Health: Time for the ultimate spring clean

MY GOODNESS Edin-burgh is a small place. I was at a party the other day when an acquaintance came thundering towards me bellowing: "I hear you have been having colonic irrigation. Tell me about it."

As soon as I started talking she stuck her fingers in her ears and shouted: "No, no, no. I don't want to hear about your poo."

I'd been intrigued about the procedure since having a colonic years earlier and being told: "To really get the benefits you need a course." Dee Atkinson at Napiers said I was welcome to try - as long as I agreed to see holistic nutritionist Helen Gestwicki as well.

Gestwicki was great. She analysed my diet in detail and gave me some very specific advice on how to improve it. I needed to up the amount of vegetables I eat and take enzymes to speed up digestion which had been slow since I began eating meat again after 20 years as a vegetarian.

With the diet tweaked it was off to Dawn Leuchars to give my insides a thorough spring clean. Leuchars, a trained nurse, started doing colonics after the clinic where she worked lost its regular therapist. She didn't fancy it at first but has become a convert, convinced colonics can give a real boost to your health.

The kind of colonic Leuchars offers utilises gravity, rather than an electric pump to swoosh water up into your insides. It's an odd sensation, as the warm water surges up your pipes then floods out again, carrying bits of matter into the great beyond. As she controls the flow, Leuchars firmly massages the lower intestine, to help dislodge bits which have become stuck there.

During my first treatment I felt slightly sick and the session was followed by a couple of days of awful wind and erratic bowel movements. The second and third times were easier and I was left with a pleasantly light and flexible feeling around the middle. People also kept complimenting me on how good my skin was looking, which was a bonus. But for me the biggest benefit was the joy of beginning every day with a satisfying visit to the loo. Sorry, but when it comes to colonics it is all about the poo.

Colonic Hydrotherapy and Nutritional Therapy available at Napiers, 35 Hamilton Place, Edinburgh, 0131-315 2130. A consultation with nutritional therapist Helen Gestwicki lasts 75 minutes and costs 60. Follow up appointments are 35. The first colonic hydrotherapy treatment takes 75 mins and costs 65, follow up treatments last 60 minutes and cost 55.