Coffee how?, Flossing Your Teeth and a Sense of Humor!

When I had cancer and started Dr. Taylor’s metabolic assessment plan (see previous posts for details), one of the new, very “interesting” detox procedures he recommended for me was a coffee enema. I had never heard of such a thing! I wasn’t even a coffee drinker in the regular sense, let alone taking in coffee some other way! If you’ve looked into many alternative cancer therapies, you might have come across it and there is a lot of information on the positive side and also some on the negative side of whether it does any good. I will only speak from my experience.

I titled this post “Coffee how?, Flossing Your Teeth and a Sense of Humor” because I wanted to change the way some of you might think of this coffee enema procedure. First of all, what in the world does a coffee enema have in common with flossing your teeth? Here’s the connection: when I was a kid, flossing your teeth wasn’t really a thing yet. My mom made sure I had regular dental visits and never did the dentist mention flossing. I can’t remember learning to floss my teeth until in my teens. There was only one kind of floss and those handy floss pick things weren’t even invented yet. That seems hard to believe now because of the massive amount of information out there about flossing our teeth for good dental hygiene. It’s become an ingrained daily habit for most of us (I hope!).

Enemas have kind of gone in the opposite direction. Having the skill and information of the how and why to perform an enema used to be common knowledge. And just like flossing our teeth is a common, easy skill, being proficient at taking an enema should also be! It is a handy thing to know!

To begin, an enema is defined as “a procedure in which liquid or gas is injected into the rectum, typically to expel its contents, but also to introduce drugs or permit x-ray imaging”.

But why would we even want to use an enema in any kind of routine? Good question and there are lots of good reasons! Having a means to really clean out your colon is one. But taking it to the next level by using different solutions and retaining them for about 15 minutes gives you a whole list of other reasons and great benefits! Using coffee as the enema solution is the most widely used enema in a lot of natural cancer therapies and in years past was even listed in the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, the world’s best selling medical textbook.

Why coffee? That just sounds weird! It did to me at first too! After my cancer surgery and going ahead with the alternative plan we had chosen, I sat reading through the pages of diet changes, supplement and detoxification ideas that were being suggested to me, and it listed taking a coffee enema one time per day. I was totally clueless. First of all, I had never in my life done an enema of any sort. Second of all, I didn’t even drink coffee in the regular way – you know, like by mouth. But, I was all on board with doing this great nutritional program to its fullest, so I forged ahead into the world of enemas!

The Coffee Enema instructions said to use only organic fully caffeinated coffee (definitely not decaf) and distilled or purified water. Use one tablespoon to make a quart of coffee. You could also add up to a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses (also organic) to help with retention and adding a few minerals. Let this mixture cool to room temperature and proceed with pouring it into your enema bucket/bag, whatever you were using. (This was pre-Amazon days, so off I trotted to a medical supply store for a good sturdy enema kit – one of my more embarrassing shopping experiences!). You then create a comfortable place (towels, padding, pillow, etc.) to lie down in your bathroom near where you can hang the enema bucket/bag from a towel bar or something and let the coffee solution run into your colon per the enema kit instructions. You need to retain this for fifteen minutes: five minutes laying on your left side, five minutes on your back and the last five minutes on your right side. When you’re done, you have successfully cleaned out your colon as well as detoxed your liver! All safely done with only coffee and water! (For any visual learners reading this, there are even YouTube videos to further explain!)

So why coffee? There are lots of reasons for the choice of coffee. Coffee’s many compounds (which can be researched separately from this article) offer benefits to the body, but the most important reason is the caffeine content. When caffeinated coffee is held inside the colon for the prescribed fifteen minutes, the caffeine travels up the portal vein and directly makes an impact on the liver, kind of like the way caffeine jolts us to be more awake and alert when we drink it, it pumps the liver to release toxins. The liver is normally doing this but the coffee enema speeds up the process. From my understanding, speeding up the liver’s function is useful during times of intense detoxification – simply helping it keep up with the demands placed upon it. There were a few periods where it was recommended that I do two a day – one in the morning and one at night. I would not recommend doing that many without being under a professional’s care.

If you do not have cancer but are interested in the health benefits of coffee enemas, doing one per week would be a good rule of thumb. Just like flossing teeth, think of a “coffee spa” (as the cool kids call it) as regular body maintenance. Maybe a better analogy would be comparing it to getting the oil changed in your car. It’s not particularly fun or exciting, just something you do periodically to keep things running smoothly and extending the life of your car! Fun – not really! Smart – yes!

I do want to add something here about my mental state of mind during this time and how practicing doing the “coffee spa” actually helped me deal with my stress level. I tried to make this post light-hearted but during this time I was anything but light-hearted. I was mostly terrified this wouldn’t work and I would eventually die from this cancer. Fear was the constant emotion in my life. Relaxing was not easy. It took some trial and error, but I eventually had a comfortable little set up in one of our bathrooms where I could be alone and very comfortable. Once the coffee was in, a sense of peace and relaxation started happening. Maybe it was because I understood something powerful was happening to my liver, which was helping me detox. I tried to visualize the portal vein and liver being activated. Maybe it was the quietness and stillness of having a guaranteed fifteen minutes of solitude where the world could be left far behind. I would sometimes take something to read, or spend the time praying and meditating. Slowly, I began to look forward to this time, and still do. (Note: I only do one periodically, once a week or once every two weeks, just for maintenance.)

Lastly, let’s get to the sense of humor! I have a friend, Candy, who stood by me during the really hard times of our daughter’s cancer and my own. She has a great sense of humor and would often ask me (sometimes in front of others who knew I didn’t drink coffee!) if I had had my coffee yet today – wink, wink, smirk, smirk!! I think she really loved putting me on the spot! Having a friend or family member who can lighten your load with a bit of humor really helps! Looking back, I can see how much that helped, even if I didn’t always appreciate having to answer that question in the moment. Thanks, Candy!!! You were providing some of the best medicine! Knowing you have cancer is a heavy load, and you will benefit by surrounding yourself with positive, encouraging people with a great sense of humor who can make you smile, even when you don’t want to.

Hope this helps give you another idea of how to work with your body to help it be as healthy as possible!