I know detoxing doesn’t seem that fun or interesting, and it can be tempting when you are dealing with a chronic illness that you just want to ‘kill off’ the infection. But that’s not the whole solution!
You might have noticed that when you start killing it off that you start to feel like crap, you might be sore, more tired, just feel depressed, sluggish, your organs might get sore, find it hard to thin, whatever. That’s because as you’re killing off the bugs it releases toxins into your system and you want to be able to get it out as effectively as you can. It’s also why you’ll learn how important it is to pace yourself, do it a little at a time and not overwhelm your body by doing it all at once!
I tend to just feel more tired and like crap, I wake up in the middle of the night and my muscles just feel sore, and my liver or kidneys just feel sore especially in the middle of the night. So i’ve had to learn different ways to help me detox during this. Ideally you’ll want to constantly be detoxing to prevent too much of a healing response and to keep the pathways open.
Some people try to sell you all kinds of expensive crap to detox. Some of it might be good, some of it not so good. But you’re already probably spending enough on your treatments and supplements so it’s good to find cheap ways.
Some of these things may or may not be beneficial for you. And you might even find different ones are beneficial at different times in your treatment. They are just different ways i’ve found that helped me.
What are some cheap and effective ways for me to detox? –
–Hot Epsom Salt Baths.
For this one, you just want to have a bath as hot as you can handle and put some epsom salt in it. Start with maybe a half a cup or less if you’re really sick. Initially this was intense for me and I could barely sit in the bath for more than 10 minutes, apparently lyme doesn’t like heat. You want it hot because you sweat it out which is good detoxing. For quite a while these baths really helped me feel better. If I didn’t do one for a few days my head would go weird and i’d find it hard to think.
I don’t have them any more but they were very beneficial for a while. Around 10-20 minutes is good, you can do longer if you want. But you might find you just feel weird and kind of ‘on edge’ with these hot baths at first. I’m pretty sure that was due to the lyme for me, but might also be part of detoxing. Another benefit of this is getting magnesium, from what i’ve read most people are deficient in magnesium and this goes double if you have lyme as it leeches the magnesium in your body and it’s very beneficial to find ways to have more of it. I also use a topical magnesium liquid on my inner thighs and chest twice a day.
–Activated Charcoal Poultice.
This is a very good one when i’ve just been feeling more sluggish, fatigued and my organs are sore. My kidney/liver area tends to get sore sometimes when i’m detoxing alot, mainly in the middle of the night. So I do an Activated Charcoal Poultice overnight and it helps alot, for some reason I also sleep really well when I do this.
Get some plastic wrap, a good amount and lay it out, and on top of that some paper towel, enough to cover a good amount of your middle back around the liver area but smaller than the plastic wrap.
Grind up some flaxseed/linseed and put it in some water, add a little activated charcoal and mix it up. No need for alot of either because you’re only going to use a little so I end up throwing some out usually but maybe you could reuse it. And spread this mixture over the paper towel.
Get a bandage with a fastener, as long as possible, mines about 2.5m, but the poultice on your back with the activated charcoal side down on your liver area, try to stick it down as best as you can and then wrap the bandage around it so it stays there. Sometimes you’ll find by the morning it’s come off a bit, and can feel a little annoying, but just experiment with it and the placement, you want to try to wrap up as much of the plastic area as you can.
And just keep it on overnight. You might find you sleep much better and in the morning some of the soreness in your organs is alot better and you just feel better in general. One symptom though that might be annoying with this is that for me it tends to cause a rash around the area where I had it. I don’t know if that’s just specific to me as I get some rashes at other times, but it’s likely due to the toxins being pulled out of the area. I usually just put some kefir or bentonite clay in water on it for a few days which seems to help.
-Greens powders.
These powders contain some good stuff for detoxing, and binders which help ‘bind’ the toxins and flush them out. Stuff like Spirulina, Chlorella and other greens. They help detox and are good for you in general. There are a few ones that are crazily expensive, like $80 for 200 grams of it, avoid those ones and find a cheaper one. The expensive ones have adaptogens and other herbs in them but the price is crazy. Just find one with Chlorella, Spirulina and some other greens such as kale, broccoli, barley grass, wheat grass.
Generally I like to look at the reviews first, such as on Iherb and give them a go.
-MSM powder.
MSM is a cheap one that’s good. It can help with detoxing heavy metals, reduces inflammation, helps your joints and has alot of other benefits. Go slow with this one and start small, after quite a while I only still have a teaspoon a day.
I was noticing that my nails were weak and i’d get alot of hangnails and would be cutting several of them almost every day. I noticed when I started taking MSM that this has reduced alot and I hardly have to do so now. It’s worth it even if it’s just for that benefit as it’s a very good price for the amount you’ll use a day.
