088 Can You Reduce Side Effects of Detoxes and Cleanses?

The Investigation I hear it all the time. Someone goes on a cleanse to feel better but they end up feeling worse.  Detox reactions, die-off reactions, or Herxheimer’s reactions are caused by a variety of factors such as toxin exposure, viruses, bugs, yeasts, and parasites. Cleansing or detoxing can be incredible for our health but some people do experience symptoms like headaches, fatigue, gas, bloating, congestion, and flu-like symptoms.    Why We Experience Detox Reactions When your body has more toxins or infections present, or if it is a first cleanse, you may experience more physical reactions as there is more to clear out.  Secondly, genetics can affect how someone reacts to certain factors involved in a cleanse. The way you detoxify, and how your detoxification pathways work can be related to genetic factors in your metabolic pathways.  Thirdly, some people are simply more sensitive. It may be tougher for some people to cleanse, or they may need to take a different approach. Being sensitive to changes in the body and environment can make it hard to tolerate even the milder side effects of a cleanse but there are ways to mitigate it. Overall, it’s still very beneficial to do a cleanse as it assists your wellbeing and thankfully there are things you can do to reduce the potential for detox reactions.  The most popular cleanses are a full-body toxin cleanse (liver or gallbladder) or a GI (gastrointestinal tract) cleanse. In this episode, I review each.    What is a Liver Cleanse? Liver cleanses usually involve herbs like milk thistle and dandelion as well as nutrients like NAC and glutathione. They work by pulling toxins out of the cells and making them water soluble and then should be binding them up and excreting them. Typically the more toxins you have, the more that needs to come up; and if those toxin pathways are blocked, reactions will happen.   Most liver cleanses come with diet instructions but I find that not everyone follows them. It’s super important to listen to the instructions if you want the cleanse to be effective.   Steps for a Successful Liver Cleanse: Eat a clean diet (whole foods, avoiding all refined and processed foods for the duration of the cleanse).  Make sure your bowels are moving (you might want to try magnesium citrate or Oxi powder if they are not). Be aware of sulfur-based supplements. You can do an organic acid test to see if you are able to handle sulfur well, as many cleanses use sulfur-based supplements like NAC and Glutathione. (If sulfur is an issue, try using molybdenum and doing epsom salt baths, and using herbs instead of sulfur-based supplements). Start slow. Some people like doing a half dose of supplements, then working up to the full dose. Doing a little bit and feeling good is still doing work, rather than doing a lot at once, and feeling unwell and then stopping.  Find a cleanse that has a binder or add your own binder. Binders are like sponges, they absorb things by pushing the toxins out and catching them to carry out of the body. You can add charcoal, clay, or fulvic acid - I also like using Ultra binder by Quicksilver or Biotoxin binder by Cell Core. Try taking this first thing in the morning or at bedtime, and away from food as much as you can.  Following these steps will ensure you are assisted when doing a full body toxin or liver cleanse, and help make things a lot more tolerable.   Steps for a Successful GI Cleanse If you are working on your digestion and have Dysbiosis (an overgrowth of bugs in the gut) you’ll be using anti-microbial things in your cleanse. You’ll need to address the GI (gastrointestinal) Tract in this type of cleanse, compared to the full body (liver/gallbladder) cleanse I just spoke about. To address the dysbiosis, you’ll need anti-microbials (anti-bacterial, anti-parasitic and anti-fungal agents). A few examples of those would be (but not limited to): Garlic  Oregano Pau d’arco  Clove Grapefruit seed extract  The goal here is to kill off the bugs in the gut while at the same time rebalancing the microbiome (increasing the good guys).    Steps for a Successful GI Cleanse:     Get your bowels moving first   Make sure your bowels are moving FIRST. This step is crucial, because you don’t want to be killing off bugs unless the digestive system will be able to bring them out!   Reduce your sugar   Once your bowels are moving regularly, you’ll need to change your diet. Likely, it may feel drastic to completely reduce sugar if you’ve never tried it before, however you can still eat 1-2 servings of fruit and 2 servings of complex carbs (lentils, sweet potato, brown rice) per day so its not about avoiding all carbs. These bugs feed on sugars and so that needs to be reduced and processed carbs turn to sugar which is why those are also avoided.    Break up the biofilm   Another must is something to break up the biofilm in the gut. The bugs form this biofilm around themselves in order to protect themselves from being destroy...