A Blend of Tradition and Medicine(Enemas)

When mom starts grinding leaves and soaking them in a pail, my tender heart skips because I know I will be given what I assume at that age to be an injection. I wondered most times why it was so painful, then I realised that my age and mentality made it painful. It was one injection through the anus that makes children cry most of the of the time, but when the liquid gets into the belly, a cool feeling of excitement is felt, and we get pressed, especially when the food we ate on the eve of this day was so satiable. I am speaking of enema.

I always thought it was only practiced by Nigerians because of how intentional mom was in giving us enemas before a new academic session resumes, and I also thought it was traditional and wasn't medically approved, but I was wrong. Enema is both a medical and a traditional term; being traditional implies that though it is the same process medical, the solvent extraction is herbal.

If you got the first part right, you can say that enema is a medical process where liquid is inserted into the body through the anus by soft pipes uniquely made for that purpose. When this liquid gets into the stomach, they stimulate bowel movement by occupying space and, as such, bringing out bowel waste materials with ease.

There are a lot of ways enema becomes useful to the body, and this depends on the type of enemas. I wondered why mom gave us enema before school resumption, and I discovered it was to clear our bowels most times when school resumes and a child is stressed out. An illness is likely to be encountered with an unclear bowel, and medications may not become effective since the tablet moves to the stomach.

Sometime ago I learnt that you don't eat before going for an operation. Maybe @aaliarubab or @dexsyluz can explain this better. Since an operation requires almost an empty bowel, enemas are used for bowel cleansing for surgeries or diagnostic procedures and administering medication. They are also different types of enemas, and they are dependent on purpose; we have herbal, medicated, cleansing, retention enemas, etc.

Enema is not all rosy because it causes an imbalance in electrolyte in the body. I believe this imbalance would have led to my neighbour's kidney damage because potassium and sodium are very necessary to the body to maintain fluid balance. So get infected, especially families that think since they are family the same pipes could be used, it is wrong to share these pipes; medically, this doesn't occur.

Traditional in Nigeria, we take herbal enemas, and this solvent is an extract from leaves prescribed by an herbalist or those who have experienced the benefit of these leaves. Most times, this enema is taken as a medication once a month or annually, but since I have witnessed how the enema almost destroyed the kidney of one of my neighbours, I think the best solvent is water for illness treatment to cleanse the bowels followed a medical prescription.