Throughout most of my adult life I have been eating like a pig -- binging on fast food, sweets, and a lot of processed foods. I drank like a fish for the last twenty years, which led to many nights of fried bar food and other questionable input. Needless to say, I have put my stomach, intestines, and colon through torture, and have endured a lot of painful gas, liquid explosions, and irregularity to prove it.

Over the last few years I have wanted to try one of these colon cleansers. But I have read so many goods things (mainly from the people trying to sell the junk) and so many bad things about these products that I never had the nerve to try one. The topic has been debated on this site many times, but when the makers of OxyPowder approached PoopReport for volunteers to try the product, I gave it a shot.

Immediately, several PoopReporters chimed in on the forums with negative feedback about OxyPowder.

Chip Brown said, "Doniker, I hope your life insurance is up to date. Those bloody butchers at OxyPowder don't mind making a buck over a dead body. Godspeed, my friend."

Bunga Din said, "I think these colon cleanse products and all are just a major scam on people's fears of bad health (the hypochondriac group)."

Randompoo had the most to say:

"I would not recommend that anyone actually ingest this product. I have two reasons for saying so:

1. Colon cleansing products are nothing but snake oil, at best. A normal colon doesn't contain any "impacted feces" or "undigested material". If it did, you would have obvious symptoms of severe illness. Promoting such a product as a "toxin purge" is just BS at it's finest.

2. Some of these products are actively dangerous. Oxy-Powder includes among its ingredients the substance "ozonated magnesium oxides". The Material Safety Data Sheet for magnesium oxide is interesting, as it includes the remark that this substance, when ingested, causes GI upset and is cause to seek medical attention. Granted, the dose involved may be much less in Oxy-Powder than that considered toxic.

"Ozonated" implies that the product is infused with a high oxygen content, and that the stuff has strong oxygenating properties. Ozone is used in industrial settings to sterilize clothes and equipment, and is used in some hospitals to disinfect an area.

You don't want to kill all the bacteria in your colon. A healthy colon has an active bacterial colony of "good" bacteria that is part of the digestive system. The bacteria manufacture some of the nutrients the body needs. You can improve the good bacteria content if needed by eating yogurt with live bacteria cultures.

Frankly, this product sounds harmful to me.

Well, after much thought, I decided to try my supply of OxyPowder anyway, beginning the day after Memorial Day. I had two weeks off and would be spending the majority of that time at home. This was good in case I had an urgent need to unload.

To really test this stuff out, I ate much more than normal, binging on fast foods and alcoholic beverages. The directions for OxyPowder said to take four capsules a day for seven days, or to increase it to six capsules if you don't achieve three-to-five bowel movements per day. They also recommend that you drink lots of pure water throughout the day.

Since I normally shit three or four times a day anyway, and since I am a big boy, I started out with five capsules on Day One.

One of the warnings on the OxyPowder label says it may cause "soft to completely liquid stools that could cause you to feel the urge to pass gas. If you're unable to control your bowels, please be careful with this product. We recommend that during the seven-day cleanse you keep close proximity to a restroom. OxyPowder will cause watery and gaseous bowel movements as a by-product of oxidation. THIS IS NOT DIARRHEA."

Day Two basically was uneventfully. I felt nothing odd; and since I shat like any normal day, I ate six capsules.

Day Three was a repeat of Day Two.

Day Four, sick of drinking beer, I went out and bought a liter of Absolut vodka and three bottles of cranberry juice. I spent the day drinking about half of that liter with cranberry and continuing my heavy eating. I was shitting more than normal, but I was eating more than normal as well. My movements were still solid, and I was taking six capsules of OxyPowder per day.

Day Five. Hung-over from the vodka, I started drinking vodka and cranberry early in the afternoon. By five o'clock I was running to the shitter to blast out some liquid shit. This continued every half hour for about four hours. I don't know if it was the OxyPowder or the vodka and cranberry, but for the first time in a long time I didn't feel bloated.

Day Six. I was back to normal. I would get a lot of gas and cramps with a sudden urge to shit, and then the feeling would just disappear. I had a ticket to the Indians game, and this worried me: I have never taken a dump at a sporting event, concert, or anything like that, and I don't ever plan to -- I am terrified at the thought. And sure enough, during the fifth inning I thought I was in trouble: I developed some brutal cramps and felt sick to my stomach.

I started to panic. I tried not to think about it. And eventually, the cramps disappeared.

Day Seven was basically uneventful: slight gas and cramps and the usual three or four large, solid dumps. At this point I realized that the OxyPowder was doing little or nothing for me, and decided not to continue putting this product into my body.

The people at OxyPowder want you to take this product "every other day or when needed, indefinitely". But at forty dollars a bottle (or thirty-three cents a capsule), that could get expensive, especially if it doesn't do much.

Give me a good old-fashioned flu bug any time -- that will give you the best clean-out.