My most uncomfortable enema was administered by my dear former giver, at my urging, although I had no idea it was about to become that.
Our session was trying to shift a very bad IBS attack, and I’d started from a place of feeling crampy and nauseated. We had a go with my regular 2 liters of warm water with baking soda, but when it came time for me to expel, it felt as if half the enema was stuck. Moreover, the pain and nausea relief an enema usually gives me hadn’t arrived, I think because my ascending colon was still in spasms. My giver had massaged me for 30 minutes and I’d made many fruitless bathroom trips; no dice.
Resorting to “stuck enema” remedies I’d read here, I asked my giver to give me a small enema of plain cool water.
Not long thereafter, all heck broke loose. I did have the urge to expel, but this quickly turned into simultaneous expulsion and vomiting. At first I brought up my stomach contents and bile, and then I began to vomit enema water, while still jetting it out at my nether end. As if this wasn’t bad enough, I felt dizzy to the point I couldn’t hold my head up and thought I might die. It took nearly 12 hours to recover, and I must have cleaned my giver’s bathroom floor 8 times before it was all out.
I know I’m more prone to vasovagal episodes than many; these can be triggered by standing with my knees locked in a warm place, food poisoning, or laxatives when my bowel is loaded. But I still can’t figure out exactly what happened medically that time.
I vomited too much enema water not to have opened my ileo-cecal valve, and I assume the “I could die” feeling was bradycardia, but some of my most successful warm water enemas gently opened the valve with zero ill effects.
This enema nonetheless registers as my most uncomfortable but not my worst because I was IBS free for a ridiculously long time after it—perhaps as long as 7 months. It functioned like a hard reboot, but it was so awful I’d rather take 2-7 regular IBS flares, any day.
I will never try milk and molasses, which would probably do me in, nor anything soapy or hypertonic, nor will I ever try cold water again.