Discussing the cleaning of our private parts in public spaces is typically avoided in all cultures. Bathroom humor is common and used to cover our embarrassment about this topic. Notice that such humor is often regarded as juvenile and cheap. Our approach here however is clinical, scientific, and objective. It concerns issues with very grave consequences. For children, using toilet paper can result in urethral tract or bladder infections if they wipe inappropriately or if they suffer from encopresis with constant leakage. Fecal soiling is the second most common cause for giving up on caring for an elderly person in the home. The second most common pain disorder in the USA next to headaches is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which often keeps many adults at home fearful of going out because of a fear of fecal accidents. Incomplete cleaning with toilet paper or wet ones in all of these cases often lead to painful rashes, infected hemorrhoids, and urinary tract infections. This can all be avoided, but it will require a major cultural transformation because of our bathroom habits and the advertising of toilet paper. You never see TV ads for bidets, but perhaps that will change if we can initiate or prime a green movement toward their use. Think of the forests we can save and the pollution involved with toilet paper manufacturing.
I have led a movement for the adequate treatment of children with encopresis (soiling) and now am advocating for a new approach for bathroom hygiene which I am confident will sweep the nation. Physicians in my area are already prescribing the new modern bidet inserts for their patients as they are being tried out in nursing homes, day care centers, and a major rehabilitation hospital, and the Women's Resource Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Interestingly, some local restaurants have reported increased business from installing modern bidets! The bidets even have a positive benefit in stimulating or completing bowel movements because of their water jet cleaning and stimulation.
These are not the standard European Bidets which require a whole separate stool that you have to shift over to for turning on a cold stream of water. These units fit on your standard stool at the back between the water tank and the opening. The deluxe versions feature a padded warm seat, warm water, and options of a well-directed pulsed stream, back and forth stream, mixed air and water stream, female stream, warm air dryer, etc. A very cheap, self-installing version with just a directed cleaning spray is also available.
Click here for the major and enlightened supplier of bidet inserts, DignaCare.