Laxatives as a child

Yes exalax, suppositories, you name it it was forced on me

I remember a routine of ground up figs, apricots and senna leaves. It tasted okay butt I still got enemas anyway.

the boxcar

At age 5, my mother was told to get me some Fletcher's Castoria, by a neighbor lady. It tasted great and I was willing to take it instead of the usual enema. Within hours the cramping was terrible and I was crying non-stop. NO enema ever hurt as much as that stuff did! Mom never gave it to me again, thank God.

Plenty of laxatives and enemas too as a kid. I always seemed to be constipated and my mom would give me both to help clean me out. A laxative and enema at bedtime and an enema first thing in the morning "to get me started" as she would put it since I had been given the laxative the night before and was not already running to the potty.

Why back during WWII my mother the nurse gave me these terrible tasting brown pills. I guess they worked but they were god-awful.

My mom gave me Milk of Magnesia when I was a baby, then switched to Castoria until at 8 years old I asked her to give me Feenamint chewing gum laxative like many of my friends' mothers gave them. When I turned 13 and she started giving me 2 pieces of Feenamint instead of 1 it gave me bad cramps, so she switched to Exlax on the advice of an aunt who'd had the same problem with my older cousin. At various times she had tried other laxatives on me after my aunts or my friends' mothers suggested them, or when we were visiting relatives and she used whatever they gave to their kids. These included Dulcolax, Children's Own Tablets, Magnolax, Banalax, Senokot, Steedman's Powders, Beecham's Pills, Carter's Pills, Enos' Fruit Salts, Andrews' Liver Salts, Feenamint Children's Mints, Cascara, and Fleet's Phosphosoda. Also when I spent the summer at the cottage, my aunt would give me and my 3 cousins a weekly dose of Agarol. Some of these were pleasant to take, others were horrible tasting, but the results were always the same, lots of trips to the toilet the next day with the runs. In addition she kept Senna, Castor Oil and Epsom Salts on hand for extra strong purging when she felt I needed it. This was all in addition to glycerine suppositories and soapsuds enemas for faster results.

@ gboy:

Think at this, that in swallowing a good dose of Castor Oil this is not the garanty for an extra strong purging. By taking a good dose of Castor Oil it depends exclusively of the amount of the poisons being deliberated in the liver if the cleansing of the bowels will become harmless or harmfull.

Until about 10 or 12 years old I was regularly given milk of magnesia, then asked by my mom “has your milk of magnesia worked”? If I had a cold and had to stay home from school and in bed, I heard the stirring sound if the spoon in the glass downstairs in the kitchen and knew that castor oil in orange juice was on the way as the “appetizer” before breakfast. A couple of times when castor oil didn’t work it was enema time.

I much preferred the laxative to the enema then, but have used enemas occasionally since, but castor oil is the best for results. Dulcolax wasn’t invented when I was young. Castor oil and milk of magnesia were the only two laxatives I was given as a child.

@ Fred01ca

You write: " A couple of times when castor oil didn’t work it was enema time" - I suppose that the dose of Castor Oil was not sufficient to do its work.

I didn't get many laxatives from mom, but I do remember Castoria. I remember mom giving me the choice of Castoria or an enema. It didn't take many times for me to realize the enema was the way to go.

Since then, I can count the number of times I have taken a (oral) laxative on one hand. An enema is just better in so many ways.

I got some enemas when I was a litle boy, from 3 years or so, may be before this? But when I gow up I did not get any enemas. It was my own idee to start this activities on my way to a real clismafil.

Reality was that there was not enough time to let the castor oil work before the decision to administer the enema was made. Perhaps the dose was not high enough.

@ Fred01ca You write: " A couple of times when castor oil didn’t work it was enema time" - I suppose that the dose of Castor Oil was not sufficient to do its work.

We were a EX-Lax Family also. If it didnt give the desired result then it was Enema time.

Enemas were more common at our house but laxatives were not unknown. Grandma insisted on giving everyone spring and Fall purges with castor oil in spring and Epsom Salts in the fall, both of which would be followed with a soapy enema in an hour or 2. Mom took the epsom salts and suppositories with us on trips and occasionally gave me salts at home. I think she used it when she felt too rushed to give a thorough enema and could mix up a spoon or 2 of the salts in water and have me obediently drink it in only a couple minutes. We also had some Sal Hepatica which my dad sometimes took when he was constipated when he got home from work. I was always fascinated that he didn't protest having mom give him his laxative like I frequently did. I must have been too inquisitive about the Sal Hepatica because she once gave both of us a dose together! It was better to take than epsom salts but still disgusting to swallow and feel working in my tummy.

@ clysmaniac:

I suppose that it will be realized easier and quicker to administer to someone a good dose of Castor Oil or Epsom Salts than to prepare and to give an enema, for you will have to open your mouth and to swallow a liquid and nothing else.

No laxatives in our house as kids. Mom didn't want to buy anything else when she had her trusty red fountain syringe handy.

Castor oil epson salts but mainly soap up the but and supps if hadnt had a bowel movment then down come shorts and underware then large blob vasaline on mums or granys finger then large pice squish green soap stright up my bottom realy made me go

Didn't get them from my single parent(father).

My first introduction to them: My late elementary school, I was on the chunky side, but not clinically obese. Still some of the mean girls harassed me constantly about being "the fat ass." I had started wearing control briefs, which toned it down but didn't stop it. One time I lashed out at one of the harassing girls about it, and told her I was going to "kick her ass!" I happened to notice one of the quieter, more submissive type girls walk past my desk, and appear to touch my purse. When I got back to my desk, there was something sticking out the corner of my purse. I looked at it. it was a card of Dulcolax. A post-it note was stuck to it, "This will help you get that weight off!! Works for me!" No Name on it! That was when I found out what laxatives were. I have used Dulcolax(actually generic) mostly as part of the prep for a system cleanout. Only a couple of times have I taken them stand-alone, and my experience is not so positive with them.

My grandmother liked to give Haley's M-O, which is a mixture of milk of magnesia and Mineral oil. According to the label, it couldn't be 'detected' by children whem mixed in milk. It was true, at least until it started to work. At least once it worked, that was generally it. If she really wanted fast results, it was Sal-Hepatica. It tasted awful, and was often effective in about an hour.

My mother preferred Feen-a-mint. I hated Feen-a-mint, it worked like clock work. In 4 1/2 hours almost like an alarm clock. The problem with Feen-a-mint (and Ex-Lax) in those days is that stayed in your system for 2-3 days, and you were never sure exactly when it would work again, only that you could be sure it would work a few more times before it was 'done' with you. That was especially true when the full adult dose was used.

Does anyone remember Doxidan? My mother used to have some around the house and I got one occasionally. It was a soft gel capsule, but what I remember most was their advertising "Take Doxidan in the PM for a BM in the AM." Occasionally, it wouldn't produce the results that mom wanted and that meant enema time for me.

My mom gave us the old Ex-Lax (the phenolphthalein version), usually the adult as opposed to child dosage. I remember asking her once about that, after reading the package, and she said something to the effect that if you wanted to know when it would work, you needed to take enough so that it would work quick.

However, I remember too many times barely finding a bathroom later the next day because it was still working. Yes, it worked upon arising in the morning, but it just kept ... working.

Ex-lax sure did keep on working all day!!! I can remember several times in Junior High and High School when my mom gave me Ex-lax on a school night and I had to make a few very hurried washroom trips during my classes the next day. I even had a few accidents in my pants when I couldn't get to the washroom fast enough, and then had to change into my gym shorts and suffer the embarrassment of my classmates knowing what had happened.

I was always made to have supps or soap up my bum. It was administered by either my Mum normally or my Grandmother if I was staying over at their house.

I normally had to kneel on a kitchen stool with my elbows on the bench whilst my pants were pulled down and a suppository or nugget of soap was pushed deep inside my bottom.

In Italy they used "dolce euchessina" or glycerine suppos.

But I clearly remeber sono homemade suppos cutted in soap !! Terrible !!!

Never had an enema but when I was sixteen years old I was having real trouble and hadn’t been for days. Being the weekend the chemist was shut (no Sunday opening in those days) my mother came into the bedroom and told me to follow her into the bathroom. I was in great discomfort so obediently did as I was told, she started to cut and wet under the tap a piece of soap and then told me to bend over and drop my pyjama trousers. Next thing I knew she was pushing the soap up into my rectum she stayed with me after that until it took effect but all I passed was the soap so I ended up in hospital.

Castoria was Mom's favorite. We all got spoonfuls regularly. From what I recall, it didn't taste bad. Quite a few times I was given a tablespoonful and told "if this doesn't help, I'm going to have to give you a good enema".............

I did all-too-frequently get milk of magnesia but my parents preferred--as did I--enemas. I put up much more of a fuss when they wanted to give me MOM than I ever did when they suggested giving me an enema. Thank goodness they took the hint and I got many more enemas than I did doses of MOM.

I was given glycerine suppositories as a child when constipated or the tiny chinese prefilled disposable glycerine enemas 5 ml.

A question to analee:

Is a glycerine suppository a laxative?

My mother bought Ex-Lax by the boxcar load and my sister and I were given it on a regular basis. We could just about count on it every 2 to 3 weeks. She also gave us our "spring cleaning" and our "back to school cleaning" which consisted of a healthy dose of castor oil.

I guess old habits are hard to break as I still take both Ex-Lax and. on an occasion, castor oil.