Enemas for constipation during sickness.

Our pediatrician would almost always recommend “keep his bowels open” if I was sick or had missed moving my bowels for a couple of days. Certainly a day home from school sick would mean a date with the enema bag in the bathroom when my mother got home from work..

I had three aunts who were nurses and all were believers in an enema as a cure for out-of-sorts children. They always advised my mother that a good enema would fix just about anything. In our house if you had a headache you got an aspirin; if you were bleeding you got a band aid; anything else- you got an enema. “After all,” said my mother, “It couldn't hurt.”

Constipation was an automatic enema when was a child. I welcomed enemas and found could manipulate getting one. Constipation was simple, simply lied. Mom would ask have you had a BM today No was my answer, when was your last BM? I don't know. That put mom into enema time.

I faked fevers as well by simply taking the rectal thermometer out of my butt and it against the sheet. Again instant enema time. This process worked into my teen years.

When I got sick as a child I don't ever recall being constipated - on the contrary, if I had a stomach bug my internal system did a good job of cleaning me out. If I was feverish, or had a cold etc. I usually (still today) have a suppressed appetite and tend to stick to fluids, broths and soups - which don't bind me up.

I do recall getting codeine cough medicine - but it did not make me constipated.