By Matthew Sun
There is no reason for concern as the ropes are completely normal and do not usually cause any pain as they are usually soft. In fact they are the expected result and are in fact the rubbery mucous coating that has been stuck to the inner walls of your bowels for many years, creating a breeding ground for parasites and unfriendly organisms, and inhibiting efficient digestion.
This mucous coating is also known as mucoid plaque, and is the result of years of excessive acid forming foods, which cause the body to secret mucous to protect itself. Unfortunately after eating this kind of food every day for many years the body has no chance to clean itself and the mucous dries and becomes difficult to remove. The mucous is hard to see via a colonoscopy as it takes the exact shape of the bowel and is not usually very thick, unless the person has a swollen abdomen, as many do these days.
The parasites live in the mucoid plaque and create small holes in it which actually allows the body to absorb food through it, so doing a parasite cleanse before removing the mucoid plaque is not recommended.
When consuming the bentonite and psyllium shakes on a colon cleanse, the shake moves through the bowel and the mucous sticks to it as the bentonite clay pulls it from the walls of the bowel. This is what makes the black ropes, the inside of the rope is psyllium and bentonite, and the outside is made up of whatever was lining the bowels.
One way to tell when the colon cleansing process has truly finished and all the mucoid plaque is removed is that no more ropes come out for several days, the shakes come out with no form, kind of like a jelly blob. But this only happens after many weeks of cleansing as most people have a lot of residue build up, unless they were raw vegan since birth.
For pictures of mucoid plaque, or black ropes, please see this page.