Sluggish digestion and colonic irrigation, in Brunswick

What people mean by it

"Sluggish digestion" is not a diagnosis, and there is no test for it. It is what people type when they feel heavy and slowed down and do not have a name for it — bowels going less often than they used to, fullness that lingers hours after a meal, a waistband that has stopped being comfortable, and a general sense of carrying something around.

It usually follows something identifiable. A holiday. A fortnight of takeaway and not much walking. A course of antibiotics. A desk job through winter. Being straight that this is a description rather than a condition matters, because the industry's habit is to name it something alarming and sell a kit for it.

What the session does

Warm, filtered water flows gradually in and out of the large bowel across thirty to forty minutes, softening and carrying away its contents, while your therapist massages your abdomen and adjusts temperature and pressure as they go. It empties the bowel considerably more completely than an ordinary movement, and most people describe feeling lighter and less bloated straight afterwards.

For a stretch of eating badly, that is generally the whole of what someone wanted, and one session is where it ends. There is no course to commit to here — if there is no reason for you to come back, your therapist will tell you so.

What this is not

It is not a colon cleanse kit. The same phrase is used for powders, teas, capsules and ten-day programmes you take at home, and those work by moving your bowel with laxative ingredients — some harshly enough to leave you worse off than you started. A colonic here uses warm filtered water and nothing else. Nothing to swallow, nothing to buy afterwards, no preparation kit.

It is also not a substitute for eating and moving differently, and it will not undo a year in an hour. Where sluggishness has become the baseline rather than the aftermath of a bad fortnight, the useful booking is an hour with a naturopath going through diet, fluid, sleep, stress and anything you already take. Two of them also run the colonics here, so you can do both with one person.

When it is worth mentioning first

If the change is recent and you cannot account for it, if there is blood, or if weight is coming off without you trying, tell the front desk when you call. Those need investigating before a colonic rather than after, and we will refer you with a letter setting out what we have found and who we think you should see.

Your liver and kidneys do the detoxifying, continuously, and they do it without help — so this is not a detox in the sense the word is usually sold. A colonic clears the colon of waste, which is a real and noticeable thing and a much smaller claim than the ten-day kits make.

What the session is like

A full hour is booked for you and the treatment itself runs thirty to forty minutes, so nothing about the appointment is rushed. It starts with a consultation — your health history, anything you take, and whether a colonic is the right step for you today — and then you are shown to a private room with its own ensuite.

Warm filtered water flows gradually in and out through a small single-use tube while your therapist adjusts temperature and pressure and massages your abdomen. This is a closed system, which means someone qualified stays with you the whole time rather than leaving you to administer it yourself, and waste passes through sealed tubing directly into the sewer — so there is no odour and nothing to clean up. Your own bathroom is through the door of your own room afterwards, in your own time.

Once your booking is confirmed we email you How to Best Prepare for a Colonic — when to stop eating, how much water to drink beforehand, and what to wear. There is a fuller account of the room and the equipment, with photographs and three short clips filmed during a session, on the colonic irrigation page.

What it costs

A session is $150, whether it is your first or your tenth. Infusions are not offered on a first visit, and where your therapist judges one appropriate later it adds $30. There are no health fund item codes for colonic irrigation, so that figure is what you pay rather than a gap. No referral is needed, and the satisfaction guarantee covers the service on your first visit.

Before you book

Most healthy adults, and there is a short list worth raising with the front desk first. We screen for all of it at the consultation, and will refer you rather than book you in where a colonic is not the right step:

• •Pregnancy
• •Recent bowel, abdominal or rectal surgery
• •Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis during a flare
• •An active episode of diverticulitis
• •Severe haemorrhoids, fissures or rectal bleeding
• •Bowel cancer or any undiagnosed change in bowel habit
• •Severe uncontrolled blood pressure, heart or kidney disease
• •Recent heart attack or stroke

If you are not sure, call (03) 9380 8099 and ask — it is a short conversation, and the front desk answers it every day.