Medicines irritating the colon:
- Colitis Caused by Cathartics
- Reducing as the First Step to Colitis
- Sulfa Medicines
- Colitis Caused by Mineral Oil
- Bran
- Saline’s – mineral salts, mineral waters
In the course of treating many ailments, doctors have fallen into the habit of using drugs. As a matter of fact, the public in general has fallen into the habit of taking drugs. In all instances the drug is assumed to have a beneficial effect in the control, if not the the correction,but not the cause of colitis or the ailment being treated. However, it often happens that this medicine, whether it be a prescription drug or one of the herbal substances, may have a severe, harmful effect on the colon.
Tonics Containing Iron
As one example of the bad effects of a good medicine may be mentioned the preparations containing iron that are so frequently used for anemia, such as Blaud’s Pills or ferrous sulphate or one of the many drug compounds sold under a proprietary name. It has been my experience that these medicines in general are decidedly harmful to one troubled by an irritated colon.
A lack of this knowledge has caused much distress to people suffering from unsuspected colitis. I have known of many instances where the anemia was a result of colitis. Either upon the advice of a doctor or on their own responsibility, the patients decided to “take iron,” with an almost immediately irritating effect. Abdominal pain and distress frequently occur and mucus appears in the stool in even greater quantities than before. Diarrhea associated with a colicky pain in the left lower portion of the abdomen becomes marked.
In such a situation, the patient is of course on the horns of a dilemma. He knows that he needs iron in order to build up the quality of his blood, yet one such experience shows that he cannot tolerate it. What is he to do?
Of course the most sensible thing to do is to present the problem to his friend, the family physician. No doubt the iron or other appropriate medicine will be given by hypodermic injections; or a form of organic iron will be prescribed, then the patient may have the advantage of iron without the disturbance that follows taking iron in the inorganic state.
Suit a Medicines, Penicillin, Aureomycin, Terramycin
When the present-day miracle medicines, the sulfa drugs, first came into use, they were hailed as “cure-alls.” Experience, however, has shown that they are not entirely unmixed blessings. For instance, the sulfa drugs are very effective in controlling infections. However, they are irritating to many people, and this irritation is particularly exhibited in the colon. Even normal people find that some of these sulfa drugs have an irritating effect on the colon.
It is small wonder, then, that people with sensitive colons, or definitely diseased colons should evidence the irritation to an even greater degree. Here, too, a dilemma confronts the patient, or more correctly, the doctor taking care of the patient. I would like to insist at this point that no layman should ever, on his own responsibility, start taking sulfa drugs. When the medical profession itself is uncertain as to their ultimate effects, certainly one unschooled in medicine is not qualified to make such a hazardous experiment.
Your doctor, however, will know that certain of these drugs are less soluble and less irritating than others, and will choose the one which research and experience have shown to be the least irritating. If he is the wise and conservative counselor that you have a right to expect in a family doctor, he will weigh very seriously the advisability of using the sulfa drugs at all, unless they are definitely indicated by a specific diagnosis of bacterial infection known to be amenable to the sulfa drug prescribed.
Mineral oil at one time was looked upon as the great cure-all of one of the symptoms of colitis, namely constipation. Over a period of thirty years, it has been found to be far from the inactive and harmless substance it was supposed to be. Its continued use over a period of time interferes with the digestive process throughout the food digestion canal.
Because it is an oil, it tends to dissolve the fat-soluble vitamins of the food and pass them out of the canal, thus depriving those using it from the benefit of the very best part of their food.
Still further, it mechanically collects in saccules along the walls of the food digestion canal, gives rise to spasm and thus interferes with colonic function and lays the groundwork for colonic diseases.
Bran
Bran is another substance which at one time was hailed as a health food. Experience over the years has shown, however, that it is decidedly irritating to many people and always carries with it the threat of impaction, that is, the gathering into lumps that may require surgery to dislodge. Its long continued use can be the cause of irritation and eventually colitis.
Mineral Waters and Saline Cathartics
In the Middle Ages certain parts of the world became famous as health resorts because it was found that the waters of springs in these localities had a beneficial effect. There were springs that were supposed to be “good for liver trouble” or “good for intestinal trouble” and for that matter “good for what have you.” Most of these waters had only one claim to fame and only one method of effecting the “cure”— they were laxative, purgative or cathartic, depending upon the dose taken or the particular strength of salts in the water.
Needless to say, the laxative clan of medicaments are occasionally needed in the treatment of ailments but as the intelligence of mankind has increased, and medical knowledge and experience has increased, the reliance upon laxatives and purgatives has lessened. Certainly the wholesale imbibing of laxative waters is no longer the custom.
While there are still some health resorts who make these the backbone of their therapeutic ritual, there are few people, now, who are convinced that by mineral waters alone all ailments can be cured.
However, the habit does survive to some extent and is aided and abetted by the commercial campaigns of those who have saline’s to sell. The occasional use of a saline may be suggested by a doctor or even taken by a person without prescription and do no great harm. But the habitual user of saline laxatives should realize that he is making himself a candidate for an irritated colon and eventually the cause of colitis.
This applies not only to mineral waters such as those traditional Epsom and Rochelle Salts but also the modernized trade name “Salts.” The mineral waters are, of course, merely watery solutions of these same salts.
Other Cathartics, Laxatives and Purgatives – Being the Cause of Colitis
It is a fact that accidentally, in the course of eating what we regard as food, we may take into our bodies things like bacteria and parasites, and these may occasionally prove fatal. However, it is a sad commentary on our alleged intelligence that sometimes these poisons, these harmful substances are not taken accidentally but deliberately.
Now what persons would be such fools as to take into their bodies harmful substances deliberately, unless they were so demented as to be intent upon suicide? Well you won’t have to look very far to find them. Among them are those who constantly take cathartics night after night, particularly cathartics containing harmful poisonous substances such as phenolphthalein. These people are poisoning themselves just as effectively as if they had taken bichloride of mercury, even though a little more slowly. The only difference is that with bichloride, they know the answer sooner.
Understand that by taking a poison which does not kill right away, they give their colon an opportunity to struggle to protect itself. It does this through the mechanism of inflammation which is the normal response of living tissue to some damage short of complete death.
Reducing Medicines
When that sad day comes when a person realizes his life is going to waist, there are some who get desperate and, without the benefit of expert medical advice, start “taking something.” The “something” is very often some advertised patented medicine which for a specified price will aid you in melting away the extra poundage. This is a nice trick if you can do it, but often it is a matter of prudence to find out how the trick is being done.
Many of these reducing medicines rely in part upon the action of a drug such as phenolphthalein. When the American Public Health Service, and public health officers in general, get around to doing their true duty to the public, I am sure one of the first things they will do is to prohibit the sale of phenolphthalein except under a doctor’s prescription. I am impelled to this view by the sad contemplation of many, many colons that I have seen ruined by this drastic cathartic.
It acts upon the colon by irritating the lining membrane. In response to this irritation the membrane pours out tremendous quantities of serous exudates and this, of course, is in turn derived from the tissues of the body. Thus, after the passage of several watery movements, a patient may get upon the scales and note to his satisfaction that he has “lost weight.”
Actually, he has lost far more than weight. He has lost the functional integrity of his colon; he has lost the health of one organ of his body. Of course, as he slides down the hill of ill health, he will lose more weight and, unless he receives competent medical attention, the full cost of the weight reduction will be beyond all reason.
There is scarcely a person alive who would hesitate to condemn as hideous and monstrous an individual who induced another to swallow ground glass. But comparable to this is the advertising which leads to destroying the functional health of the colon by patented medicines containing phenolphthalein and other violent cathartics.
For years I have written on this very subject and in this very vein, but my protest has thus far been vain. It has truly been “the voice in the wilderness.” The Reader’s Digest reprinted a chapter from my book I Know Just The Thing For That. In the chapter they reprinted I exposed the evils of phenolphthalein. Yet the laws of the land still permit this drug to be sold, uncontrolled.
I personally conceive of it as a problem of public health and feel that the Public Health Service should thoroughly investigate the matter. Until such time, the only fortunate ones will be those who read and heed warnings such as I have given above.
