Better health through hydrotherapy
By her own admission, Maneka Rowell has one of those jobs that rarely fails to evoke a response in social situations.
‘‘It’s funny watching people’s reactions when I tell them what I do – it can be a conversation stopper – but there are others who go ‘‘oh really?’’ and take quite an interest,’’ she said.
Rowell has been involved with colonic hydrotherapy for nearly 17 years and has owned her Healing Waters business in Nelson for the last two.
Prior to her current vocation, Rowell had a career in animation but was drawn to the world of holistic medicine when supporting a relative who had suffered a head injury.
After some specialised training in naturopathy, she later came to colonics as a client after realising that the digestive system was the first thing a naturopath would look at.
‘‘I really got how it was such an integral part of holistic health,’’ she said.
In administering her service, Rowell uses a manual, gravity-fed closed system which dispenses up to 60 litres of body-temperature water through a small scope.
The level of treatment required varies with each client and is assessed on their first visit, based on factors like how hydrated the body is, how impacted the fecal matter is and stress levels.
Once under way, the colonic process itself was very gentle and involves clients lying on a bed side-on under a towel.
Each appointment takes about an hour – with most clients spending anywhere 25 mins to 45 minutes on the bed.
Rowell said most people were quite nervous on their first time but soon realise it is not as bad as first thought.
‘‘There’s a viewing window so you can see what’s coming out of the body and it all goes straight down the drain – it’s not yucky, it’s very discreet.’’
During an average colonic a person will pass up to 20 bowel motions, although Rowell said some clients passed as much as 100 in a single session.
‘‘If you have a healthy bowel and diet, you should be passing about 30cm of fecal matter a day and a bowel motion after every meal.’’
As to why people would have a colonic, Rowell said either a detox or cleansing the body were the most common reasons.
‘‘The bowel is the main eliminatory organ and if you’re not eliminating enough everyday then the solids backlog and ferment and it becomes toxic and very acidic,’’ she said
While the use of hydrotherapy can be traced as far back as Ancient Egypt and had been used in hospitals, Rowell said colonics enjoyed a surge in popularity when Princess Di announced to the world that she regularly had them.
Most of Healing Waters’ colonic clients were people struggling with constipation or unwell with digestive issues.
She said there were still misconceptions about the practice – one being that good bacteria goes out with the bad during the colonic process.
However, Rowell said that when bad bacteria is more prevalent the good has little room to thrive, and replacing the good was easy to do with a good course of probiotics or other fermented food.