From Heart Surgery to Happy Pelvis: Poop Strategies for Heart Surgery Patients
Hey to all of my heart friends. This episode may be a tad cringy at times. Sorry, not sorry.
Curious about what happens after open-heart surgery that no one else seems to talk about? Dr. Kelly Sadauckas takes us on a journey into a post-operative topic that’s often overlooked: pooping. This episode sheds light on the intricate processes involved in digestion and bowel movement and reveals surprising ways to prepare for and recover from surgery more smoothly. We do our best to make the complex world of gut health accessible and—dare we say it—fun!
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**I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Be sure to check in with your care team about all the next right steps for you and your heart.**
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Transcript
Poop is significantly and uniquely
Speaker:correlated to quality of life as we age, and especially as
Speaker:we have big scary surgical procedures. So
Speaker:the more that we can make it not so scary and
Speaker:uncomfortable to talk about, the better. Welcome to open
Speaker:heart Surgery with Boots, where this February we're
Speaker:going below the belt. That's right. We're
Speaker:diving into the surprisingly connected world of heart
Speaker:surgery and pelvic floor health in this five part
Speaker:series. Join me and our special guest expert, Dr.
Speaker:Kelly Sudakis as we talk about everything you're too
Speaker:embarrassed to ask your cardiologist. From what makes a
Speaker:happy pelvis, to getting your groove back after
Speaker:surgery, to yes, even the great post
Speaker:op debate. With candid
Speaker:conversations, practical advice and plenty of laughs,
Speaker:we're exploring the ups and downs of recovery.
Speaker:Because let's face it, healing happens from top
Speaker:to bottom. So buckle up for some real talk about the parts
Speaker:of recovery nobody warned you about. Hi,
Speaker:Boots Knighton here with Dr. Kelly Sudakis and
Speaker:we are bringing the pelvis floor
Speaker:game to you this month for Heart month. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker:everything so far. This is episode four. We
Speaker:released a special one on Friday,
Speaker:Valentine's Day on sexy time. So if you
Speaker:missed that, be sure to go back and catch it. We kept it short and
Speaker:sweet, but if you are able to
Speaker:get a video of this somehow I know a lot of you just walk around
Speaker:with me in your ears and thank you. I'm so honored. But Kelly
Speaker:is rocking a poop hat
Speaker:in honor of our topic, which is pooping post open
Speaker:art surgery. I want to do my best to be
Speaker:professional here and also a human at the same time while I
Speaker:look at my friend. Yes. So
Speaker:welcome back, Dr. Kelly. Thank you so much
Speaker:for having me. Boots. It's an honor to be here. And
Speaker:part of the reason I'm wearing this hat is
Speaker:sometimes I don't. I can't believe it. But sometimes people don't like to
Speaker:talk about poop. I don't know. I don't know. But
Speaker:it is something that literally everyone poops. You poop, your
Speaker:parents poop, your friends poop, everybody poops. And so it is something that
Speaker:we really should feel comfortable and confident talking about.
Speaker:And poop is significantly and uniquely
Speaker:correlated to quality of life as we age and especially as
Speaker:we have big scary surgical procedures. So
Speaker:the more that we can make it not so scary and
Speaker:uncomfortable to talk about, the better. So, I mean, me and my silly poo
Speaker:pat, like, if this helps you be able to think about how often you're pooping
Speaker:or how much fiber you're eating, like without getting all queasy, then
Speaker:great. I'm so happy to be able to provide that.
Speaker:So to set the stage. Love it.
Speaker:Yes. Like, to set the stage of why pooping is
Speaker:important. Boots, tell me about your poop experience
Speaker:post your surgery. Yeah, it was
Speaker:epic. I couldn't poop
Speaker:for a minute there. And we hear about that a lot. A lot
Speaker:of times stool softeners are prescribed post any
Speaker:surgery. And I went to the hospital expecting
Speaker:that. So I wanted to be able to have a more natural experience.
Speaker:So I brought a special tea called I think Smooth
Speaker:Move. And I. By the time I
Speaker:drank it, I was. I. And I knew how important it was
Speaker:to go for like process post open heart surgery. And
Speaker:so I overdid it. I drank two glasses
Speaker:of it. So two tea bags. And it. Let's
Speaker:just say it worked exceptionally well to the point that I needed to
Speaker:utilize the services of all the CNAs on the floor. And
Speaker:then what that did was, it was embarrassing. It was in the middle of the
Speaker:night, which, I mean, they're there to work, but I was so tired, I
Speaker:needed to be sleeping. I had made a mess. It was just really so
Speaker:uncomfortable. Mind, body, spirit.
Speaker:Absolutely, absolutely. And so, you know, I. And we can't
Speaker:promise, like, oh, had you known this that it would have been different, but. But
Speaker:it might have been. And you know, there's going to be listeners where this will
Speaker:make a difference for them, so we are going to have some fun.
Speaker:Okay, quick question. If I show this to you, is it the
Speaker:right direction or is it backwards? Boots, it's the right direction. I think it's the
Speaker:right. Oh my gosh. Cameras are amazing.
Speaker:So not very many people understand what poop
Speaker:is. And so we are going to start off just explaining to you how
Speaker:your amazing, beautiful body makes poop in the first place. And
Speaker:along that journey, we are going to discover some ways that
Speaker:we can set ourselves up for success for the best post operative
Speaker:poop ever. Now, as with most things, the
Speaker:best time to start preparing your body for the first post operative
Speaker:poop is two months before your operation. Right. And not
Speaker:everyone, I mean, or 20 years.
Speaker:Like, we want to get a poop perfect as soon as our lives as
Speaker:humanly possible. The second best time to improve our poop
Speaker:function is right now. So if you're listening to this
Speaker:and you're 20 years old, medical student. Heck yeah. If you're listening
Speaker:to this and you're 70 years old after your first surgery and you're terrified
Speaker:Heck yeah. Welcome. This is going to help everybody. So those of you that are
Speaker:just listening, I'll, I'll take some amazing pictures of this and boots. We can put
Speaker:them in the show notes so people can download. But my first
Speaker:picture is all about poop.
Speaker:And the first thing that's involved in poop
Speaker:formation is what food and water go
Speaker:into the system first. Friends, if you're not eating
Speaker:enough food, you are not going to be able to poop. Okay?
Speaker:Food is fuel for your beautiful body. So
Speaker:we got to get fuel in. If there's no fuel in, you will not have
Speaker:stuff to push out in the poop. Additionally, we need enough
Speaker:water. Water. If without water we are going to not have great
Speaker:cognitive function, our bladder is going to be pissed off and we're going to have
Speaker:little rabbit turds. Without enough water, we will be
Speaker:constipated. But I could just interject. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker:let's go back. Way to like Super 101.
Speaker:Like pooping is so important because it
Speaker:gets toxins out of our body.
Speaker:So. Yes, so yes. But
Speaker:more importantly, pooping is a
Speaker:reflection of how well our
Speaker:microbiome, and I will take that even back one step further in a
Speaker:second. How well our microbiome is digesting our food. Food to
Speaker:actually give us nutrients. So the microbiome is a, is
Speaker:a biota. It's little tiny bugs, not bad bugs,
Speaker:good bugs that live inside the tubes in your stomach
Speaker:and they help digest the food. When they
Speaker:digest the food, that's what makes these nutrients available for
Speaker:us to actually receive nourishment. And guess
Speaker:what? Those good little bugs that live inside of
Speaker:us, they need fiber. Fiber feed
Speaker:your microbiome. So if you don't eat any fiber, fiber is not
Speaker:just the stuff that forms the poop. It feeds your microbiome. If you don't
Speaker:eat any fiber, there's a chance that food could go through and you're
Speaker:only pulling out a little bit of the nourishment. So that's not okay
Speaker:either. Right? Like all of us, I think as I go through this
Speaker:full thing, that particular part will make a little bit more sense.
Speaker:So the food that's going in, we need enough food to actually form
Speaker:poop. So that's the first thing we look at. And as far
Speaker:as fluid ounces, we take your body weight in pounds
Speaker:and divide it by two and that is your target
Speaker:number of baseline ounces of water to take in a
Speaker:day, 75% of it, preferably non
Speaker:caffeinated, to make sure that we're actually getting hydrated stuff.
Speaker:If you live in a high altitude, if you're breastfeeding, exercising, then you actually
Speaker:need a little bit more than that bare minimum. But that's how you find your
Speaker:bare minimum for what your body needs. Fiber. We
Speaker:want 10 grams of fiber at every meal or meal
Speaker:snack combo for 20 to 30 grams
Speaker:a day. And most Americans specifically are woefully
Speaker:inadequate in fiber. But that's the basic that we need.
Speaker:As we're going to see as we travel down the poop's journey, that fiber is
Speaker:what's going to actually feed the good bugs that live in the tubes in our
Speaker:stomach to break down the food for us and get us nourishment.
Speaker:So food and water go in. We chew it with our very sharp teeth right
Speaker:here, chewing it and the saliva starts to
Speaker:break down the food so that those little bio tas, those little
Speaker:buggies, good buggies, can break, can get us the nutrients.
Speaker:It goes down the tube into the stomach where it gets all churned up
Speaker:with acid. Woo hoo. And if we have a gallbladder,
Speaker:a little extra shot of bile to further break stuff down.
Speaker:And now it's like a sludge, right? I know, it's, it's very, very fabulous.
Speaker:The sludge leaves the stomach and goes into your small intestine,
Speaker:which I have shown is just a little swirly do here. The
Speaker:small intestine is where those lot of those
Speaker:microbiome, those good bugs live. And they're going to eat the
Speaker:fiber. When they eat the fiber they're going to release all sorts of stuff that
Speaker:helps our body break down the food and absorb the
Speaker:nutrients. And if we don't have enough fiber, those little
Speaker:bugs can't do their job. And number one, we're not absorbing
Speaker:the food. And number two, the speed with which the food is going through
Speaker:the tubes is going to slow. And that's a problem.
Speaker:After the food goes through your small intestine,
Speaker:it goes through something called your cecum to your large
Speaker:intestine which is where water is
Speaker:resorbing. Now it's going to switch from sludge to looking more what we
Speaker:think poop should look like. The very
Speaker:end of the tube it's going to go through your sigmoid
Speaker:colon which is not to scale, but it's two 90 degree
Speaker:turns. Randy, the rectum here, hey.
Speaker:The poop comes down and then when it's ready to be stored before
Speaker:we eliminate it, it makes two 90 degree turns and then
Speaker:pressure of that formed poop
Speaker:on the internal anal sphincter
Speaker:tells us if we have to fart poop or if
Speaker:we're about to have a poop emergency and run to the
Speaker:bathroom. Holy heck, isn't that crazy pants. Thank you
Speaker:for the, the amazing drawing. And for those who are only
Speaker:listening and can't see, I'll make sure I even post some of these back
Speaker:pictures on Instagram for you. But that's a
Speaker:really helpful model. And you know, I wonder if that's even covered in
Speaker:health in high school these days. I don't even know to be
Speaker:honest. It's certainly not covered. You know, I went to PT school over 20
Speaker:years ago. We didn't cover functional medicine. Food
Speaker:is medicine at that point. And so much of that, you know, people think
Speaker:that it's just fiber to like just form the poop and so they
Speaker:oh, I'm just going to take this Metamucil and no, it's about so much more
Speaker:than that. It's about fueling the body, you know, and then there's a
Speaker:whole nother step. We have another of Dr. Kelly's famous stick figures
Speaker:here, like that rectum piece that
Speaker:when the poop's kind of entering in that holding zone, if we
Speaker:are dehydrated without fiber, that poop is going to spend
Speaker:way too much time in that tube. I'm going to feel
Speaker:ucky. And then when the poop comes down, if that
Speaker:rectum is resting too tight, it's very hard to open
Speaker:the door and relaxing the rectum. We
Speaker:talked about this in one of our first videos together. But we're going to recap
Speaker:because some people are just going to be here for the poop. They want to
Speaker:get the shiz on the poop. The
Speaker:pelvic floor muscles are like an elevator that's meant to live
Speaker:on the ground floor of a four story building. And most
Speaker:pelvic problems, including constipation. A part of that problem is the
Speaker:pelvic floor resting too tight. And that too tightness of the
Speaker:rectum puts the brake on all of this shiz traveling
Speaker:through the intestine. So it keeps the stuff in the tube more longer than it
Speaker:should, which makes it harder. Boo. But
Speaker:additionally, when that pelvic elevator rests on
Speaker:the ground floor, which is where it's meant to be, and we can do something
Speaker:called bearing down, which is not straining. It is a gently
Speaker:blossoming of just your pelvic floor muscles. That dropping
Speaker:and opening of the rectum is the cue for your colon to
Speaker:push your poop out. So just like your
Speaker:bladder pushes your Pee out. We should never strain to pee. Your
Speaker:colon should push your poop out. You should never strain to have a
Speaker:poop. And then technically your uterus should push a baby out. So, you
Speaker:know, talk to, talk to me later about that.
Speaker:But if someone's dehydrated and they have this tight pelvic floor and they're
Speaker:sitting, sitting on a toilet that's really high
Speaker:and their hips are higher than their knees, that actually also makes it
Speaker:harder for the body to succeed. So shifting
Speaker:gears. If we didn't know about all of this before
Speaker:our surgery and now we're really scared about the
Speaker:first post operative poop, things that can help. Take the stool
Speaker:softener. Absolutely. In the hospital
Speaker:bathroom, get a squatty potty or a small stool to put your feet
Speaker:on so that your knees can be high than
Speaker:your hips. Relax your pelvic
Speaker:floor to the best of your ability. Do some of these nice belly breaths
Speaker:where the belly gets bigger and the pelvic floor softens and
Speaker:drops down. And if you feel like you have to
Speaker:push, don't push. That's too much pressure, especially if you've had the
Speaker:sternotomy. So take a couple of folded sheets
Speaker:and push them against your
Speaker:lower belly like so while
Speaker:you breathe out and try to relax
Speaker:and blossom the pelvic floor. Those are the things
Speaker:that you can do to help set yourself up for
Speaker:success. Does that make sense? Boots. Do you have any questions? And we
Speaker:also talked about that. The risk of cardiac events if you
Speaker:bear down. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Your doctor never wants you
Speaker:to. Yeah. If we squeeze. And there
Speaker:have been instances of people having cardiac events on the toilet
Speaker:when they're just trying to force poop out. And that is something that
Speaker:is completely avoidable if we just know to talk about it
Speaker:and know that there's help. And if all of this is feeling a little
Speaker:overwhelming, like, please don't let it be overwhelming, see this as a blessing
Speaker:and a gift. That. Oh, wow. I can't believe how much I didn't know. And
Speaker:seek to learn more. Um, you know, my online courses teach you about relaxing
Speaker:your pelvic floor. Boots and I, after this, we're going to guide you through a
Speaker:specific pelvic floor relaxation. There's probably pelvic floor pts
Speaker:near you. I, I have a great blog, how to find a pelvic floor PT
Speaker:near me. Go look at it. You know, email me if you have
Speaker:questions about trying to find someone near you. Because this is something
Speaker:that beyond just heart clients. This is important for everyone,
Speaker:but it's especially important. Important for her clients.
Speaker:Now the one other thing we can do, boots to set ourselves
Speaker:up for this great post surgical poop or to
Speaker:jumpstart our poops is the best belly massage
Speaker:ever. Oh my gosh. And guess what? Yeah, I
Speaker:drew something. Oh, man,
Speaker:you really brought your A game today. Thank you, girl. Thank you.
Speaker:I know. We'll make sure you guys all have downloads of these. I'll. Maybe I'll
Speaker:sign a couple. We can like frame them. So yeah, put a TM
Speaker:or a copy, right? Oh my gosh.
Speaker:It's amazing. So what that and those of you who
Speaker:are watching, you got to see this. Those of you listening again, come find boots
Speaker:show notes because you'll get a downloadable for that PDF. But
Speaker:belly massage is important for
Speaker:a million reasons. Number one
Speaker:is heart surgery stressful. Life's stressful.
Speaker:Being constipated is stressful. Stress
Speaker:elevates the tone of that pelvic floor and heightens our sympathetic nervous system,
Speaker:which is fight or flight, which slows
Speaker:digestion. So rubbing
Speaker:your belly, especially while we are practicing
Speaker:relaxed breathing, calms that sympathetic
Speaker:system. It helps promote rest and digest
Speaker:to move poop through the tube faster. So
Speaker:post operatively, you can be laying in
Speaker:bed and I'm going to show this for those of you watching. You can have
Speaker:a hand, you know, at the bottom of the sternotomy incision so we know we're
Speaker:nowhere near there. And you can rub your sweet
Speaker:little belly very gently in little clockwise
Speaker:circles all the way around your belly
Speaker:button. This gentle rubbing and you're going to do
Speaker:that with soft belly breaths wherever it feels comfortable.
Speaker:And if you're not comfortable touching the skin for whatever
Speaker:reason, do it over your hospital gown at even the
Speaker:most gentle pressure will stimulate your lymphatic system, which
Speaker:is extremely beneficial. And doing that sunflower
Speaker:massage is what we call it for three to five minutes
Speaker:helps improve the mobility of all of the nerves that
Speaker:go to the colon to help make poop.
Speaker:And that belly breathing helps
Speaker:calm the fight or flight system. The belly breathing
Speaker:stimulates rest and digest. It helps you relax your pelvic floor.
Speaker:All things that are going to help the body move the literal
Speaker:crap through the system. Right. And post operatively
Speaker:clearing the medical crap. Absolutely. We need to get that
Speaker:med. The medicine was amazing while you were knocked out. We got to get it
Speaker:out of your system now. So you would do that?
Speaker:Can I interrupt? Because I have a question? Yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking about
Speaker:everyone who's listening with me. So like for me and This
Speaker:I think will be for most open heart surgery patients. I had two
Speaker:tubes coming out like probably at
Speaker:least 2 to 3 inches below my boobs, but in the center.
Speaker:Right. And so can you still do that massage? So that's a
Speaker:great. Yeah, no, that's a great call. I forgot about the ports for drainage.
Speaker:Yeah, so you could. But thank you. It would just be right down here if
Speaker:you have those ports. I was, I was honestly thinking more of angioplasty when we
Speaker:went up through the groin. Forgive me, but yeah. So you
Speaker:would do these little circles more down like again, like wherever the
Speaker:ports are. Hand on the ports and just beneath the belly
Speaker:button. Then. Thank you. Boots. So that there's no tension on
Speaker:where those ports are coming in. Right. If for any
Speaker:reason your doctor says no, again, everyone's going to be
Speaker:unique, then just the lightest hand pressure over
Speaker:that lower inguinal groin region is going to be
Speaker:extremely beneficial. That is one of your main
Speaker:lymphatic dump areas and
Speaker:there's a whole lot of lymph clearing that needs to happen. And
Speaker:then once the ports, once the drains come out,
Speaker:then we can talk with the surgeons about exactly what happened in your
Speaker:case. Typically it'll be that light pressure is going to be
Speaker:allowed as soon as things are covered up and sealed. And then
Speaker:soft tissue healing wise, anywhere from four to six weeks
Speaker:post procedure when we would start to use kind of a deeper pressure around that
Speaker:area. But that's where an in person medical provider can
Speaker:really help you there deciding when you can start to put more pressure. But
Speaker:that lower area, belly button and below is typically fair
Speaker:game. Right? Well, and something
Speaker:else that I've noticed in my own journey, I'm just thinking
Speaker:just a simple act and I'm asking your professional opinion
Speaker:here. I'm just finding just simple. The simple act of putting your hand
Speaker:even right around the drains in the hospital and just sending it
Speaker:like love and talking to your body.
Speaker:Because like for instance this morning I went to the gym before this
Speaker:recording and I'm working on a few. I mean I'm always
Speaker:working on something in there. But like I should be
Speaker:like kind of my go to now is I like visualize the
Speaker:movement before I do it and then it's amazing like, and I
Speaker:talk to my body parts that I'm trying to get to move and
Speaker:executing that movement. And I can only
Speaker:imagine just a simple act of setting and sending an
Speaker:intention to that part of the body to,
Speaker:to work, get to healing. Post open heart surgery, I would need to
Speaker:be Reminded if I were like, I'm just putting my, you know, it's four years
Speaker:ago today that I had my surgery, and I just
Speaker:remember how much of a fog I was in. So I would need someone to
Speaker:overtly remind me to do that. But, like, we
Speaker:have power to heal ourselves is my point. Yes. And even
Speaker:just that power of your hand over the drainage spot, or just your hand,
Speaker:or a partner or a loved one's hand on your lower
Speaker:belly and belly breathing, that helps
Speaker:show your brain that it's okay to pay
Speaker:attention to the body again. The brain does not understand what just
Speaker:happened in that open heart surgery. It. It doesn't know that that just
Speaker:saved your life. It just knows. Holy shit, that was scary.
Speaker:And how the brain's going to protect us is going to be to separate, to
Speaker:dissociate from whatever it can. And that dissociation
Speaker:is what results in a lot of these musculoskeletal
Speaker:changes that we can address
Speaker:calmly and specifically and gently. But it's, you know,
Speaker:one step at a time. So, yes, just that gentle hand pressure there while you
Speaker:belly breathe. If we don't feel comfortable touching, maybe you're not allowed to.
Speaker:Maybe you had something happen up the groin. Right. There's lots of things that can
Speaker:go up the groin during these surgeries. Right. Just putting the hand on the
Speaker:belly can be very beneficial to speak to the
Speaker:visualization. There is so much
Speaker:science behind that in athletic
Speaker:performance, in healing, in life, when you
Speaker:visualize something happening, nearly all of
Speaker:the same sensory motor pathways are
Speaker:stimulated as when you actually do it. So you're helping your
Speaker:brain. You're visualizing standing up, easy, walking to the bathroom, sit down,
Speaker:having the best poop of your life standing up. Again, it does all of
Speaker:those things without the metabolic demand of actually
Speaker:making the muscles work. So it's great practice.
Speaker:And, you know, so that is that visualization. And then it has your
Speaker:body practice going through that poop scenario without
Speaker:terrible pain, without the blowout, and that helps it
Speaker:gain confidence. So that is, yes, so valuable. Thank you
Speaker:for bringing up that visualization. I actually recorded a whole
Speaker:episode on Visualization way back towards the beginning of
Speaker:this podcast because I, I visualize my
Speaker:surgery going well and I visualize myself thriving
Speaker:post open heart surgery. And it works. So important, so
Speaker:important. And again, in the Western medical model, we are a
Speaker:sickness model. We are not a primary preventative
Speaker:wellness, and we are not holistic as we should be. So thank
Speaker:you for bringing that out to people. Now,
Speaker:later, post heart surgery, like, you know,
Speaker:we're past four to six weeks, all the drains are out. We're doing pretty good.
Speaker:Then you can advance to the full
Speaker:blown best belly massage
Speaker:ever. And that's where we start off with
Speaker:three to five minutes of that whole belly going
Speaker:in clockwise, circles, clockwise around the belly button.
Speaker:Belly breathing the whole time. And we are mobilizing
Speaker:skin on fat, on fascia, on
Speaker:organs, on muscles, on fascia, on organs,
Speaker:on all of the things. And it is so healing.
Speaker:And what you're feeling for is you're feeling for these sweet belly
Speaker:tissues to feel like perfect bread dough or
Speaker:soft pizza dough. And if you've never made bread or pizza, that's your homework.
Speaker:You got to go make some so you understand what we're feeling for. And when
Speaker:you sit down and you relax, that's what your beautiful tummy should feel
Speaker:like. And the first time you do this, like six weeks post open
Speaker:heart surgery is not going to feel like soft belly
Speaker:dough or soft pizza dough. It's going to feel like peas and
Speaker:carrots or like strings or like you're going to
Speaker:push on a spot. I have a little adhesion here and like, instead of like,
Speaker:here's good. There's like a little weight. If you can see, great. If you can't
Speaker:listen, I'm pushing on one side of my belly and there's like a wave of
Speaker:tissue and then I get to the midline and the wave stops and there's like
Speaker:a little divot in. I have an adhesion there. I can
Speaker:work on that gently. I keep it because it's perfect for
Speaker:demonstration purposes and it's not
Speaker:causing me any functional issues, so I don't care. I keep it there. But
Speaker:we notice that. And then we do this for about three to five
Speaker:minutes while we belly breathe. And then we put our flat hand
Speaker:right over our belly button or a bit lower and we do
Speaker:what very technically called smushing. We push to the
Speaker:right and then to the left and gentle pressure,
Speaker:whatever feels comfortable. We're never going to push into any, like, sharp pain.
Speaker:And I see what way it goes further. And usually it's
Speaker:going to go further in one direction than the other. That's the way
Speaker:I want to push to. I'm going to push into ease. So if I
Speaker:go left and then right and it's harder for me to go
Speaker:right, I push into ease and I belly breathe
Speaker:for again, three to five
Speaker:minutes. Friends, what this is doing.
Speaker:We have fascia throughout our whole body.
Speaker:Most of us are familiar with the it band and the knee that's
Speaker:a big band of fascia. It's gristly tissue.
Speaker:Fascia of the legs and the arms. Like, we can be kind of
Speaker:rough with it, and it will respond. Fascia of your
Speaker:belly is protecting very vital organs. So if you
Speaker:poke in there aggressively, it will actually
Speaker:tighten further. And this is a
Speaker:contractile tissue that you're not in charge of. This is just something that happens. So
Speaker:if I do that smushing and I push to the
Speaker:left and push to the right, and the right's hard, and I just kind of
Speaker:try to force it, the body's gonna sense
Speaker:maybe something's not right. It's gonna keep tension. But if I smush
Speaker:into ease the way it wants to go and belly
Speaker:breathe, it says, oh, this is okay. And after three to five minutes,
Speaker:it will soften at that fascial level. And
Speaker:now you've reduced compression forces on these nerves that are going to your
Speaker:digestive bits. And your poop system's gonna work better,
Speaker:folks. It's amazing. It's dang near a miracle. And it's
Speaker:minutes, not seconds. You could then repeat it in another direction.
Speaker:Usually we just tell people to do it like one direction at the start for
Speaker:time, and then the final piece of
Speaker:mobilizing all the nerves, we call colic
Speaker:massage. But in reality, we're not actually massaging the
Speaker:colon. The colon is the name for the large intestine, right. And.
Speaker:And typically, there's this massage called I love you. Where you go
Speaker:here at your descending colon here,
Speaker:transverse, and down. So you go down on the. Wait, rights and
Speaker:lefts. Here we go down on the left side of your body, and then across
Speaker:and down, and then you make, like, a big U. But I think the way
Speaker:that we like to teach it a little bit better, forgive me.
Speaker:Is we actually try to start down here at the sigmoid colon where
Speaker:Randy the rectum lives. And if we looked at the
Speaker:picture, it's that holding space for the poop that has to
Speaker:do two 90 degree turns. So laying
Speaker:down sitting with a relaxed tummy, you go deep to your
Speaker:low left side and you pull
Speaker:three to five times. If you have zero pain, you
Speaker:can do medium pressure. If this hurts for any reason, you can just do the
Speaker:lightest pressure three to five times. And now we've kind of
Speaker:cleared the sigmoid colon to help the poop move
Speaker:better. And more importantly, we've cleared the nerves that go
Speaker:to the sigmoid colon to help it work better. That's actually what we're
Speaker:clearing. Following that, we do the descending
Speaker:colon. So we put our hands just below our left rib cage, push
Speaker:in and down into that sigmoid colon where we started
Speaker:the last one. And then we release three to five times
Speaker:straight down. And ideally, you're laying down or sitting down with a
Speaker:perfectly relaxed belly. Now I've cleared
Speaker:descending and sigmoid, so now I do transverse. I
Speaker:go from my under my right ribs straight across
Speaker:three to five times. This might be the spot that's the most
Speaker:tenuous if we've had the sternotomy and the
Speaker:ports. So again, even the lightest pressure is fine, but we do want to
Speaker:restore normal mobility there. Second to last is
Speaker:ascending colon, which is lower right hip,
Speaker:pressing in and lifting straight up three to five
Speaker:times. And then finally the cecum, which is
Speaker:where your small intestine meets your large intestine
Speaker:three to five times. And if we can
Speaker:do all three of those, oh, my gosh, triple gold
Speaker:star. But even just one of them with the gentlest
Speaker:pressure can help that neurological system and help you have the best
Speaker:poops ever. And this is kind of like a
Speaker:lifelong thing that we can master it right now and benefit the rest of our
Speaker:lives. So I hope you enjoy it. Oh, yes. And
Speaker:I guess order matters. Like, if you're going to do all of
Speaker:them, you need to clear the bottom first. There is. Yeah, there's
Speaker:a reason. And then order does matter. And sunflower before smushing,
Speaker:before colic massage. Yes. And
Speaker:anything's better than nothing, so don't let you know. Perfection
Speaker:be the enemy of good enough. Just touching the belly is going to matter
Speaker:in a positive way. Wow. I know, right? And,
Speaker:yeah, you are so welcome. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:Yeah. This has been so enlightening, and
Speaker:I. I hope that for y'all listening that
Speaker:you will put this to practice. And this
Speaker:is free. You get to do this for free. And that's the whole point
Speaker:of the series and of this podcast, is that I want to give you as
Speaker:much for free that you can do on your own in your. In the
Speaker:comfort of your own home or hospital bed, to make
Speaker:sure you have the easiest path forward to
Speaker:healing as possible.
Speaker:Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. And if you guys are also
Speaker:interested in diving in a little bit more to the pelvic floor.
Speaker:Floor. I do have a wide variety of online courses
Speaker:available for streaming from the comfort and privacy of your own
Speaker:home. We're offering OHS
Speaker:2025 open heart surgery. OHS
Speaker:2025. You're going to get 25 off courses.
Speaker:And there's a lot that are very specific to
Speaker:surgeries or incontinence. And then there's the Treasure Chest, which
Speaker:is all of my veritable knowledge. And that's
Speaker:where Poop Lab will exist. And that's the one that's
Speaker:all about poop. And that's fun because that's just a low monthly
Speaker:subscription rate. So we want to help as many pelvises as possible.
Speaker:Also, our Instagram has a lot of free silly stuff and the blog
Speaker:is also a treasure trove of information to help you have the best
Speaker:poop, pelvis and heart of your life life. So I'm
Speaker:so glad you're here, Boots. Thank you so much for offering me this chance to
Speaker:be on your show. I just am here for the poop hat. I have one
Speaker:at work too. I know that won't shock you.
Speaker:Oh wow. Well, you've heard it here, everyone. Thank you so much for
Speaker:being here. I hope you've been part of this entire series. If you're
Speaker:just finding us thanks to poop, then welcome.
Speaker:We are so glad you are here. Here. And be sure to go back and
Speaker:get the rest of the series because
Speaker:it's all. It's all such necessary information that I really
Speaker:wish I had had when I was facing open heart surgery.
Speaker:So remember, I love you. You matter. Your heart is
Speaker:your best friend. Be sure to come back next week for more with open
Speaker:heart surgery with Boots.
