Detoxification, pertaining to cleansing the body of impurities, has become a buzz word in health media circles. Some might say it is a current trend among health enthusiasts. However, the term detoxification as it relates to human health is often overused and misunderstood. It has been so loosely thrown around that, as a result, the true meaning of the word seems to have been lost along with its associated level of sophistication. Cleansing methods have been an integral part of holistic medicine practices for centuries due to their ability to support the body’s natural healing mechanisms. In no way is the concept of cleansing, or detoxification new and trendy. In fact, it happens to have deep meaning and requires a certain degree of understanding and expertise to implement correctly, especially in the case of chronic illness.
There are many different ways to approach detoxification of the human body. There are also multiple levels of intensity from which various methods may be implemented. The type of detoxification program and level of intensity applied should be determined by the individual’s toxic body burden and physical capacity to tolerate the designated protocol, which often go hand in hand. Personal willingness to fully carry out the program is another important aspect to consider. Most importantly, you may want to know exactly from “what” it is you are trying to detoxify. Discernment of this issue may require testing of some sort, such as in the case of heavy metals. When suitable for the individual and when properly implemented, a sound detoxification program can be highly beneficial to one’s health. Eliminating excessive waste and toxic debris from the body is not only an effective, but an often-necessary way to help recover from chronic illness. Even those who are in good health should cleanse their bodies periodically of waste buildup to avoid becoming ill. From this perspective, detoxification is one of the best preventive health strategies we can employ.
That said, it is highly recommended to consult with a skilled healthcare professional prior to embarking upon a detoxification protocol, regardless of your health status. The seemingly simple idea of cleansing the body can be quite nuanced. In fact, without proper supervision and support, and without sound recommendations specific to your personal needs, detoxification strategies can be ineffective, and in some cases they can be dangerous. At best, you may not receive the full benefit from all your hard work.
Why Your Detoxification (Detox) Protocol May Not Work
There are several reasons why a detoxification program may risk worsening of your condition, but these reasons largely center around the core concept of elimination, or drainage. For the body to be in a good state of health, it must be able to actively eliminate waste products, but not just through the digestive and urinary tract. In the context of drainage, elimination is not referring to a trip to the potty. Rather, elimination pertains to the body’s innate ability to regularly remove cellular debris and organ level wastes through drainage routes in the lung, kidney, and liver. These drainage routes are referred to as the emunctories and the process of drainage is often referred to as emunction. The lung, kidney, and liver, which is assisted by the gastrointestinal tract carry a huge responsibility in maintaining healthy overall physiologic function and are considered to be the three main organs of elimination. However, these organs of elimination rely heavily on an open and free-flowing lymphatic system to do their job effectively.
The lymphatics are known as the body’s drainage system because its channels are primarily responsible for carrying away waste products and toxic debris of all types beginning at the cellular level. Although the lymphatics maintains its own circulatory system, lymphatic vessels are present alongside capillary beds throughout the entire body and penetrate deep into the interstitial fluid and extracellular matrix (the substance that bathes every cell in the body).
Just as the body produces waste, so does every cell and organ system within the body. This cellular waste collects in the extracellular space and requires effective removal via the lymphatic vessels for optimal cellular and body function to be possible. The brain even has its own lymphatic system known as the glymphatics which supports healthy eliminations around nerve cells within the central nervous system providing them protection from dangerous chemicals and toxic substances. You can see here how health truly begins at the cellular level.
When waste products are flowing easily out of the system via the lymphatics and elimination organs, our cells and organ systems are able to communicate without interference allowing the human engine to run smoothy and work at its best.
Good health relies on good cellular communication in an environment free of systemic waste and toxic build up making drainage of the extracellular space the most critical aspect of physiologic toxin removal, or detoxification. In other words, effective detoxification is only possible if drainage pathways are open allowing for healthy eliminations.
How Drainage Differs from Detoxification (Detox)
While detoxification requires effective drainage, the process of drainage differs greatly from detoxification. As described, drainage refers to the body’s natural physiologic ability to passively process, filter, and eliminate waste products and toxins. By contrast, detoxification is an active push from an outside force on the body that is intended to drive out impurities and contaminants. The liver is known as the main organ of detoxification responsible for metabolizing waste through thousands of biochemical pathways on a daily basis. It is therefore the target of many detoxification protocols. However, it is up to the emunctories (drainage routes) to actually excrete waste out of the body. So, if detoxification pathways in the liver are pushed without first ensuring effective drainage, or emunction of the extracellular matrix and lymphatic system, it can result in worsening of the ill condition.
Without support of the body’s natural elimination pathways, detox programs can often worsen the condition by simply moving highly toxic waste products from one area of the body to another, known as translocation of toxins, or by pushing the newly released toxins deeper into the system. Many patients may be familiar with detoxification reactions, or the Herxheimer response elicited by ineffective detoxification or cleansing protocols. These responses can come in the form of multiple unpleasant or even intolerable symptoms that are caused by the rapid release of toxins and subsequent inability to eliminate them efficiently or effectively. The symptoms can be so offensive they often result in the need to discontinue the protocol.
The sinuses, mucus membranes, skin, and vagina are common areas through which the body attempts to eliminate when the main organs of elimination are overwhelmed with toxins and sluggish drainage routes. These sites are known to become chronically uncomfortable with continuous eliminations. Think of chronic sinusitis and vaginal yeast infections, or itchy skin eruptions that want to hang around. These are usually signs that the body is unable to eliminate properly and there is likely a heavy toxic body burden.
Drainage therapy uses gentle medicines that stimulate the effective metabolism of organ level wastes and cellular debris so they may be properly carried out by the lymphatics. The lymphatic system is often overlooked by modern medicine and is said to be “poorly understood.” Yet, it is central to healthy elimination and optimal body function. Perhaps such an integral system should receive more attention.
Complex Homeopathy and Lymphatic Drainage
Complex homeopathy is a truly holistic, noninvasive therapy that incorporates the mind and body by addressing both the mechanistic and the energetic aspect health. It differs from traditional homeopathy in that it is more of an organ-system approach that encourages proper elimination of intracellular and extracellular waste products with a combination of therapies, rather than using a single substance to bring an individual back into balance, or homeostasis.
Complex homeopathy uses preparations that help the body activate self-healing, restore tissue and organ function, and regain healthy physiology – all through improved toxin elimination and lymphatic drainage. It is an amazingly gentle, yet powerful way to address chronic illness that aims to remove obstacles to healing while also nourishing and rebalancing depleted tissue. This is true terrain medicine with a focus on health, not disease.
Chronic stress, environmental threats, infectious pathogens, and hormonal imbalances are a few common issues that can totally overwhelm the body’s elimination pathways leading to organ system dysfunction, specifically, of our nervous systems and immune systems. Complex homeopathy is a system of medicine that addresses the complexity of today’s health challenges. It is a unique way to tackle the subtle and profound issues that are driving chronic illness.
It is no longer a question of whether or not your body is hosting toxic chemicals but rather a question of how exactly much toxic burden you bare. We are living in unique times. Never in human history have we been exposed to the level of toxicity that we are exposed to today. There are reports of at least 87,000 xenobiotic toxins in our environment and over 250 chemicals identified in human tissue regardless of where you live in the world. This does not include the toxins naturally produced endogenously through everyday metabolism, energy production, and breathing. Assisting the body’s physiology in the elimination of toxins which are interfering with optimal cellular function is the most profound benefit of drainage, or elimination.
By supporting healthy elimination and drainage, complex homeopathy assists in removal of:
- Metals like arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, and aluminum
- Pesticide and Herbicide Residues
- Pollens from grasses, trees, and flowers
- Pharmaceutical byproducts including medicines/hormones in our water supply.
- Plastic byproducts like BPA, PCBs and more
- Mold toxins
- Various carcinogens
Simply put, by removing the garbage clogging our system and interfering with our normal physiological functions, the body is able to do what it needs to do for all other things to fall into place. For instance, when foreign substances are removed via drainage, the immune system is allowed to relaunch with a better sense of self and may move toward regaining self-identity.
The lymphatics not only carry away wastes but also deliver important substances of all types to targeted tissues throughout the body. Another example of how simply removing interference within the extracellular space can restore proper bodily function is demonstrated through the intimate connection of the lymphatics to the nervous system. Buildup of toxic waste can cause systemic dysregulation of cell-to-cell nerve signaling, ultimately disturbing the actions of all proteins, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes and more. A special function of the extracellular matrix is the rapid transmission of nerve signals due to its unique electro-chemical properties. When compromised, the downstream effects can be devastating to the actions of all proteins, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes and more as well to the actions of any type of medicines used to address the illness. The only way to ensure proper functioning of these regulatory molecules and medicinal therapeutics is to restore the integrity of or “clarify” the terrain in which they communicate.
Benefits to the Highly Sensitive Patient
Drainage therapies are ideal for those who are highly sensitive, have multiple environmental or food sensitivities, or for those who carry a heavy toxic burden in their body from things such as mold, hormonal imbalance, viral or bacterial pathogens or chronic stress. They are also perfect to support those suffering from chronic immune dysregulation, including autoimmune processes.
Complex homeopathy provides a starting point for those with multiple health issues that are rooted in a number of deregulatory processes and body imbalances. It offers a different model to address complex chronic illness by helping to put an end to the continuous chasing of pathogens and deficiency states within the body.
The Non-mechanistic or Energy Aspect of Healing
Homeopathy has been criticized for containing very small amounts, or sometimes just the essence of a medicinal substance. However, it is a form of energetic medicine with documented success since the early 1800’s. It continues to be used around the world to a relatively large degree compared to that of the United States (US). United States medical schools were once based on homeopathic principles, philosophy, and remedies but curricula and medical institutions have now been replaced with the patented pharmaceutical approach to medicine. Medical doctors today are trained solely in the mechanistic way of understanding the human body. But everything is not always measurable or quantifiable. For that matter, neither is everything visible or tangible. Particularly when it comes to human health and disease. The “evidence” may not always be reproducible in a lab or reached through a “controlled” trial, but we somehow know and feel what is right or know that we are indeed healing. Many forms of medicine do not fit into the “evidence-based” research model, which is only a small subset. Throughout the history of medicine cultures around the world have understood and applied the energetic aspect of healing and have come to understand that it plays a significant role in helping people get well.
We are energetic beings. That is a scientific fact if there ever was one. Our bodies operate on energy which we extract from the foods we eat, solar light frequencies and the Earth’s magnetism. We are connected to our environment in many ways through energetic fields. Proponents of natural medicine embrace the energetic aspect of health and healing and understand the power behind non-mechanistic forms of therapy. Drainage homeopathy has a central tenant of removing obstacles to cure, both the mechanistic and energetic. A clearing of the system as a whole not only unleashes the bodies healing power, but the clearing of physical and energetic fields is what allows the true self to emerge. Over time, this holistic form of therapy enables the evolution and discovery of our deepest human being and encourages us to be at peace with the new knowledge of self.
While complex homeopathy is only one tool in the toolshed of natural medicine, it is an important one that may provide solutions to ongoing or worsening symptoms despite numerous efforts to improve one’s health. When the lymphatic and circulatory systems are able to regain their ability to self-regulate, and dysfunction within stressed or weak areas of the body are identified, the body’s terrain can be clarified, and the root cause of disease may better be addressed or resolved.
References
Nash, G. (N.D.) Resolving Chronic Illness with Drainage: The Essential Component of Hormone, Immune, and Nervous System Health. PDF. Pg 1-23.
Witt, C. M., Lüdtke, R., Baur, R., & Willich, S. N. (2005). Homeopathic medical practice: long-term results of a cohort study with 3981 patients. BMC public health, 5, 115. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-5-115
