’t yet tried a colonic – an ancient treatment that flushes out the colon via water through a tube in your rectum and then apparently makes you feel like your body got re-booted. I tell her I thought only lunching ladies who need to fit into tight evening dresses had them, but now that “gut health” has become the health industry’s new buzz word, the practice is gaining ground. The queen’s GP, Tim Evans is known to refer patients for colonics (one of his former therapists, Karamia Vernon, now works at Khera-Griggs Cleanse where I am today) and a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology showed that colonics are “Effective, safe, and well-tolerated” for chronic constipation.
This is good news since a 2019 report from the Bowel Interest Group, showed that treatment of constipation cost the NHS £162 million in 2017–18. Of that, £71m was caused by avoidable emergency hospital admissions (60 per cent of those admitted were women) and £91m was spent on prescription laxatives.
Of course, the pooh-poohing hasn’t gone away. Julian Marchesi, Professor of Clinical Microbiome Research at the Centre for Digestive and Gut Health at Imperial College London, tells me that, in his opinion, “Colonic irrigation is up there with homoeopathy, drinking your own urine, astrology and economic forecasting.”
Just as well I didn’t tell him that I’m not just having a colonic but a “spiritual colonic.” It’s the latest spa cleansing experience that incorporates emotional, transcendent as well as a physical release.
It seems logical to go to the gut if you’re looking for a fundamental experience. The digestive system is one of the first things to form in a fetus and consider all those idioms about “gut instinct” and “gut feeling.” The trend started in LA (the Iyasu clinic in Los Angeles offers “metaphysical colon hydrotherapy and detoxification”) and is now offered at the new Keera-Griggs Cleanse Clinic (tag line: “mind, body, spirit cleanses”) located in the basement of the fancy new 15,000 foot Urban Retreat spa in Knightsbridge, the former residence of Maureen, the 4th Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. I’m lying on the table trying not to think about the 60 litres of water that are about to go up my bum.
Before we started, Amanda, a nutritionist and legend in the London colonic world for 15 years with clients including Simon Cowell and Elle McPherson, has checked out my eyes and tongue and ruled out diverticulitis. She tells me I’d be in great pain if I had that. For people with Crohn’s disease too, a colonic is not a good idea. She says my journey “is going to be all about letting go,” and she has a point. For the past year, I’ve been mourning the end of a 13 year relationship and packing my London life and moving to LA to start a new one at the grand old age of 53. She tells me that I do have IBS. She massages some points on my feet which makes my bowel release immediately- it’s weird, and a little uncomfortable in my belly.
Amanda comes across as more funny and warm than “spiritual.” “Knightsbridge is full of s**t,” she quips before telling me she’s “tuning into” me. She adds an essence of wild yams, ginger frankincense and chamomile to the water entering my gut, “for gas control,” before choosing a “Frequency Oil” made by the in-house shaman.
Professor Marchesi would probably take a rain check on this, but smelling the Root Chakra Oil that Amanda rubs on my hands feels good and it distracts me from watching the brown stuff chugging down the tube.
“The root chakra is the one in your body closest to the earth. It’s related to security and survival,” Amanda tells me.
She adds that I have a tight lower back which means “a lot of fear is going on.” She puts some hot stones behind my back.
She tells me to start doing “some of your breathing” because my guts are feeling pretty uncomfortable by now. I start a breathing technique I learned a few years ago. It’s called Transformational Breathing - a kind of turbo breath which makes you feel as if someone just whizzed ecstasy into your breakfast smoothie.
I start breathing and suddenly I’m away. I’m no longer in the treatment room. I feel as if I’m sort of flying and the ability to worry leaves me. I’m just a breath machine and a body that needs to expel waste.
Simultaneously, I start to cry – sob, actually. Sobbing and shitting and something that feels like levitating. It’s very intense. Amanda tells me I just had a “multi-layered journey of surrender.”
KG Cleanse would have been laughed out of town only five years ago, but the idea of bringing physical and spiritual health together isn’t so quite so weird any more. Put it down to the Gwyneth Paltrow ‘Goop’ effect, the rehabilitation of meditation as a respectable pursuit or the new scientific field of “neurotheology” which integrates spiritual and scientific thought and is championed by the likes of neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, author of “How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain.’
Meanwhile, Magic mushrooms (Psilocybin) are being researched by London’s Imperial College as a cure for depression, a disease which affects more than 300 million people worldwide. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Dr Julie Holland, the American psychopharmacologist, medical marijuana advocate and author of Moody Bitches, tells me. “We need medicines that heal not just our bodies, but ones that can make us appreciate universal concepts like love and oneness.”
Afterwards, I sit in the chill out space feeling dazed - and something like relief. My skin looks great, my sense of smell is sharper, my eyes are brighter and the bloat is entirely gone. Meena Khera, former celebrity PR and founder of KG Cleanse, is not surprised. Ten years ago, she started getting into spiritual pursuits to balance out the parties. “I’ve learned from personal experience and from friends that cleansing the mind and supporting spiritual wellness is key to all-over health.”
The main benefit of my colonic is that it’s kick-started a new awareness of my gut or the “golden stove” as Tao and Buddhist teachers think of the “Dantian” area, below the belly button.
Even two weeks later, I feel I don’t want to mess up the clean feeling by eating rubbish, so I’m more aware of eating healthily. I cut out gas-makers such as gum and Diet Coke and I start doing some Transformational Breathing every morning.
Laxatives never worked this well. As Amanda added wryly at the end of my session, “Basically baby, you’ve let go of your s**t in all senses.”