IBS sucks. Whether it’s IBS-C or IBS-D or some combination of the two, it’s no fun either way. I live with the combination kind. It will swing over to constipation for a while then it will swing back to diahrea for a while and usually lives in some strange land in between, where I never feel like things are fully cleared. This often means a lot of bathroom trips and often a lot of wiping.
A couple of years ago two of my best friends introduced me to something that makes my life with IBS so much easier. It’s become a thing that I don’t want to be without. We now have two and it’s possibly the thing I miss most when we travel. What is it you ask? what is the magical thing that makes living IBS so much easier?
It’s a bidet.
It’s not the fancy kind like you only see in European vacation movies, although my guess is that it works about as well. My bidet doesn’t require any home renovations or fancy hook-ups. It just hooks up to the standard toilet. My husband installed it in about 5 minutes. We’ve got the Luxe Bidet Neo 110 . When my friends introduced me to this little device I was curious and a little shy about the whole idea of it. But, I gave it a try and my butt thanked me. So, I convinced my husband to let me buy one for our house. Initially, I could tell he wasn’t planning to use it himself. But, after hooking it up he gave it a try and now he’s just as hooked as I am.
The Neo 100 is their basic model. It doesn’t have warm water hook-up and it only has one nozzle. It has just one dial to control the pressure of the spray. I am perfectly happy at the lowest setting and can’t imagine going higher, but my husband likes a stronger spray.
They have fancier models, like the Neo 185 that I’ve considered purchasing because it has a “female” nozzle, basically a nozzle that sprays a little further forward to help you clean the girly bits. That said I actually use my Neo 110 to clean my girly bits by just leaning forward and scooting back a little bit. There are also higher end models that hook up to your hot water giving you a warm water spray instead of the cold water spray. I’ve heard a few people comment on the cold spray but it was never something that bothered me, so I’d never really thought about a warm spray as a need.
I think a good bidet is one of those “you don’t know what you are missing till you’ve tried it” kind of things. I certainly never would have guessed that I’d be so excited to have water squirt up my butt. But, living with IBS and the joys of wondering if you are going to clog up the toilet with all that paper (and my toilets clog enough without the help) it’s been a huge help. My butt thanks me, my pipes (the house pipes) thank me. Even my husband ended up thanking me.
There are many different options you can choose from and a range of price points, but I’ll stick with these as they work well and are affordable.
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