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I am very pleased to say that I will soon be offering Colon Hydrotherapy once again, this time in Brighton. Due to lack of a clinic with suitable equipment, I have been unable to practise Colon Hydrotherapy for a little while - but I am delighted to say that this is about to change!
The new venue is Holden Natural Health, based in North Brighton, close to the A23/A27 junction. It's located on a major bus route into Brighton, with buses running up to every 15 minutes throughout the day and night. More details soon, including a website address for the clinic. Please get in touch on 07974 936742 or at bookings@herbsmith.uk if you're interested in booking.
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 Headaches. Constipation. Diarrhoea. Tiredness and lack of 'zip' – and even chronic fatigue. Metabolic conditions. Skin problems. Bad breath. Arthritis. No, not the inevitable result of following government healthy eating guidelines (although hang on a minute...), but just a few of the many conditions that can be helped by colon hydrotherapy. Colon hydrotherapy is a gentle yet powerful cleanse for the bowel So what is colon hydrotherapy? Put simply, it's the process of introducing warm, clean, filtered water into the bowel, AKA large intestine or colon, via the rectum – hence another name for the procedure, colonic irrigation. Hydrotherapy not only gently washes away built-up waste matter, but, even more importantly, it also serves to re-establish correct functioning of the bowel tissue. This is by no means a small matter. Many people – I am tempted to add 'especially in the UK' – prefer to ignore their bowel. They pay little attention to what goes into it in terms of food and fluids, and treat what comes out of it with trepidation or disgust. The resulting disconnection between individuals and their own bodies eventually becomes a source of enormous misery for many. The bowel is crucial – and widely ignored For the bowel is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of the human organism. It is, basically, a great big muscular tube, bent into an approximately square shape and located in the abdomen. It's around 5 feet long and 6.35 cm (2.5 inches) in diameter, and is responsible for the final removal from the body of waste products as faeces, in a process called defecation. Strictly speaking, the bowel is an organ of excretion rather than one of detoxification. Although the waste products of digestion voided by the bowel include toxins such as heavy metals, it's not the bowel that does the job of filtering and cleaning the blood of toxins. That's the role of specialised detox organs like the liver and kidneys. When the bowel is all tickety boo and functioning healthily, we feel great: full of energy and well being, ready to face the world and its challenges. Health challenges associated with an underfunctioning bowel Unfortunately, it's easy for the bowel to become overwhelmed and inefficient when there's all that waste matter to deal with. Not eating enough fibre? Your bowel will produce stools that are hard, dry and difficult to pass. And if that sounds like constipation, that's because it is. Perhaps you're not drinking enough water? The effect is much the same, with the added bonus of dehydration and its systemic negative effects. Eating too much processed grain products – white flour, cakes, pastries and the like? In this case, the bowel produces an excess of mucous and dense, sticky stools. Insufficient exercise, taking certain prescription drugs, drinking too many caffeinated drinks – all of these factors and more can negatively impact bowel function. Just as important are emotional factors: stress and its alleviation has an enormously important role to play in bowel health. Annoying, inconvenient and frequently painful as these issues may be in themselves, the problems with impaired bowel function don't end there. Headaches, for example: an underfunctioning bowel can lead to autointoxication, where poisons are reabsorbed into the bloodstream from the colon. Headaches are one, unsurprising, result of autointoxication. Others include tiredness and fatigue, irritability, skin problems, arthritis and bad breath – and oh look, this is where we came in. Even system-wide metabolic dysregulation - type 2 diabetes, say - will benefit from having a fully functioning colon, not least because effective waste removal boosts all the other functions of digestion and nutrient uptake. New year, new you? People's minds naturally turn to cleansing, detoxification and internal spring cleaning after the excesses of the Christmas period. So why not give colon hydrotherapy a try - and take your health to the next level? A first colonic, which includes a thorough case history, costs £75 and second and subsequent colonics cost £60. You can book through the Holden Clinic or contact me directly by email. Watch this space for further details of package offers very soon!  This is another short, snappy yet erudite post announcing the second recent new HerbSmith offering, and first of 2016: colon hydrotherapy, AKA colonic irrigation, at the Holden Clinic in Forest Row. A gentle yet powerful cleansing technique In future posts, I'll explain far more about what colon hydrotherapy is, what the procedure involves, its benefits and advantages, the conditions it can help or prevent and why it could be the key to better health for many people. But in short, colon hydrotherapy is a means of introducing clean, filtered water into the bowel (colon or large intestine). The process serves on the one hand to gently break up and remove built-up waste matter. Even more importantly, however, it can restore the proper functioning of the bowel: one of the body's most important organs, one that is usually overlooked and ignored. Booking and prices A first colonic is £75 and includes a comprehensive case-taking assessment.
Subsequent colonics are £60. I'll post details of various 'package' offers, comprising multiple colonics, very soon. Colon hydrotherapy is the perfect addition to a cleansing programme, working excellently alongside herbal and naturopathic cleanses. With the new year now upon us and a hefty period of festive excess still clearly visible in the rear-view mirror, a colon hydrotherapy treatment may be just what you need to get 2016 off to a healthy start! You can book via the Holden Clinic details on the HerbSmith bookings page or directly via email. New from Monday 9th November! Herbal medicine clinics at Neal's Yard Remedies, Tunbridge Wells3/11/2015  This will be a short, snappy post announcing the first of two exciting new opportunities and offerings from the HerbSmith: a weekly clinic at the wonderful Neal's Yard Remedies (NYR) premises in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Herbal medicine clinics beginning Monday 9th November Every Monday from next week, Monday 9th November 2015, I will be available onsite for herbal medicine consultations between 9.30 am and 1.30 pm at the Tunbridge Wells branch of Neal's Yard Remedies. I'll also be available on an ad-hoc basis on Tuesday mornings between 9.30 am and 12.30 pm - in other words, I'll be there if there's a client booked in! Here's the address: 64 Mount Pleasant Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1RB Tel: 01892 524 523 Email: tunbridgewells@nealsyardremedies.com You can make an appointment either by contacting NYR using the above details or via the HerbSmith website. And here's a handy map: To begin with, I'll be working in the NYR graduate clinic where a 60-minute consultation costs a very reasonable £25, plus any herbs or supplements purchased following the session. A bargain, I hope you'll agree. I'll be working to build the clinic over the coming weeks and it would be great if you could help me out by sharing this story via Facebook or your preferred form of social media. Neal's Yard Remedies is unique in the UK I'm delighted to be involved with NYR as it occupies a unique position in the UK natural medicine landscape. I'm not aware of another brand specialising in products manufactured from the highest quality, organic, natural ingredients and which has premises in towns and cities throughout the UK. Neither can I think of another operation that offers a wide range of natural therapies to the public from many of those premises. As double-whammies go, it's about as natural, effective and ethical as you get - and I'm very excited to be part of it.
If you know anyone in the Tunbridge Wells area who might be interested in a herbal medicine consultation on Monday or Tuesday mornings with your friendly local HerbSmith, at a very reasonable rate, why not let them know? Maybe I'll even see you at NYR Tunbridge Wells at some point in the future - I certainly hope so.  The chances are, you've never heard of iridology - the study of the coloured part, or iris, of the eye to gain information about an individual's health status. This is a shame, since iridology deserves a place among the pantheon of better-known methods of health assessment, such as tongue and pulse diagnosis, used by herbalists and naturopaths the world over. The eyes have it! It's important to note at the outset that iridology is not a diagnostic technique. If you came to me for a consultation in Forest Row, I would take photos of your irises - more correctly, irides - using the rather Heath Robinson-esque equipment lurking in the corner of my consulting room. I would then use these images to tell you more about yourself and to guide and shape my advice to you, but I would not look at your iris pictures and say, "Your eyes tell me you've got rheumatoid arthritis/an underactive thyroid/type 2 diabetes/insert medical condition here." Some iris features and groups of features are more common in people with certain conditions, providing clues to the iridologist as to why the condition may have developed and the appropriate treatment approaches. This is very different to diagnosing the complaint using iridology in the first place. There are two areas where iridology is most useful. On the one hand, it provides plenty of extremely useful information on an individual's inbuilt strengths and weaknesses. This allows the iridologist to share with their patients strategies to help them live within their own constitutions - the keys to a hopefully problem-free health future. Secondly, iridology offers numerous clues as to why specific conditions may have developed - the 'dynamics of disharmony' in my iridology tutor's memorable phrase - information that naturally points to the appropriate treatment. Colour and constitution The most obvious characteristic of an individual's iris is their eye colour. This is caused by the presence or absence of pigment. Blue eyes, for example, are not actually blue: the fibres that make up the blue iris are colourless. It is the layer below the iris fibres that contains blue pigment, and this colour is reflected in the blue eye because the iris fibres do not contain any pigment themselves. Green/hazel and brown eyes contain increasing amounts of brown pigment covering some or all of the iris fibres. The first level of the iridology assessment is the individual's overarching constitution, which corresponds to the blue, brown and green/hazel eye colours. We'll take a brief look at the three broad iridological constitutions below. The lymphatic (blue-eyed) constitution  Blue eyes are known as the 'lymphatic' constitution in iridology, named after the lymphatic circulation. The lymphatic system lies just below the skin, draining and recycling metabolic wastes produced by cells and tissues. Rich in circulating white blood cells, lymph fluid is also an active part of the immune system. Lymphatic iris types show a high degree of reactivity in their systems and are prone to infections and inflammation. These are the body's way of trying to rid itself of unwanted irritants, with the lymphatic system playing a central role. Blue-eyed kids usually suffer from the classic inflammatory childhood diseases, such as measles, mumps and chickenpox. Lymphatic types are prone to arthritis and rheumatism, allergies and especially hay fever, swollen glands and irritations of the mucous membranes such as sore throats and tonsillitis. The haematogenic (brown-eyed) constitution  Iridologists call the brown-eyed constitution the 'haematogenic' constitution. Brown-eyed people are at the opposite end of the reactivity spectrum from blue-eyed, lymphatic types. Rather than setting up a powerful inflammatory reaction to rid itself of unwanted material, the haematogenic system tends toward accumulation and excess. There are fewer early-warning signs, such as fever, in brown-eyed people, and as such any health conditions are likely to be more serious as and when symptoms do appear. Common conditions among haematogenics are metabolic disorders, including raised blood sugar leading eventually to type 2 diabetes, anxiety and stress, and lumps, bumps and cysts of all kinds. The mixed (hazel/green-eyed) constitution  The final iridological constitutional type is the mixed iris, which contains both pigmented (blue) and unpigmented (brown) areas upon examination. Mixed eyes look green or hazel to the observer. The watchword for mixed iris types is digestion, as there is often a reduced supply of digestive secretions from the pancreas, liver and gallbladder. As such, mixed iris types often suffer from bloating and gas after meals and may tend toward constipation. They are also more prone to dysbiosis, where the natural balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut becomes disturbed. An iridology assessment is as individual as you are After the constitution, the next level of the iridological assessment is the disposition, or broad structure of the iris fibres. The disposition tells the iridologist about factors such as energy usage, resistance to stress, immunity and susceptibility to injury. This is followed by the diathesis, which is mostly concerned with the patterns of pigment that usually exist above the level of the iris fibres. The diathesis provides information on acquired as well as innate factors - that is, things that have built up over the course of an individual's life. As well as these, the iridologist would take many other features into account when assessing an individual's health status - so as you can see, this brief discussion of constitution barely scratches the surface of iridology. And that's without even mentioning behavioural or emotional iridology! As witnessed by the increasing use of iris-scanning technology in our paranoid modern world, the iris is as individual as the fingerprint. It's no exaggeration to say that iridology provides a truly individual method of health assessment, one that can shed light on problems both past and current and which offers the promise of living a healthful life within the limits of the bodies in which we are born. Why not give it a try sometime?   What is herbal medicine? And what about iridology and naturopathy? Well, herbal medicine is medicine using plants instead of drugs. Simple, eh? Thanks for stopping by and see you next time! Except it's not that easy. While it may be true to say that herbalists use plants instead of drugs, that rather glib introductory phrase doesn't begin to touch upon the rich and varied threads that weave the tapestry of herbal medicine past, present and future. Neither does it acknowledge that pharmaceutical medicine would not exist without plant-derived chemicals, which represent some of its most important weapons even in 2015. But I'm getting ahead of myself. An introduction to herbal medicine, iridology and naturopathy |
An irregular blog
I'm Adam Smith, a Herbalist and Naturopath practising in the Surrey/West Sussex/Kent border area. Although I hope it will change, I don't currently post here regularly. Archives
February 2018
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