Doctor, doctor

Dr Rosemary Leonard MBE is a GP with many years’ experience working in London’s top teaching hospitals

I suffer from constipation but, despite eating lots of fibre, I don’t ‘go’ unless I take a couple of senna tablets. Senna is a stimulant laxative that promotes a bowel action within eight hours. But it tends to over-empty the bowel, so the next day you might worry that you haven’t ‘been’ naturally and take another dose. The

pattern then repeats itself. Stop the senna and allow nature to take its course.

For hard stools, a softening laxative, such as lactulose, is safer and can be taken daily.

Contact Dr Leonard at S Magazine, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP, or email dr.leonard@ express.co.uk. Dr Leonard regrets that she cannot reply personally to letters. Read her column every Tuesday in the Daily Express