You know how the old folk lore saying goes 'the worse a medicine tastes the better it is for you'?

Well, somewhere along the line someone thought that a more interesting version would be 'the more uncomfortable a medicine is the better it is for you' and decided to start taking medicine via his arse!

Pondering under what circumstances such an idea came to its inventor, Loay El Hady questioned one patient who'd undergone the technique in search of the whole answer.

Remember Roger Knowsley from my first... nose job? Well he omitted to mention the suppository first time round, but in a follow up conversation his memory came flooding back.

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Thank for talking to us again Roger. First of all can you tell us what a suppository is?
I don't know the exact scientific explanation for it, but in a nut shell...

Hey please leave all puns to me...
Okay. Basically it's the taking of soluble medication through your arse.

And you knew that before you were offered it?
The nurse who offered it to me told me about it.

Why?
I was in so much pain after the operation I couldn't sleep at all.

So you took it?
Yeah.

That must have been a long hard decision, it's not everyday you get offered to have something put up your bum.
I said yes straight away.

Why? If you couldn't sleep why not just have some regular pain killers or if that didn't work perhaps a mug of Horlicks?
I took loads of the normal pain killers but they did nothing. If they'd have offered me Horlicks I would have sued.

So what happened after you said yes?
She came back a few moments later, and asked me to turn to my side, I rolled onto my left and I heard her putting the glove on and then she just… um… slipped it in I guess.

Wasn't it a bit weird dropping your trousers for her to do it?
No, I had just come out of the operation so I was wearing one of those hospital dress sheet things and no underwear, so once I turned on to my side…

(interrupting) lo and behold the entrance to the cave became clear…
Well, there was nothing stopping her, lets put it that way.

Did she use a lubricant or anything?
I have no idea, it's not really something I was thinking about at the time, I'd heard gloves going on though so that was good enough for me.

I suppose that'd save you if one of her nails broke off while she had her finger in there. Was there no discomfort at all?
Not at all. In fact, it was quite (Roger suddenly stopped).

Quite what?
Nothing.

(The silence became unbearable) So was there no resistance at all from your behind, I reckon mine would have clamped up like Venus Fly Trap to stop any 'incoming'.
There was no resistance from my mind. I would have tried anything to numb the pain, but she did say 'can you relax for me' several times so I figured it wasn't plain sailing the whole way.

What about once it was in - did it make a difference?
A few minutes after it was in I didn't even know the meaning of the word pain, I felt fine, then every so often, I would drift back to feeling it a bit, but then a wave of relief would just come over me again as the medicine kicked in, then I drifted into a deep sleep… until it wore off and I was in pain again, but not as bad as the pain from the night after the op.

Sounds like it was pretty good.
Yeah, it was, but it had a horrible side effect. Because of the operation I was coughing up a lot of blood and phlegm, I kept spitting this out but more would accumulate so I kept doing it. The morning after I had the suppository I tried to cough up what I thought was a really huge piece which was really hurting the back of my throat.

Anyway, it was working its way stubbornly to the front of my mouth but it wouldn't move any further so I tried to pull it out with my hands, but that hurt like hell, so after a few attempts I realised something wasn't right and I called the nurse over to see what it was.

She looked in and saw something she said looked like a ping pong ball at the front of my mouth, and then proceeded to tell me it was my tonsils!

Ugghh, you nearly pulled out your own tonsils?
Yeah, they swelled up enormously, it was a reaction to the medicine, I was lucky I stopped trying to pull it out when I did.

So, if offered would you take one again or recommend one to people?
Definitely, if you were in the pain I was in, you would have had it too.

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I decided not to ask Roger what the words after 'quite…' were going to be, but figured sometimes if you're desperate enough you'll try anything.

Just for the record, a suppository gets to work faster than any other form of medicine because it goes in so close to your stomach and subsequently gets absorbed a lot quicker into your blood.

Just goes to show a little science never hurt anybody, except perhaps the person who first tried a suppository using insoluble Aspirin. Ouch!