Dear Doctor - I suffer from a an extreme, severe form of chronic, life-long constipation. I was even, apparently, born that way - according to my mother, but also from my own memories, as far back as they go, straining and not succeeding to produce even the tiniest, hard and dry bit of turd, if you ll excuse my French. But then this is our subject so I m sure it s counter-productive to be shy about it. I grew up on healthy food and by the way organic, too (this being the early sixties in eastern Europe, in an agriculturally blessed environment, which had no need to even know anything other than organic ). I have always had an intolerance for milk (my mother never had any and I didn t want it anyway - then or ever. I can eat cheese though). I ve always been otherwise healthy, and grew up and reached puberty very early - age 9. I have always preferred fruit and veg over meat, and ever more so with the time. So to this day, and certainly for the past 30 years - that is, since the somewhat volatile habits of the teen-ages - I have eaten a well-balanced, predominantly vegetarian and fibrous diet. Fresh food, made from scratch , no junk whatsoever. I am 5.7 feet tall, weighing currently 120 pounds, though at times I tend to weigh more, but I was never overweight. I don t exercise regularly but I do always walk at least 30-45 minutes a day and I am generally very restless and mobile and fidgety and just moving a lot. I have tried everything under the sun to rid myself of this predicament which I feel more and more is impacting the quality of my life. Of course I have become dependent on various laxatives over the years, and I d change and then switch back from one to the other, until I find that nothing is working any more. I was on senna tea for years, then on Dulcolax (does nothing for me anymore), then back and so on. I have tried also mineral oils , milk of magnesia, sodium solutions and what not. High-fibre diets did strictly nothing for me nor did the high fibre supplements . These seem to even worsen, or slow down the process (if, indeed, it can get any worse, but that s how it feels). I have tried prune compote and water with lemon on any empty stomach and just a host of other home-made remedies recommended by all and sundry. NOTHING. It seems to be a case of fibre-resistant constipation, and I m not surprised since I eat lots of fibre anyway, have done all my life and it makes not a dent in the solid wall of my gut s refusal to budge. I HAVE tried other things that I can t even remember now - I just want to point out that it would be a waste of your time to suggest anything that s already commonly considered to be a solution - believe me, I have tried it all and I am desperate. (Actually, there is a Chinese herb, going here by the Latin name of Malva Verticellata, which has done wonders for a while, but with increasing dependency, or decreasing tolerance I should say, so having reached a requirement of SIX tea-bags per cup per day in order to go, after five years I ve had to abandon it.) I am now taking Magnesium Chloride which does work but with such unpleasant effects and side-effects that I really don t believe it can be a solution. I wonder what the psychological causes of this may be? I was not wanted - not when conceived, not while gestating and not in the first years of my life (certainly not by my mother - and while not being able to confess to it, she s at least anguished enough to not deny it either). But I know it and I m sure my body has always known it much better that I have. So - insofar as it may be psychological - can anything be done about it? The frame of my existence has been not just the guilt of not being perfect, but the supreme guilt of existing at all. Not to mention on the physiological level - that is where I keep hoping some sort of solution might spring up. I am utterly open to all sorts of suggestions and methods, whether they come from tradition or experience or a mixture of the two. Sheer science hasn t helped me so far. I certainly don t dismiss it - I just wonder if I ll still be around by the time it s created a solution that is relevant in my case. I am 53 by the way and seriously concerned about aging with a condition like this. Thank you so much - oh I see - silly me - well fuck you too.