Detox down below

As the title of a classic children’s book states, everyone poops. But not every one has the inclination—not to mention the stomach—to help others rid their bowels of fecal matter.

Maxine LeClerc does. She is a colon therapist, certified by the International Association for Colon Hydrotherapy (I-ACT). LeClerc lives in Oroville and has practiced colon cleansing in Chico for the past 14 years.

It’s a late-in-life career for LeClerc, who’s 75 and still going strong. She worked for years as a legal secretary, then in her 50s worked as a clerk at Zucchini & Vine.

“I never dreamed I would ever do something like this,” LeClerc said. “But I had cancer about 15 years ago, and after I went through the traditional treatments of surgery and radiation, I had no control of my bowels. I tried many different things, and a friend suggested I try colonics. … After my first one, I realized this is something I needed to do for the rest of my life.”

She also felt a calling to help others, so LeClerc got trained and certified, bought a colon-cleansing machine and opened an office.

“I love it,” she said. “I have fabulous clients and meet beautiful people. … It’s great helping people have quality of life. It’s fun teaching people they don’t have to suffer with gas or bloating or constipation or diarrhea—or just plain not feeling good.”

LeClerc uses a “closed system” that keeps the material contained so “you don’t smell anything,” she said. The process typically takes 30 to 40 minutes, but there’s no rush on the call of nature.

After the client relaxes on his/her back, LeClerc gently inserts a speculum connected to two tubes: one that introduces warm, filtered water at very low pressure; one that carries away the material that flows down via gravity.

The second tube runs straight to a sewer hook-up. It’s transparent, so the client can see what’s removed.

How many clients look?

“Everybody does,” LeClerc said. “Most of the people, when they first come, say, ‘Yuck, I can’t do this!’—but after one second, it’s like, ‘I can’t believe I said that; it’s nothing like I imagined.’”

LeClerc acclimated quickly, too. Perhaps because she started with family and friends, colon-cleansing never stirred a recoil reaction.

“I’m not a squeamish person,” she said. “[After] you have four kids, you’re not a squeamish person anymore.”

LeClerc’s office occupies the ground floor of a building that also houses a massage therapist and an acupuncturist. The three share clients.

“It’s a healthy thing to do,” she said of colon hydrotherapy. “You go and have the plaque removed from your teeth once or twice a year; why not have the plaque removed out of your colon?”