Liver Flush....is it crap?

My boyfriend and I have added colonics to our lives this year. He has wicked constipation from Effexor. He has been on it for over 5 years and is the drug that works for him. Altering medications in order to shit on a regular basis is not an option. I have been interested in the potential health benefits colonics for a while and never had anyone who would come with me...until now.

We have had 2 in the past month. We plan to go monthly (or more if he needs to) starting in February. It is $70 a pop.

The hydrotherapist has suggested a liver flush or cleanse for me, not my boyfriend. It makes sense to me from a physiological/medical standpoint but I am not sure if I need it.

The process takes time and commitment which is the key factor that makes me hesitant. I have the appointment booked mid-Feb. It will cost $140 (the price of 2 colonics). I do have many environmental and animal allergies. I also think I fall into the minority who is mildly allergic to marijuana. I occasionally deal with itchy skin, eyes and throat. I had not discussed my environmental allergies with the hydrotherapist at our initial consult.

I can take 10mg loratadine in most situations and feel reasonably comfortable. I was worked up by an allergist in 1999. I did not want to commit to weekly injections as I could continue my current lifestyle without being severely affected by my allergies.

I wanted to provide as much (and as little) as possible to inform the reader. I am quoting from the literature the hydrotherapist gave me, so there is no weblink. I also have done research on-line.

Cleansing the liver of gallstones improves digestion. You can expect your allergies to disappear, more with each cleanse you do. It also eliminates shoulder, upper arm, and upper back pain. You will have more energy and increased sense of well being.

It is the job of the liver to make bile. The liver is full of tubes (bilary tubing) that deliver bile to the common bile duct. The gallbladder is attached to the common bile duct and acts as a storage reservoir. Eating fat or protein triggers the gallbladder to squeeze itself empty after about 20 mins, and the stored bile finishes its trip down the common bile duct to the intestine.

For many people, the biliary tubing is choked with gallstones. Some develop allergies or hives but some have no symptoms. As the stones grow and become more numerous, the back pressure on the liver causes it to make less bile. With gallstones, much less cholesterol leaves the body, and cholestrol levels may rise.

Gallstones being porous can pick up bacteria, cysts, viruses, and parasites that are passing through the liver. In this way, "nests" of infections are formed, supplying the body with fresh bacteria. No stomach infections such as ulcers or intestinal bloating can be cured without removing gallstones from the liver.

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Here is the schedule in brief:

1. Friday. Eat no fat breakfast and lunch. Do not eat or drink after 2pm.
2. 6pm colonic including coffee enema
3. 8pm Mix 1 tbsp Epsom salts in 3/4 cup water and drink.
4. 10pm Repeat the drink
5. 10:45pm Pour 1/2 cup olive oil into container containing 3/4 cup of fresh squeezed pink grapefruit juice. Shake hard until watery.
6. Visit the bathroom one or more times. Do not be more than 15 minutes late.
7. 11pm drink the olive oil/grapefruit mixture through a straw. Drink standing up within 5 mins. Lie down immediately! The sooner you lie down, the more stones you will get out. Lie down flat with your head up high on a pillow. Keep perfectly still for 20 mins. Go to sleep.
8. Saturday morning at 8am. Colonic.
   
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   • Expect diarrhea in the morning. Look for gallstones in the toilet. Count them all roughly. You will need a total of 2000 stones before the liver is clean enough to rid you of allergies, bursitis, or upper back pain permanently. You may repeat the cleanse at two week intervals.
   
   If anyone has any experience with colonics or liver cleansing, I would appreciate your input. This situation feels like "up selling" like when you go to the hairstylist and they try to sell you the products they have used. I know full well I won't be able to reproduce the stylists results so I never purchase and she never has suggested products since.

Wow. I've never heard of such a procedure (liver cleanse) that's so immediate:

Expect diarrhea in the morning. Look for gallstones in the toilet. Count them all roughly. You will need a total of 2000 stones before the liver is clean enough to rid you of allergies, bursitis, or upper back pain permanently. You may repeat the cleanse at two week intervals.

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I guess the proof will be in your "pudding" in the morning. If it is possible to cleanse yourself of gallstones in that fashion - that is amazing.

Please give us an update if you go through with it!

Yeah, I've been curious about liver cleansing too. Tried it on my own once, but I don't think it worked too well.

Shitting stones is not something I am looking forward to. I don't like diarrhea on a good day.

I wonder how many liver flushes it takes to fully cleanse? 2000 stones....that's a lot of counting.

She called the shit poo!

Good luck with everything. I know it will be somewhat painful and stressful. Seriously let us know how everything went.

How does a liver cleansing work, exactly?

the gallstone bit sounded a bit far fetched 2000! but fuck,i dont know but am very interested. But beanergrls link points to it being true.

please let us know how it goes.

I decided NOT to go for the liver flush. The fact that I question why I need one was enough for me to just say no. I will stick to my monthly colonic routine. If I ever find my allergies to be unbearable, I will go for the injections with an allergist.

Deja, I did check out the curezone site and I really do not fit into that lot. I believe in alternative medicine and holistic healing to an extent. I think it can work as an adjunct to modern medicine. I personally would not rely on it solely as a treatment for all illnesses.

Definately.

The problem is that "alternative" medicine has a lot of crap in it.

Pharmaceutical companies are only interested in new drugs, because you can patent them and thereby recoup your research costs. Natural compounds etc aren't patentable and so you cant get much $$ for them.

Suppose that somewhere in alternative medicine, XXX techique/compound/etc is claimed to treat YYY disease.

Either this happens or it does not happen. There's no in between. Sure, it might not work on all people, but neither does anything, and that's why we have rigorous statistics.

The ULTIMATE test of something is whether it is singnificantly different (in the statistical usage of the word "significant) from a placebo as measured in a double-blind test.

Obviously some things you can't do double-blind (like surgery!), but for a lot of things you can.

If XXX performs significantly better at treating YYY than placebo, then we can say that it's effective. If it doesn't, it's not.

Somethings DO have a lot of literature backing their claims. Green tea is a good example, and a lot of work is being done on accupuncture.

On the other hand, homeopathy is the biggest waste of time and money I've ever heard of. Not only is the theory of homeopathy internally inconsistent, it's basis contradicts the entirety of scientific knowledge, and properly executed double-blind studies show that it is no better than placebo.

People need to recognise that alternative medicine falls into three categories
1) techniques/methods/drugs which have been proven by rigorous studies to work
2) ... that may work, but do not have enough supporting evidence to be conclusive
3) ... that don't work.
That's all there is.

Alternative medicine does not necessarily contradict mainstream medicine... many of the areas simply don't have enough evidence either way. But some areas of it are complete rubbish. Iridology is another great example.


I'm a big supporter of looking for new treatments, no matter how radical they might sound at the outset, but ultimately the double-blind test is the final word.

those things on that site that come out after a liver cleanse could be normal and in everyone doing no harm.

As for the colonic irrigation stuff - why do most doctors think its bullshit? I can see that there maybe something in it but surely everything gets pushed through in the end?

I have done several detoxes over the years and have met people who have done the flush you describe above. I have met at least one guy who definitely got loads of stones out, in all sorts of brown to red to green colours.

I did it myself, twice, and I did get something like greenish stones out. All brave, I took heart and examined those and found them to be sort slippery squishy, like jelly-cake or something . . . there was also lots of white crystally chaff.

I had a chat with a totally holistic guy some point after that who said that what I thought might have been stones may just have been "saponified olive oil" - if you mix olive oil with lemon juice or I think any citrus juice and leave it out in the sun for a bit, it will turn solid and slippery... like soap, it will "saponify". He suggested that perhaps they weren't gallstones I was passing.

I'm unsure about it but the second time I did it was the last for a while - I felt pretty rough afterwards for a few days. It is hard work for the liver.

What you can do, if you like a lighter version of the liver flush - and a full fast/detox IS recommended prior to undertaking this hardcore gallbladder flush, apparently. I think the site mentioned above says so, too.

Anyway, the light flush consists of drinking a few spoonfuls (up to a third of a cup) of cold pressed olive oil mixed with orange juice and some lemon, fresh ginger and a bit of garlic and some cayenne pepper.... all mixed/blended . . . nice n easy and the nausea is way less than with the hardcore flush. It will get the liver working too.

Oh, and anyone interested in the colonic irrigation stuff, look up Dr Bernard Jensen and his 'disciple,' Dr Richard Anderson, whose book series "Cleanse and Purify Thyself" are many a modern-day detoxer's Bible. He wrote a fascinating short volume called "The Liver" and one called "The Healing Crisis" as well. Amazing stuff.

But surely these stones would come out the other end anyway with all the other waste?

^What do you mean?

i mean that a lot of the nasty little pebble things would come out in your shit, if that how they come out after a liver detox - or is this wrong?

Yeah you would shit them out...damn it would hurt if they came out with your pee!!! Owww...

Ximot said:

Anyway, the light flush consists of drinking a few spoonfuls (up to a third of a cup) of cold pressed olive oil mixed with orange juice and some lemon, fresh ginger and a bit of garlic and some cayenne pepper.... all mixed/blended . . . nice n easy and the nausea is way less than with the hardcore flush. It will get the liver working too.

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Proof that it does anything to the liver?

sounds preatty placebo happy to me...