Beware Of Intense Detoxification
The New Year and the Spring are prime ’detoxing’ times as folks try to reset their health. Often folks opt for the intense ‘quick’ fix.
Beware: Not all detoxes are healthy.
Intense detoxification is designed to urgently and rapidly purge toxins from the body in a person who has acute toxicity due to industrial or excessive exposures to environmental toxicants.
Intense detoxification is a significant medical intervention that involves using intravenous agents that attach to the toxin and forcibly pull it into the bloodstream so that the toxins can be cleared.
Sometimes intense detoxification involves foot or body bathes, colonics, intense caloric restriction, enemas, and intense sweating.
Those who engage in intense detoxification think that feeling sick for the first three days is a sign that the therapy is working. They say that feeling achy and fatigued and foggy is a sign the toxins have left.
DO NOT BELIEVE THIS.
Feeling sick during detoxification is a sign that the process is proceeding too quickly, that the body cannot clear the toxins that are being purged from the tissues fast enough, and that acute toxicity is affecting the body’s tissues and physiology. In this circumstance, the body will try to move the toxins into tissue storage as soon as possible.
Feeling poorly during an intense detox often means that your capacity to excrete the toxins is significantly impaired and inefficient. The achy, fatigued, and foggy feelings are an indication that you have re-intoxicated yourself.
Feeling better after a few days often indicates that the toxins have been placed back into body tissues for storage.
Feeling achy, foggy and fatigued are warning signs. There is something imbalanced in your detoxification process that needs to be understood. Folks who are likely to have these symptoms may also be sensitive to smells, environmental chemicals, and medications. They may have hormonal imbalances and irregular cycles or fibrous breast tissues. They may have constipation or irritable bowel syndrome. They may have nutrient deficiencies, genetic inefficiencies, or defects in antioxidation. All of these imbalances can induce or worsen detoxification inefficiencies.
Recently, a patient performed her own intense detoxification and felt tired, achy, and flu-like in the first few days. She then developed more significant muscle and tendon pain, but insisted on continuing with the detox against medical advice. When we retested her antioxidation status after the detoxification process, the status had significantly worsened. The detoxification was too fast and too intense for her body to be able to effectively remove all of the toxins she was liberating from tissue storage.
The safety of gentle cleansing is different from that of intense detoxification. Gentle cleansing detoxification accomplishes detoxification without stripping the body of needed nutrients. Gentle cleansing detoxification keeps up with the body’s ability to clear toxins.
Gentle cleansing uses ongoing small changes in the diet to accomplish detoxification. In gentle cleansing the offending food or environmental toxin source ,like fish, would be removed and the detoxification accomplished by using daily green drinks and focused supplementation.
Beware the quick intense detoxification protocols. If you have detoxification challenges, metabolic imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalance, or constipation, seeking a Functional Medicine initial evaluation and a gentle detoxification process would serve you better.
Interested In Working Together?
OneMedicine Wellness Services seeks to help you achieve the best & healthiest version of yourself. If you would like to get started on your journey to restoring health, set up a consultation here.
If you would like to learn more about our service offerings, click here.
For questions & comments, please contact us here.
