DETOXIFICATION SYMPTOMS

Detoxification symptoms commonly crop up when a person is undergoing cleansing. When the toxins are tucked inside the cell, they interfere with cellular chemistry and decrease energy production. When they come out of the cell, the toxins are back in contact with nerves where they cause symptoms because they irritate the nerves. These symptoms may manifest as pain, headaches, nausea, fatigue, post-nasal drainage, runny nose, behavior changes, muscle pain, muscle weakness, gastrointestinal disturbances, and sleep disturbance. Often a person goes back through old symptoms they've had in the past and in the reverse order of the original presentation of those symptoms. It's similar to cleaning out a drawer, what goes in first comes out last. Therefore if your body was trying to tell you something was wrong and originally gave you a headache to call your attention to the problem and you still didn't understand, then it's going to give you another symptom and yell even louder. So if you first had sinus congestion, later developed a headache, later developed right elbow pain, and later developed chronic constipation, then as you detox you will probably first have a return of chronic constipation, followed by right elbow pain, followed by the headache, followed by sinus congestion.

The supplement protocol and appropriate recommendations for homeopathics (from your health care practitioner) help minimize these detoxification reactions but we all still experience some. The following guidelines help minimize your detoxification reactions when they occur.

If you experience pain and nausea, take more Chlorella and drink more water. Some of us have had to take 20 to 30 Chlorella per day.

If you experience fatigue and brain fog, take more Ambrotose and drink more water. Ambrotose is a food, take as much as you need to reverse the symptoms. People with difficult disease processes have responded well to taking 1-2 tablespoons of Ambrotose twice per day. However, most of us only need 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon twice per day.

When toxins start dumping out of cells they may overwhelm the nervous system causing it to develop blocked regulation. When the nervous system is blocked it cannot regulate the function of organs and so toxins back up and make you feel poisoned. Ambrotose will always reverse blocked regulation in the nervous system. However, sometimes I'm so foggy in my head I can't even think to go to take more Ambrotose at that point. When I finally remember, it always makes me feel better. Ideally a person should be taking enough Ambrotose to keep them from going into blocked regulation. I find the more the body's detoxifying, the more Ambrotose is necessary. Sometimes I have to increase my dose to one teaspoon twice a day. Most likely Ambrotose facilitates regulation of the nervous system because it provides the alphabet that the cells need to communicate with one another. Therefore if the cells do not have enough of their alphabet to make words then no communication occurs and the nervous system bogs down. Personally I do not know how I would have made it through detoxification without Ambrotose .

In my clinical experience with patients the body detoxified from inside out and from deep layers to more superficial layers. So the internal vital organs detoxified first. Since the bowel, liver and kidneys are the major organs of detoxification we always cleansed them first. If we didn’t, the toxins would back up into the skin causing strange rashes or the person would experience more detox symptoms because they would be swimming in their own toxins. Since the liver dumps toxins into the bowel to be excreted, the bowel may react with gas, bloating, constipation or diarrhea. The bowel must keep moving the toxins out of the body or the toxins get reabsorbed. See bowel cleansing for techniques of keeping the bowel moving and healthy.

Then the toxins started coming out of the muscles, bones and ligaments and nerves. When inside the cells the toxins interfere with cellular chemistry and energy production but do not cause pain. When they start moving out of the cells into the connective tissue between the cells, they are back in contact with nerves and can be very irritating. In July of one year I awakened with exquisite pain in my right upper arm. The only thing that relieved the pain was keeping the arm absolutely immobile. Three days later I woke up with total mobility of that arm without pain. The muscle had finally detoxified, relieving the nerve irritation. A few years later, I could barely walk for a month when my right sciatic nerve detoxified.

Other detox symptoms included chronic muscle tension or spasm, backaches, neck aches, aching muscles, and painful joints. These examples are to help you understand detox symptoms and not panic if you experience some of these symptoms. Headaches, nausea, fatigue, even depression can be part of detox symptoms also. If they occur, say, “Yeah, my body is getting rid of this toxic old junk” and take more Chlorella and Ambrotose. Also, utilize other cleansing techniques that move the toxins out of the tissues faster. Be sure to consult a health care provider knowledgeable in detoxification for assistance and treatment.

The fat tissue in the body seems to detoxify last and was probably the first tissue to become toxic. Since fat stores are not vital organs the body probably figures that’s the best place to store toxins, thus protecting the vital organs from damage. And the body seems to store the worst toxins (most likely to cause damage) in the fat. So you may experience stronger detox symptoms toward the end of your body purification process. I sure have. Recently if I exercise hard, I will feel wiped out later in the day and the next day, probably from burning old fat stores, which are releasing potent old stored poisonous chemicals. So I need to remember to take more Chlorella before and after exercise and throughout the day on heavy exercise days. Several years ago I developed leg cramps ¾ of the way into my swimming work out. I finally realized that swimming was releasing toxic metals from inside my muscle cells to outside the cells where they interfered with minerals (probably magnesium) that facilitated muscular relaxation. So, what was my remedy? Right, take Chlorella before my swimming workout. On the other hand, electrolyte deficiency (deficiency of magnesium, potassium, sodium, chloride, bicarbonate) can also cause muscle cramps. Exercising in hot weather, sweating a lot, diarrhea or vomiting cause loss of electrolytes. Therefore, we may need to take Chlorella before a work out and electrolytes afterward. Take Chlorella at least 2 hours away from minerals like electrolytes (E-lyte) since Chlorella soaks up minerals. Neither one may be fully absorbed into your tissues adequately if taken together.

Toxins released from storage sites in the body also affect the brain. Some days I felt brain dead, in a fog! What helped relieve those symptoms? Right – more Chlorella and Ambrotose . But also drink lots of water to flush the toxins and be sure those bowels keep moving. Increase the amount of magnesium you take until you have at least one and preferably 3 bowel movements per day. If you take too much magnesium, you will know it when diarrhea starts. You may have to adjust your magnesium dose daily. One patient took 52 capsules of magnesium in one day to start her bowels moving. After that she cut back on the dose. That’s the most extreme case of constipation I heard of.

So how did we get from the brain to the bowel? Well they are connected you know by the blood stream. So back to the brain. Circulating toxins can cause temporary episodes of depression, feeling irritable or grouchy and just generally hard to get along with. Be alert for these feelings and realize they probably won’t last long so you can cope with them without taking it out on those around you too much. If you tell people, especially your family that you have a case of the grouchies from detox, then they will not be inclined to take any grouchy words from you so personally. Perhaps they can even sympathize with you and help you through this time period (may be a few hours to a few days). Hey – you could teach them to remind you to take more Chlorella and Ambrotose and to drink more water when you are in such a brain fog that you can’t remember to take them. Be sure to say, “thanks for reminding me”.

Toxins circulating out of storage for excretion can affect sleep in a variety of ways. When alcohol based chemicals detox, they suppress the brain, making us want to sleep excessively. In other words we feel drugged. When the “ene” type chemicals (like Dexedrine, benzene, xylene) detox, they stimulate the brain. Then we have troubling going to sleep or awaken in the night and cannot get back to sleep. I keep Chlorella, Ambrotose and a bottle of water by my bed so I can take them in the middle of the night if I have trouble going back to sleep. Taking your calcium-magnesium supplement just before bed may improve your ability to sleep also. Logically the body would concentrate more on detox during the night when it did not have to deal with the processes necessary to keep the body active during the day. Consequently, the released circulating “ene” toxins may awaken us in the night or the released circulating alcohol toxins may give us a hangover, unrefreshed sleep feeling in the morning.

Anti-oxidants may also help neutralize released toxins and keep them from damaging tissue on their way out of the body. Be cautious though. You need some oxidant (oxygen power) in your tissues to fight infectious organisms. If you take too many antioxidants, you could become more susceptible to infection or increase of unfriendly organisms in the tissues. You may need to experiment to find the right amount of antioxidants for your system. Ambrotose AO has very high antioxidant activity. Supplementing it may reduce the amount of Ambrotose that you need to take to help you with detoxification.

Eating higher quality food can start the detox process. The body is so smart. When you feed it the good stuff, it begins to dump out the old inferior stuff so it can build healthy, correctly functioning cells with the new high quality material. Some of the symptoms relate to what the body is dumping out at the moment. For instance, when you stop drinking stimulants like coffee, tea and chocolate, the body can finally discard the accumulated toxic caffeine and theobromine residues in your tissues causing you to have a headache and feel fatigued. Vitamin C to your rescue here – take 500 to 1,000 mg of buffered vitamin C 45 minutes after each meal. If you develop diarrhea, cut back on the dose of buffered vitamin C. Be sure the vitamin C is buffered, in other words alkalinized because vitamin C unbuffered is acidic (ascorbic acid) and will not relieve your symptoms.

When you feed your body high quality protein (not overcooked and full of hormones and antibiotics) and take great digestive and systemic enzymes, the body can get rid of the old damaged protein. This is first phase of the elimination process is called catabolism. Waste products are discarded more rapidly than new tissue can be made from the new superior food and supplemental whole food nutrients. You will most likely have more symptoms during this phase. Then you stabilize and finally proceed into the stage of anabolism where rebuilding takes precedence over eliminating toxins, wastes and inferior building blocks (damaged protein, fat and carbohydrates).

Some health care professionals call detoxification symptoms a “healing crisis” which may be an apt term. Certainly the healing part applies, but hopefully your detox symptoms will not be a crisis. However, the term applies in that detox symptoms are crucial to the healing, regenerating process in the body, which can help you prevent major health problems. So they are healing – please remember that. Do not abort the whole cleansing, detox process just because you hurt, or are nauseated or are grouchy. These symptoms will go away and then you will feel better than ever (or at least better than you have in a long time). Who knows, maybe you will even join me in participating in the Tinman Triathlon every Labor Day weekend. It’s great fun and keeps me training in swimming, biking, running and strength training all year.

REMEMBER DETOXIFICATION TAKES TIME

The older you are; the greater the toxic stores in your body; the slower your metabolism; the more deficient, damaged food you have eaten over you life time; the fewer enzymes, whole food nutrients and good fats you have eaten; the longer it will take to detoxify and rebuild. Be persistent. Never give up. It’s never to late to start. My patients in their 70’s and 80’s and even some in their 90’s made terrific progress in improving their health and feelings of well being when they embraced the program. Look at me. I reversed my inferior eating habits in 1984 and discovered detoxification in 1996 and I am still not through detoxification. But I know what my goal is – to have a clean, healthy body that serves me well. I’m feeling better and getting stronger every year. You can too. Join the quest for health. Tell pain and disability good-by.

The Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated the above information. The products or the listed information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.

Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.