Where is the colon
Constipation and the Colon - Mayo Clinic
welcome back to our second video series
on constipation let's go ahead and find
out the role of the colon what it looks
like and how it works most literature
states that the colon is anywhere from
three to five feet in length layers of
muscle line its wall the muscle layers
are both circular and longitudinal the
muscle contractions produce movement or
motility that helps propel the stool
through the body there are four main
functions of the colon it absorbs water
insults from the waist it moves or
propels the waste through the colon it
stores waste until it's expelled
eventually the waste is evacuated this
is a perfect illustration of what the
colon looks like the colon actually
looks like a goalpost the right hand
side of your colon moves up the right
hand side it's called the ascending
colon the transverse colon moves across
the upper part of the abdominal area
your descending colon is the left hand
side it goes out the sigmoid colon and
down the rectum over here we have a
gentleman that looks like he's just
getting out of bed in the morning we
really encourage our patients to stretch
before they get out of bed in the
morning that increases the heart rate
enough to where that blood flow goes to
the stomach and it helps produce those
peristaltic contractions preparing the
colon to have that first evacuation of
the day another helpful hint we
encourage our patients to do is always
eat breakfast we encourage patients to
eat breakfast within that first 30 to 45
minutes of getting up that really
stimulates that colon again helping us
to have those times predictable bowel
movements back over here at the picture
of the colon you can see the small bowel
sits right in the middle of the colon it
empties liquid stool into the right hand
side of the colon the colon holds
anywhere from eight to ten cups of
liquid stool in a 24-hour period the
mechanism of the colon is to start
pulling that water off of the stool to
make it a firm stool you can see the
motility of the colon as it propels that
stool up you have these little
peristaltic waves that are always
producing movement and and
increasing the the movement of stool
through the colon appear same thing
you've got that motility going on
looking here on the left-hand side of
the colon you can see where that colon
is getting really skinny in it it's
propelling that stool into the rectal
vault this is actually called a mass
peristalsis we have about 6 mass
peristalsis per day it increases when we
get up in the morning or after we've had
a meal this actually produces our bowel
movement it pushes that stool into the
rectum once that stool hits the rectum
we develop an urge here we have an
illustration of that stool actually
sitting in the rectum once that stool
hits the rectum the stool distends the
rectum developing our urge indicating to
us that we need to go to the bathroom
once we get to the bathroom
we are beginning to evacuate our stool
our sphincter muscles stay completely
relaxed and we evacuate our stool
looking at this gentleman here it looks
like he is in the wrong seated position
when having a bowel movement we really
encourage our patients to sit more
upright when they have their bowel
movement we also encourage our patients
to use a footstool so that they can get
their feet up a little bit higher so
their knees are higher than their hips
this picture actually shows an excellent
position that a patient should be
sitting in while they're having their
bowel movement again if you'd like to
put a foot stool under your feet to get
your knees a little bit higher than your
hips that's going to help with that
evacuation of the stool when you're done
with your evacuation your rectal vault
should be completely clear your
sphincter muscles return back to resting
position this concludes the first two
videos in our series on constipation
we've gone over the common causes and
symptoms of constipation the role the
colon plays in constipation now we're
going to be moving on to video three and
four which is going to include lifestyle
modifications and helpful hints
