Some believe going to bathroom every 2 or 3 days is not constipation. I have a different opinion. Eating food from the mouth to rectum takes about 12 hours. If we finish dinner at 6:30 in the evening and go to bathroom at 6:30 in the next morning, we excrete all foods eaten yesterday. Otherwise we carry unnecessary stools in our body at least one more day. Is there any good reason to carry unnecessary stool in our body? Only reason I can think is that too skinny person wants to look plump. Whatever it is, we must not carry it to next day.
Women have more tendencies to have constipation than man. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, women belong to yin and men belong to yang. Yin's character is gathering and contraction. Yang's is dispersing and expansion. Of course this is a general concept only and doesn't apply to all cases. Men can suffer with constipation and women with diarrhea, too. Some experience with alternate constipation and diarrhea which is irritable bowel syndrome. I will discuss this syndrome separately.
Some says drinking water helps. The fact is to make more frequent urination and not better for constipation. Some suggest eating more fibers. Yes, this helps definitely. However some who eats lots of fiber suffer with constipation. Some take laxatives or enema everyday or whenever necessary. If constipation returns without laxatives, we have to remember that large intestine function would be decreased ultimately. Some dig out into rectum by finger wearing vinyl glove. When those who suffer with constipation get colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy etc, some kinds of polyps, inflamed tissues or even cancer could be found more often than normal person.
Some are afraid of going to bathroom because of constipation. Some suffer with bellyache, unnecessary weight gains, look ugly on the lower abdomen, cause hemorrhoid making bleeding due to breaking rectum. There are some other symptoms not known to western field. Frontal headache, skin dryness and roughness, acnes, and atopic skin could follow due to toxic gas rising accumulated in the large intestine. Stools cannot move to small intestine, but gas can. This kind of gas contains heat, causing moisturized skin dry including neck and face. This is oxidant causing less supply of nutrition and oxygen to head area. This will cause skin get older fast and make more wrinkles.
There are lots of reasons for constipation according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. There are heat in the large intestine, Qi and blood deficiency especially from old aged and etc. All these subjects are difficult for ordinary people to understand. The best way in my opinion is to activate function of large intestine which is peristaltic movement by activation of Qi and blood and removing heat accumulated in the large intestine.
Clinical case: One old couple came for treatment of constipation. They tried everything such as more fibers, stool softener, laxative and etc. After the first treatment, they felt something moving, but not enough power to excrete easily. The second session gave the husband full power to excrete every thing remained in the body. According to them, a toilet bowl was full of stool and they couldn't flush with water. A superintendent came and made it to go. The wife had same experience like the husband after third sessions and called the superintendant. They felt their body become light and walk in the air.