Most of the time, constipation means infrequent stools. Constipation, however, also means hard stools, bloated stomach, difficulty passing stools, or a sense of incomplete emptying after a bowel movement. This difficulty can cause abdominal pain also. Constipation can be very uncomfortable but this symptom usually does not signal acute illness. Here you will find the top 5 natural laxatives, so get rid of your constipation without chemicals.

Why should you stop using chemical laxatives?

Pharmaceutical companies release every year huge quantities of medicines and chemical laxatives (pills, capsules). If these are used over and over, they can cause irreversible physical damage such as “lazy” bowel, fatigue, etc. Natural laxatives come from nature and help your body relieve constipation by itself. Don’t forget, taking chemicals is never good for the liver and kidneys. Consumers of these chemicals and drugs are often unaware of the damage caused to their body as a result of using constant medication, and continue looking for salvation every time with different chemical thus continue to hurt themselves..

What are the top 5 natural laxatives?

1. Aloe Vera

2. Flax seed

3. Cabbage

4. Beets

5. Horseradish

How do I use these laxatives? This is very simple.

1. Aloe Vera whole leaves are strong natural laxatives. Take one fresh leaf, grind it and drink. You should swallow no more than a quarter cup a day. This laxative is not recommended for pregnant women.

2. Flax seed are also natural laxatives that help stool move efficiently through your bowels. In addition, flaxseed increases stool volume thereby helping it exit. Put 1 tablespoon of flax seed in a cup of boiling water; wait about 15 minutes until the waters cools. Drink the water with the seeds, do this once a day.

3. Cabbage leaves are natural laxatives as well. It is recommended to eat fresh or stir fried cabbage. There are dozens of delicious cabbage recipes on the internet. Choose one and make a healthy meal while relieving constipation.

4. Beets are natural laxatives that contain an enzyme that could contribute to speeding up your exits. It is recommended to eat them uncooked. You can make delicious fresh beet salad. Don’t be alarmed if your urine and stool turn red…this is a normal phenomenon. Recommended recipes with beets:

5. Horseradish is one of the natural laxatives that regulates and balances your metabolic system. Put 1 tablespoon of horseradish root in a cup of boiling water. Wait 5 minutes before drinking. Drink 3 times a day. You can also season your salad with some grated horseradish for a spicy salad.

I truly hope this was useful for you. For more information on natural laxatives and free tips on natural medication just go to http://www.thenaturalmedication.com and get your first free report now!

To your health!

Technorati Tags: natural laxatives

Irritable Bowel Syndrome – IBS
 by: Sher Matsen

Irritable bowel syndrome also called IBS is one of the most common disorders of the digestive tract. Symptoms of IBS often increase with stress or after eating and include

Abdominal bloating, pain, and gas

Mucus in the stool

Feeling as if a bowel movement hasn’t been completed
Irregular bowel habits with constipation, diarrhea, or both

The cause of IBS is unknown. Symptoms are thought to be related to abnormal muscle contractions in the intestines. However, when tests are done, they find no changes, such as inflammation or tumors, in the physical structure of the intestine.

IBS can persist for many years. An episode may be more then severe than the one before it, but the disorder itself does not worsen over time or lead to any serious diseases such as cancer. Symptoms tend to get better over time.

If you have not yet been diagnosed with IBS, try to rule out other causes of stomach problems such as eating a new food, nervousness, or stomach flu. Try home treatment for 1 to 2 weeks. If there is no improvement of if your symptoms worsen, make an appointment with your doctor.

Your doctor may prescribe medications for you to take in addition to doing home treatment. There are no tests that can diagnose IBS but your doctor may recommend testing to rule out other possible causes of your symptoms. The amount of testing your doctor will do depends on your age, the pattern, and severity of your symptoms, and your response to initial treatment.

Prevention:

There is no way to prevent IBS. However symptoms often worsen or improve because of changes in your diet, your stress level, your medications, the amount of exercise you get, and for other reasons. Identify the things that trigger your symptoms. This can help you avoid or minimize attacks.

Home Treatment:

If constipation is your main symptom

Eat more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Add fibre rich food to your diet, but do this slowly so that you do not develop severe cramps

Add unprocessed wheat bran to your diet. Start with 15g per day then gradually increase to 60g

Try a product that contains a bulk forming agent such as Citrucel, FiberCon, or Metamucil. Start with 15g a day and drink extra water to prevent bloating

Use laxatives only if your doctor recomends them.

Get active. Increase your physical activity.

If diarrhea is your main symptom

Try the dietary suggestions for relieving constipation. Fibre rich foods and wheat bran can help reduce diarrhea

Avoid foods that make diarrhea worse. Try eliminating one food at a time then add it back into your diet and see if symptoms develop. Many people find the following foods or ingredients make it worse:

alcohol

caffeine

nicotine

beans

broccoli

cabbage

apples

spicy foods

foods high in acid such as citrus fruits

fatty foods like bacon, sausage, butter, or oil,

dairy products

sorbital

olestra

starchy foods such as bread, rice or potatoes

MSG

If diarrhea persists a non prescription medication such as lopeamide found in Imodium may help. Check with your doctor if you are using lopeamide more than twice a month.

To reduce stress

keep a log of the events in your life that seem to trigger your symptoms then try to correct the underlying issues

get regular and vigorous exercise

When To Call Your Doctor:

If you have been diagnosed with IBS and your symptoms get worse and begin to disrupt your usual activities or does not respond to home treatments

If you are becoming increasingly fatigued

If you are symptoms frequently wake you up at night

If your pain gets worse with movement or coughing

If you have abdominal pain and fever

If you have abdominal pain that does not get better when you pass a stool

If you are loosing weight and you don’t know why

If your appetite has decreased

If there is blood in your stool

About The Author

Sher Matsen author of Healing Herbs For The Mind Body & Soul offers you alternative choices for treating disease and illness at http://www.herbs-that-heal.com © Copyright Sher Matsen, All Rights Reserved – You may republish this article with an active link to our site.

Technorati Tags: home laxatives

Many people are resorting to laxatives for fast weight loss results. Are laxatives safe and do they really work at keeping the weight off? This article will reveal all there is to know about laxatives and weight loss.

There is a good reason why laxatives help with weight loss and that is the fact that they help you digest your food much faster. Unfortunately taking a laxative (whether regularly or not) can be an extremely painful experience.

How Laxatives Work

Laxatives are manufactured to more or less act as a sponge and, in effect, soak up the body’s fluids and then releasing them through your stool.

The Harmful Effects Of Laxatives For Weight Loss

What happens often is that people begin to rely on taking laxatives to create a normal stool motion. The truth is that daily consumption of a laxative is extremely harmful and should be avoided at all costs.

If constipation is a reason for using laxatives then it is best to drink large amounts of water on a daily basis and to ensure that your diet is full of fibre-rich foods. It’s also a good idea to be active throughout the day. Fiber cereals are a great way to relieve constipation as is prune joice.

Medications Aren’t As Effective When Mixed With Laxatives

Another side effect of laxatives is that if you are taking other medications of some kind they will also become less effective.

Laxatives And Weight Loss

If you are using or thinking of using laxatives for weight loss then I suggest you look elsewhere. You won’t ever lose fat with laxatives but you will lose waste products and water.

Laxative overuse and abuse is now a common method used for weight loss. Not only will you not lose weight but you will also be harming your body in your efforts to produce fast weight loss.

There is never a good reason to take laxatives for weight loss. If you aren’t eating enough your laxative use will become even more painful as you won’t have eaten enough calaries for waste products to move through your intestines at any rate.

Unfortunately another side effect of laxative use is that as your body is releasing a lot of water your body will then think that it needs to retain more water. As a result, your laxative use has caused you to carry more water than before.

While you may believe that laxatives are a fast way to weight loss, not only will you not lose weight when using laxatives but laxatives will have the opposite effect and make you carry more water and feel even more bloated.

You don’t need laxatives for fast weight loss. Check out the website below to learn how you can lose weight fast without laxatives.

Copyright 2007. If you’re after fast weight loss results without having to use Laxatives then try Hoodia. The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert have been using Hoodia for thousands of years to suppress their appetite and now a Hoodia craze is taking the world by storm with reports of 12 pounds of weight loss in as little as 3 days. For full details of the best Hoodia weight loss products go to http://www.hoodia-weight-loss-review.com

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Technorati Tags: laxatives for weight loss

Hey Readers! I’ve been comin across some crazy stuff the past few days from a few different blogs around the web which I just had to share with you. Check em out below…

Can Taking Laxatives Make You Lose Weight? | Less obesity

In the short term, laxatives will help, but it is only the amount of feces stored in your body. Laxatives are dangerous to use frequently as they will “take over” your system and cause cycles of constipation and diarrhea, …

Constipation Relief – Natural Cure Through Triphala | Gleez

Constipation treatment requires change in dietary habits, laxatives, fiber therapy, enemas, and rarely surgery. Person suffering from constipation must increase the intake of water and other fluids, and dietary fiber. …

Lose Fat Advice » Blog Archive » Take Cascara Sagrada For Chronic …

It is one of the best herbs to use for chronic constipation, its effects can be felt within 6 to 8 hours, producing soft stools with little discomfort. The bark is used by cultures around the world in many over-the-counter laxatives as …

Hope you enjoy the read as much as I did and please if you have something to say, use the comments form below to let everyone know your thoughts.

Have a great day!

Technorati Tags: constipation laxative

Whether you are trying to get pregnant, or think you may already be pregnant, it can be extremely frustrating waiting to find out one way or the other! Lots of women cannot bear the wait between ovulation and menstruation and want to find out if they are pregnant sooner rather than later.

Fortunately many over-the-counter pregnancy tests can be taken on or after the day that your period was due – and some newer generation tests can even be taken a few days before menstruation. But, if you are really impatient to get results, you may be surprised to know that your body can be an excellent indicator if you monitor yourself carefully!

Many women experience some signs of pregnancy in the week before their period is due. Although these symptoms can mimic pre-menstrual symptoms, sometimes they are a little more severe. So you may feel you have a particularly bad dose of PMT and later realise that you were in fact pregnant!

Some women experience pregnancy symptoms within just a few days of conception; others experience nothing at all until a few weeks into the pregnancy.

Conception usually occurs within 8-10 days of ovulation and at this point your body starts to react to HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin), the pregnancy hormone. This is the hormone that pregnancy tests detect in a positive test. And it is the rapidly rising levels of HCG which cause the symptoms of pregnancy.

If you do suspect that you may be pregnant and are suffering from some or all of the symptoms outlined below, see your GP as soon as possible. It is important to receive medical care and to get a booking in appointment at hospital so that you can receive appropriate ante-natal care.

So what are the early signs of pregnancy?

·Nausea/ Vomiting

Otherwise known as “Morning Sickness”, this can occur very early on in pregnancy, even before you realise that you are pregnant. Many women think they may have a touch of food poisoning or are coming down with a cold! Although called morning sickness, it can occur at any time and can come in bouts or last all day and night! Eating little and often can help relieve it and you might find that dry crackers are very effective. The nausea often gets worse when you are hungry so it can be useful to keep some snack food with you at all times. The gag reflex is often easily triggered and simple acts like brushing your teeth can leave you hanging over the toilet bowl!

·Enhanced Sense of Smell and Taste

Lots of women become more sensitive to everyday smells and common foodstuffs, such as tea, coffee and toast, can trigger nausea. Your sense of taste may change dramatically and you may find you can no longer bear to drink or eat foods that you would normally enjoy! You may also notice a metallic taste in your mouth.

·Frequent Urination

This can happen as early as 1 week into the pregnancy. You may find you are running to the toilet a lot more often than normal and maybe even during the night. As the uterus rapidly enlarges after implantation, it presses on your bladder making you feel like you need to urinate. Often you will rush to the toilet only to pass a tiny trickle of urine!

Urine may also darken and have a stronger smell than normal so you should try to drink plenty of water. If you are concerned or experiencing pain speak to your GP in case you have a urinary tract infection.

·Breast Tenderness

It is very common for women to report that their breasts enlarge and become extremely tender very early on in pregnancy. Nipples also become very sensitive and enlarged and will darken in colour. Breast veins also become more noticeable – all in preparation for breastfeeding! Little bumps, Montgomery’s tubercles, also appear on the areola (the area surrounding the nipple) that will help to lubricate the breast during breastfeeding.

·Tiredness

You may feel absolutely exhausted very early on in pregnancy and throughout the first trimester. This is a result of rapidly rising HCG levels, very high progesterone levels and a higher than normal body temperature. Combine all that with frequent toilet trips and nausea and trying to hold down a job and it is no wonder pregnant women feel exhausted!

·Missed Period/ Cramping/ Backache/ Headaches

For most women this can be the first indication that they are pregnant but for the first few weeks of pregnancy you may experience cramping and have a feeling your period will arrive at any moment. Often the cramping is accompanied by back pain.

Obviously, any cramping and bleeding, even if it is light, should be reported to your doctor. Pregnant women also often experience more headaches than normal and again this can be a result of massive hormonal changes.

·Light Bleeding/ Spotting

About 8-10 days after ovulation some women experience some light bleeding which coincides with the time a period was due. Sometimes this can be mistaken for a light period. This bleeding is often implantation bleeding which is a result of the egg implanting in the uterus.

·Dizziness/ Fainting

Because pregnancy affects the sense of taste and smell lots of pregnant women unintentionally avoid food and skip meals. This causes low blood sugar levels which can lead to dizzy spells and fainting.

If you are standing for a long period of time the increased pressure of the uterus pressing on major arteries in your legs can lead to a fall in blood pressure which can also make you feel dizzy or faint.

·Constipation

In order to absorb all the nutrients that your developing baby requires, pregnancy hormones slow down your metabolism and this can lead to constipation. Try eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and drinking lots of water to help avoid constipation.

·Irritability

With lots of pregnancy hormones raging through your body, as well as coping with sickness and tiredness, is it any wonder pregnant women get easily irritated during early pregnancy? If you find yourself getting stressed and losing your temper try to take some gentle exercise, more rest and eat a healthy, balanced diet – if you can face it!

·Heartburn/ Indigestion

Although heartburn and indigestion are usually associated with the later stages of pregnancy, they can also occur early on for some women. HCG slows down digestion meaning that your stomach remains full for longer. Stomach acid can then make its way into your oesophagus and even to the back of your throat causing discomfort and even nausea. It can often be relieved with medication, so ask your doctor for some antacids suitable during pregnancy. Avoid eating heavy or spicy meals late in the evening as these can aggravate the problem!

·Changes in Complexion

You might notice your skin breaks out in spots as a result of all the pregnancy hormones coursing through your body but this often settles down by the second trimester! Any moles or liver spots may also darken due to increased skin pigmentation.

·Increased Cervical Mucous

Many pregnant women notice that they pass more cervical mucous than normal and that it is thick and white. This is normal in pregnancy. But if you notice an unusual smell or itching alongside it, consult your GP as Thrush is also a common pregnancy complaint!

·Weight Loss

Perhaps surprisingly you may lose weight during the first trimester of pregnancy. However, considering that most women try to eat more healthily, cut out alcohol and eat less due to a decreased appetite, it is completely normal! Couple that with a bigger bosom than usual and you may be complimented on how wonderful you are looking – often by unsuspecting individuals who are unaware of your pregnancy. Make the most of it while you can!

Enjoy your precious nine months!

About The Author

Sinead Hoben runs her own website, http://www.breastfeedingmums.com offering breastfeeding support and advice to pregnant and breastfeeding mums. Or visit BreastFeedingMums Blog, http://breastfeedingmums.typepad.com to discover the busy life and times of a breastfeeding mum!

Technorati Tags: indigestion constipation

Hey Readers! I’ve been comin across some crazy stuff the past few days from a few different blogs around the web which I just had to share with you. Check em out below…

Natural Colon Cleansing – Triphala Works Superb | Gleez

Fortunately, there are many safe, natural, herbal based colon cleansers available now which make the process of cleaning your colon a simple and inexpensive one. What are Colon Cleansers? Colon cleansers are simply food, laxatives or …

Colon Cleanse Natural – Simple Recipes That Will Help Detoxify …

One of the best natural Colon cleanse supplements is Acai berry underhung formula. Apart from cleansing your colon, this Acai berry burden loss formula works wonders for your overall health which justifies its no 1 a-one food rating. … Recurring impairment is common even after the utilisation of OTC laxatives. Provides relief for impairment with negligible abdominal cramping, if any, because of its scientific-based formulation. Numerous herbs and natural components help …

Constipation Relief – Natural Cure Through Triphala | Gleez

Increase your intake of potassium through eating foods like prunes, tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, kale, sesame seeds, wheat germ, brewers yeast, pineapple and cauliflower that are high in potassium. Potassium works wonders on the walls … Aloe is an effective natural remedy for constipation. Aloe, buckthorn, frangula and senna have natural laxative chemicals and can be very powerful constipation cures. • Triphala is also commonly used in the treatment of constipation. …

Hope you enjoy the read as much as I did and please if you have something to say, use the comments form below to let everyone know your thoughts.

Have a great day!

Technorati Tags: natural food laxatives

Almost $900 million is spent every year to buy laxatives in the United States of America. That is a lot of laxatives purchased! Laxatives are pretty much the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they are thinking about ways to relieve constipation.

Laxatives are sold over-the-counter in every drugstore and pharmacy. Laxatives are so common and so often used that many people don’t realize that laxative use can have serious risks.

There are several main kinds of laxatives using different methods to get the same result — remove blockages in the intestine and colon. Each type of laxative contains different risks for the user. The three main kinds of laxatives are osmotic, bulk forming, and stimulant types of laxatives.

In this article, we are going to review the potential dangers of each type of laxative and show you a much more healthy alternative to relieving constipation.

Osmotic laxatives — this type of laxative takes your body’s fluids and draws them into the intestines through osmosis. By adding more fluid to your intestine it causes more bulk in your stool and basically turns your stool into diarrhea so that it is easier to pass out of your body. The problem with osmotic laxatives is that it can really cause severe dehydration and a lot of cramping and bloating. This is also a slow acting laxative and it can sometimes take several days to work.

Bulk forming laxatives — these types of laxatives use highly absorbent fiber usually to increase the contents of the school in your colon, and this causes the bowels to force out the increased matter and expel it. You’ve probably heard that fiber is good for your colon and it often is. However using bulk forming laxatives can actually hurt you because they have the potential to clog your bowels and stop you up even worse. If you choose to use bulk forming laxatives you need to drink a lot of water, otherwise the bulk forming laxative can be like concrete in your colon and make your constipation worse. Psyllium is a common ingredient in bulk forming laxatives however there have been reports of serious allergic reactions following the ingestion of psyllium, so watch out.

Stimulant laxatives — these are some of the worst types of unhealthy laxatives. The ingredients often contain toxic and harsh chemicals that cause your intestinal walls to spasm and contract and this will give you severe cramping. These are actually some of the most popular laxatives as they work very quickly. You may have heard of some of these stimulant laxatives: senna, casgara sagrada, Dulcolax, and Ex-Lax.

It is important to be aware of the potential threats to your health when using laxative products.

Constipation is one of the first signs of toxic build up in your colon and it is a warning sign not to be taken lightly. Masking the predicament by downing laxatives does not deal with the root of the problem.

Laxatives don’t really attack the source of your constipation however, a healthy natural colon cleanse will.

If you want true lasting relief from constipation you will want to do a gentle colon cleanse (not a laxative) for better and more healthy results.

My favorite overnight gentle colon cleanse is an oxygen based colon cleanse that is safe and natural.

Visit our colon cleansing resource site at http://www.OxyPowderReviews.com.

Technorati Tags: buy laxatives