Colo-rooter

A fast and cleanse over the Memorial Day weekend raised my awareness to a whole new world of health. In exploration, I called Nadine Marchuk, owner of Serenity’s Colonic Therapy. Marchuk is a very friendly and open person, and a quick interview could easily have turned into a dissertation on the benefits of colon cleansing. She says her methods are atypical—she uses the open gravity system—and all information (and some really gross pictures) can be found on her website, www.serenityscleansing.com, or by calling 825-9494.

Colonics is essentially an enema, right?

Yes. There’s two kinds, hon. There’s “open gravity” and “closed pressure.” That’s why I put the history on the website. Not all colonics are the same.

What are the benefits of a colonic?

All disease, we believe, starts in the bowel. … Until we understand the bowel, we’ll never understand disease. And we focus on the bowel. One of the things that most colonic therapists do, because they don’t want to deal with any kind of contact with it—they market, “No smell,” but if you have a smell, you want to know what’s in you. They have a little tube that you poop into, it’s like an inch and a half. If you go on the website and look at the pictures of what I’ve pulled out of people, they would have blown that tube out—and they would have been sitting in it. It’s under “open gravity.” You’ll see the pictures.

Wow, what an interesting office.

Why do you say “interesting,” hon?

I wouldn’t have expected it to look so high tech.

I don’t want things looking medicinal here. I want everything looking like you’re just laying on the couch at home. You’re coming in, you’re kicking your shoes off, and you’re relaxing.

How much fluid goes into a person with one of these things?

Easy five gallons.

Five gallons?

You need that much. … I’ve had people take 30 minutes to even start pulling out. I’ve had some people need two or three colonics to pull out what you’re seeing. It’s got to be soaked really well for some of this stuff to drop. It’s like cement up against the walls. It’s like a casserole dish with things really baked in. It’s got to be soaked for it to come off.

I have to stop looking at that. It’s kind of grossing me out.

They had that in them, and they don’t realize. I mean, where does cancer come from? When they see this stuff come off the walls of their colon, they’re “Oh, my gosh, Nadine.” Keep in mind, what’s against your colon wall are your capillaries. The blood supply. That’s what feeds the blood. … And the doctors don’t even understand it, even those who are homeopathic don’t get it.

How long does the process take?

You’re here for about an hour when you come in for a colonic.

And what is the total cost?

It’s $75 a colonic.

What are the immediate benefits?

Everybody’s so different. I’ve had people, it cleared up their insomnia. I’ve had people helped with fatigue. The one girl, in an extreme case, she was doing a 10-day cleanse and on the third day of her colonic, she was having [blood sugar] lows, which means she had to call her diabetic doctor, and say, “I don’t need so much insulin,” in so many words. And her doctor asked, “What’s fixing your diabetes?” There’s this colon issue [for diabetics]; they don’t tell [patients] that. Well, [doctors] have been trained by the pharmaceutical companies. “Well, it’s colonic therapy,” she says.