What is constipation?

“Constipation is when you go to the toilet infrequently, perhaps less than three times a week and you have to strain to go. It’s not an easy thing to pass the motion,” says Dr Ellard.

What happens when you’re constipated is, instead of maintaining a moist, slippery stool, the colon absorbs too much water, leaving the stool hard, lumpy and stuck! And the longer it’s stuck, the more painful your predicament.

Time to resort to a laxative. And according to Dr Thomas Borody at the Centre for Digestive Diseases, your first port of call should be good old prunes! “Prunes are a useful therapy because they contain chemicals that stimulate the bowel to produce loose motions. If we look at yogurt, no amount of acidophilus or bifida bacteria is going to reverse constipation.

But in some patients it does make them go. So being a non-drug therapy, I would recommend it,” says Dr Borody. Others say water does the trick, but it doesn’t. “Drinking water is good in its own way, but it doesn’t give you a softer motion. It’s excreted in urine and no matter how much you drink, it still goes down in urine by and large” Dr Borody says.

And a word of warning for older people: straining too long can trigger a sudden drop in blood pressure, leading to fainting or heart attack. A disproportionately high number of older men, die on the toilet. The lesson from all of this? Don’t strain too hard. It’s just not worth it. Instead, try and stay regular.