From healthcare to healing: why digestive health can’t be ignored

ASH Noble’s career in healthcare spans more than 20 years, though it hasn’t followed a straight line.

She began as a registered nurse, driven by a lifelong desire to help others, support disease prevention and improve quality of life. Ash later worked in a large global healthcare company, gaining insight into the wider healthcare system.

On paper, it was a solid and successful career – yet behind the scenes, she was struggling with chronic health challenges that quietly reshaped everything she thought she knew about health and wellbeing.

“Living with chronic health issues teaches you quickly that without your health, you have very little,” Ash reflects.

No amount of professional success compensates for crippling fatigue, chronic pain, poor mental health, or a body that isn’t functioning as it should.

She learned this the hard way, both personally and professionally, and it forced her to look deeper at the foundations of health and wellbeing.

That curiosity – and necessity – led her back to study, training as a colon hydrotherapist with Bottoms Up Colonics and opening her own clinic in Queenscliff.

While it may have seemed like an unexpected pivot, for Ash it was a natural evolution.

“Digestive health sits at the core of almost everything we experience: energy levels, mood, skin, immune system and mental clarity. Yet it remains one of the most overlooked and least talked about areas of health,” she said.

Part of Ash’s mission as a business owner and colon hydrotherapist is to help normalise conversations around digestion and bowel health.

“We talk openly about stress, hormones and mental health now – which is progress – but many people still feel embarrassed discussing something as fundamental as their bowels. What’s happening in your gut affects how you think, feel and function every day. Ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear; it just delays the opportunity to feel better,” she explains.

Opening her clinic was about more than offering a service. Ash wanted to create a quiet, private and genuinely healing space where people could feel comfortable having honest conversations about their health – including the parts society teaches us to keep quiet about.

“Queenscliff felt like the perfect place for that: calm, community-focused and grounded,” she said.

Ash’s years in healthcare gave her perspective on the complexities of health, but it is her own lived experience that guides how she supports and cares for people today.

If there is one thing Ash has learned over the years, it is this: “Digestive health is not something to put off or push through. It is the foundation that supports everything else in life. When we take care of it – and talk about it openly – we give ourselves the chance to thrive, not just survive.”

For more information, head to bottomsupcolonics.com.au/clinic/bottoms-up-colonics-the-bellarine-vic