What a colon cleanse actually is

Four words for the same treatment

Colon cleanse, colonic cleanse, colonic, colonic hydrotherapy, colonic irrigation. They describe one thing: warm, filtered water used to clear the large bowel, with a practitioner in the room controlling it throughout.

The term used here is colonic irrigation, because it says what happens rather than what it is supposed to achieve. Everything else on this page uses whichever word reads most naturally, and none of them means anything different.

What a session involves

You are in a private room with its own ensuite for the whole appointment. A health history and screening happen first, every time, not only on a first visit. The treatment itself runs 30 to 40 minutes inside the hour you book, and the equipment is a closed system, so nothing is open to the room.

The full walkthrough, from the email before your appointment to what the first ten minutes are like, is inwhat happens during a colonic. If you have already booked,how to prepare is the more useful read, and hydration is the part that changes the session most.

What it costs

Every fee is on the fees page before you book, including what an added infusion costs. There is no separate consultation fee and no course you have to commit to in order to get the published price.

Prices advertised around Melbourne range widely, and most of that gap is not a discount. It is the difference between a practitioner staying with you for the session and a room where nobody does.What a colonic costs in Melbourne sets out which is which, and it is worth two minutes before comparing any two prices.

Who books one

Most people come in for something specific rather than a general clear-out: bloating that has stopped settling on its own, constipation that diet changes have not shifted, or a sluggish pattern that has been going on long enough to be annoying. Those are on the conditions page with what the treatment does and does not contribute to each.

Clients come from Brunswick, Brunswick East, Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Moonee Ponds, Essendon and Carlton — the clinic is on Melville Road in Brunswick West, a few minutes from all of them, with the tram 58 running past the door.

What a colon cleanse does not do

It does not detoxify you. The liver and kidneys do that work, and a colonic does not change how they do it. Nor does the bowel need help clearing itself under ordinary circumstances — it manages that on its own, which is worth knowing before anyone sells you a course of treatments on the basis that it does not.

It is not a diagnosis and it is not a weight-loss treatment, and nothing seen during a session tells anyone anything about parasites, whatever you may have been shown elsewhere. That practice hasits own page here, because it is common enough to be worth warning about.

What it does is clear the large bowel, and people generally report feeling lighter and less distended afterwards. That is a reasonable thing to want and it is what the treatment is for.

When it is not appropriate

Screening happens before every session because a colonic is not suitable for everyone. Active inflammatory bowel disease, recent bowel surgery, severe haemorrhoids, heart or kidney disease, unexplained abdominal pain and active diverticulitis are all reasons to stop rather than proceed.

Some things need investigating before any colonic rather than after: rectal bleeding, unintended weight loss, a change in bowel habit lasting more than a few weeks, or a family history of bowel cancer. Tell the clinic and you will be referred rather than booked in. There is more inis colonic irrigation safe.

Choosing where to go

This is not a regulated profession in Australia, so there is no register of who is practising and no minimum standard behind the word "qualified".How to choose a colonic clinic is the full guide, including the public registers you can search — and it is written to be applied here as readily as anywhere else. Every practitioner is named on theteam page with their qualification and membership number.