This is not going to be glamorous - but this stuff is IMPORTANT!
Detoxification is one of the buzziest health topics - right?
Most of us have heard about special detox kits or programs, like liver detoxes, juice cleanses, skin detoxes, infrared saunas, enemas & colonics… but a word of caution, commercial ‘detoxes’ are marketed to the general public, and can be unhelpful, and possibly harmful, if they’re not done carefully and bio-individually (aka what YOUR system needs).
Detoxing is important - it’s how we clear harmful chemicals, heavy metals, by-products of gut imbalances, and excess hormones.
Not to mention, detoxing is only part of the picture. Before we can actually mobilize those toxins, we need to make sure that they have somewhere to GO.
What are those preferred avenues? Our drainage pathways. It’s NOT a cute term (as someone with many word aversions, I apologize!), but it’s exactly what it sounds like: our body’s way of draining & eliminating toxins.
We do this through 3 primary pathways - sweating, peeing, and pooping.
If we’re not supporting the elimination of these toxins as they pile up, they have no where to go, right? Right.
This is why many people can feel so crappy when they’re starting a detox or gut balancing protocol. They are experiencing what are called ‘die off’ symptoms, which can happen during an eradication & gut microbiome rebalancing protocol. Think of it this way, when we’re stirring up a bunch of chemicals (which can be released by certain gut bacteria & pathogens), and they have nowhere to go, we can feel exhausted, foggy, achy, bloated and itchy as a result. These are signals that toxins are recirculating & not moving out the drainage pathways.
So before we start a true DETOX, we need to open up those drainage pathways.
Make sure you’re pooping at LEAST once a day, up to 3x a day, making sure they’re well-formed & easy to pass.
Sweating a few times a week. That can be from exercise, sauna, or spending time moving out in the heat of the summer.
Drinking enough water (without overdoing it - clear pee is NOT the goal & can further deplete you of key minerals). Aim for at least 60 ounces, and often more if you’re active & exercising, it’s hot outside, or if the weather is dry & cold (and it’s easy to forget to drink enough in the winter!).
Unsurprisingly, the pathway I focus on most is digestion. Pooping everyday is a MUST. After all, poops are made up of water, indigestible fiber, and ALL that waste your body wants to get rid of.
Here’s a great visual about why we need to start with drainage, before we can support true detoxification, which happens at the tissue & cellular level.
Start at the bottom of the funnel with digestion & the colon, to make sure things are clearing, before we begin addressing the liver & gallbladder, or anything else further up the “detox funnel”.
In other words - drainage is the precursor to detoxification and it’s unhelpful (not to mention uncomfortable and unhealthy) to put the cart before the horse.
Drainage & Constipation
But what if you’re struggling with constipation? How do we support drainage & therefore detox?
Just like a pipe, if the colon is backed up then everything that comes before it will get backed up as well. This happens when we’re not pooping everyday, if we’re experiencing tiny rabbit-like poops, very thin BMs, or feeling incomplete evacuation.
For those struggling with constipation, it is often due to microbiome imbalances & a sluggish liver. So this is a total catch 22 - how do you address the microbiome & support the liver, without kicking up toxins you can’t yet clear?
Address the symptoms WHILE working on the root cause:
Magnesium (like magnesium citrate)
Senna tea
Aloe vera juice
Spanish black radish
Castor oil packs
Hydration
Walking or moving regularly
These are some relatively easy at-home ways we can support drainage, while we’re working to rebalance the gut, revitalize the liver, and support the system in finding homeostasis. You will generally find one or more of these remedies in a protocol to address constipation, alongside gut rebalancing & liver support.
So supporting drainage is the FIRST step, and then we can work towards detoxification on a much deeper level. Our cells, tissues, liver, gallbladder and colon are helping us detox EVERYDAY. So long as they have plenty of nutrients and no major stressors, that’s what they’ll continue to do.
We can support our body’s detox processes by:
Making digestion a priority and pooping 1-3 times a day
Supporting bile flow, gallbladder & liver health and eating bitter greens
Using other nutritional supports like TUDCA for bile flow & liver health can be helpful and are best used with the support of a practitioner
Finding rich sources of iodine (sea weed, fish like cod & tuna, high quality dairy), which is an essential mineral for thyroid hormones and plays a major role in bile flow & gallbladder function
Moving your body daily, and working up a sweat a few times a week
On the other hand, here are some factors that can inhibit proper drainage & detoxification:
Viral, bacterial or parasitic infections, often stemming from or impacting the gut microbiome. Oral infections, and system-wide infections are also major players
Heavy metals & environmental toxins - ironically, a high toxin exposure can make it harder for your body to properly detox and get RID of the toxins you’re exposed to. Toxins produced by mold are one example of this
Hormone imbalances like estrogen dominance, can overburden the liver & impact bile flow through the gallbladder. Excess estrogen is a risk factor for forming gallstones, which is form of gallbladder dysfunction
Many types of drugs can impact our gut microbiome and liver function, both of which are essential to detoxification - like antibiotics, PPIs/acid reducing drugs, hormonal birth control, and statins.
Hypothyroidism and low T4 can have a slowing effect on the liver & gallbladder, as well as slowed movement along the whole digestive tract
Low fiber, low-nutrient, highly-processed diet. Detoxification requires LOTS of nutrients (like zinc, selenium, magnesium, vitamin C, B vitamins, glycine, among others) which we cannot get from highly-processed foods
Insufficient sleep, we need at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep, since our body does lots of detoxification overnight. If we’re not in deep sleep, we miss our own important detox processes in our brain, liver and other major organs
Here are some related articles, all about the link between bile flow and constipation and investigating liver function using your last set of blood work.
Optimizing drainage is one of the first steps I take with my clients, because it’s so foundational to rebalancing the rest of the system. If you’re interested in working 1:1, please schedule a complimentary consult call or send me a message.