A diet that is optimized for the body's precious PH balance is talking about BLOOD PH and what happens when the body has to struggle to maintain blood pH. The digestive system is its own amazing environment that makes use of acids and alkalines both. Our blood PH level is of vital importance; if the body cannot maintain a very narrow window of balance, we die in horrible ways. Heart attack, stroke, muscles spasming, mental confusion, all at once.

The blood minerals that we concern ourselves with are the electrolytes: potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, phosphorous, although the latter two are easy to get from the diet and rarely supplemented.

In order to maintain blood pH balance, the body needs reserves of minerals such as calcium, sodium, potassium, so it can add and subtract molecules as needed. If it doesn't have these from the diet or water, it will do things like rob the bones and teeth of hard bone calcium in order to create blood calcium lactate.

As it maintains the balance, the "used up" or waste acids are excreted in the urine. If the urine is constantly acidic, that tells us that we are not providing enough alkalines or good acids such as fruit acids which are *base once digested* (a base neutralizes acids) to offset the balance. That's where a lot of the misunderstanding about eating a PH diet is, the fact that many acids once digested are the opposite, so people think you shouldn't eat lemon or pineapple, which couldn't be more wrong.

So that, in a nutshell, is blood PH.

When it comes to digestion, food goes from acids in the stomach to alkalines in the small intestine. The food must be reduced to a paste-like material by the teeth and stomach acids so the enzymes can get at the nutrients. Most of absorption happens in the small and large intestine, and that requires enzymes. Enzymes are delicate and only work in a more alkaline environment, so the small intestine must flood the digested food mass with base to neutralize the stomach acids so the enzymes can do their good work.

So you want a stomach with plenty of acids or the entire process is compromised. You want plenty of enzymes and reserves of base and alkaline so absorption isn't compromised in the small intestine. If either are compromised, then the colon cannot properly do its work to allow absorption of the base and alkaline minerals still in the food that is turning into fecal matter. So you get a vicious cycle. Depletion because of depletion.

Acid vs. Alkaline Foods

There are charts available on the net, but again there is much confusion about which foods are acid and which foods are alkaline.

What you have to look at is whether or not they are whole foods close to their orignal state (alkaline) and whether they digest completely (alkaline). IF they are phony foods or do not digest properly, their affect on the body is acidic.

You cannot just eat purely alkaline foods (nothing but alkaline minerals) in order to get better. The body does need some compounds that are, technically, acid, to maintain proper pH balances. So don't go driving yourself crazy trying to remember which food is predominantly acid in chemical makeup. Just remember that real food is alkaline while phony, processed foods are acidic. There are only a very few exceptiosn to that rule:

Muscle meats tend to be acidic because of their digestive byproducts, so if you have a meat day follow it with a high-calcium day, or end the day with some kefir. Protein powders tend to be acidic. Peanuts are acidic.

Doshas help us to define body types and proclivities, plus they rule certain functions and organs. When we have an ailment, we have an imbalanced dosha, because each Dosha represents a force in the body. If that force is coming on too strong or too weak, we suffer.

The three doshas are Vata, Kapha and Pitta. Vata is the element of Air, and the other doshas depend on Vata because it is responsible for movement. Kapha is the element of water, Pitta is fire, or bile.

When applied to body type, a person can be predominantly one dosha, two doshas or all three, so there are more than just three body types. A person can be physically one dosha but mentally and emotionally another dosha, such as a solid Kapha body type but quick and fast Vata mind – Rodney Dangerfield.

When applied to ailments, you can have a Kapha person with a predominantly Pitta ailment, such as a hot, congested liver and toxic bile from too many heating spices, tomato sauces and deep-fried oils.

Vata people are almost always thin, unless they really overindulge. They are quick thinkers, alert, live on nerves. They tend to have nervous habits like nail biting, pencil biting, smoking, etc. Vata means air, and their proclivities and symptoms increase when it is windy. They hate too much wind or air conditioning. They have fine bones, slight builds.

Vata ailments are anything having to do with dryness and cold. Dry skin, dry hacking cough, cold extremities, chills, spastic colon, gas, bloating, flatulence, are all Vata derangements.

Kapha people are the solid types. They tend to be what we call “large boned.” They are easy-going, placid, steadfast, good at planning and saving money. Kapha means water, and they do tend to get the water and mucous type complaints: sinus and ear infection, asthma, bronchitis. They gain weight easily and lose it slowly. They enjoy fasting for the lightness of being it gives them.

Kapha ailments are anything having to do with phlegm and the ear/nose/throat, stomach and upper respiratory area. Bronchitis, asthma, sinus infection are all Kapha imbalances.

Pitta people are the fiery types. Pitta means fire or bile. They have the strongest digestion and metabolisms. They can go out into the coldest weather without a sweater or scarf and shake their heads at people who bundle up. Their symptoms are increased in hot weather, which makes them perspire more, which they are already prone to do, and lose their temper and get irritable. They tend to have medium builds.

Pitta ailments have to do with certain kinds of acne and hives, pancreas, spleen, small intestine. Problems with absorbing nutrients, food intolerances, diarrhea, are typical Pitta issues.

Ayurvedic medicine has categories for foods and their actions on the body. We went over hot and cold awhile back, this takes that further. And indeed, there is more than hot or cold in that category, which is the Quality of the food. Hot foods are literally hot but can also be a food that increases transit times. Cold means actually cold like ice cream, and the coldness can cause either constipation or diarrhea depending on the Dosha. There's also heavy, light, dry, and oily.

• Heavy increases Kapha, but it's good for Vata and Pitta.
• Light increases Vata, so it's good for Kapha but bad for Vata and Pitta.
• Dry (white potatoes) increases Vata, but Kapha is wet (mucous) so it's good for Kapha.
• Oily (actual oils and meats, dairy) balances Vata and Pitta but not Kapha.
• Cold increases Vata and Kapha, decreases Pitta
• Hot decreases Vata and Kapha, but increases Pitta

The next category is taste, how a food tastes. The taste can be that tasted at the outset by the tongue or post-digestive - they don't have to be the same, they can change, which gets confusing! By knowing just the tongue taste is still enough knowledge to help you decide which is better intervention for you and your symptoms. Aloe vera, for instance, starts out bitter but its action is astringent.

By the way, "Food" means anything eaten, including herbs and spices too. So learning the taste of a spice or herb will give you a good idea as to its action on the body and whether it is good for your Dosha or Dosha type imbalance, so you can start making better choices about which herbs and super-foods to take.

The six tastes tell you how a food will affect the power of digestion and body overall. For instance, "Pungent" foods are hot, so they fire up agni and are good for cleansing the intestines and body of toxins/ami/undigested food particles that end up lining your arteries and cause heart attacks or lining your joints and causing arthritis or inhabiting your muscles and causing fibromyalgia.

Each Dosha (body type and dosha-disturbance) is further defined by how taste affects it. Some tastes increase a dosha, thus, overdosing on the foods with that taste will create an imbalance. So if you're a Vata and eat things that increase Vata, you will have aggravated Vata symptoms of being too thin, weak, cold, fatigued, poor appetite, flatulence, constipation. If you're Kapha and eat tastes that increase Kapha you'll have a flare-up of Kapha type symptoms, such as asthma, ear infections, sinus infections, weight gain, depression, overally heaviness, coldness.

To bring these symptoms back into balance, simply accent foods with the taste that DEcreases that Dosha. Kapha is cold, so anything hot and pungent will decrease it. If there's a mucous condition, astringent would be called for.

Salty is a tad heating, helps maintain healthy metabolism, pH balance, improves appetite.

Sweet as in sweets and carbs in general, are slightly cooling and are body builders, so they increase Kapha, weight overall, and in excess build toxins and promote obesity. Done right, sweetness decreases excessive Vata and Pitta in the body.

Sour taste is found in found in fermented food and acidic fruit. It increases Kapha and Pitta and decreases Vatta. It is a heating taste, which counter thirst, helps maintaining acidity and improves appetite and digestion. In excess, in increases acidity.

Bitter tastes were always assumed to be poison when first encountered by herbal healers. They would carefully take a tiny bit and note reactions. Many bitter compounds are lethal at high enough doses, but wonderful curatives in smaller. Bitter foods are usually guilty of having an acidic anti-nutrient, such as spinach which has oxalic acid that binds calcium, so their good qualities (high in minerals) are often offset just a bit. Bitter decreases Pitta and Kapha and increases Vata. It is a cooling and drying taste, which tones the organs and increases appetite and is detoxifying. Eating bitter foods like bitter salad greens is an excellent way to keep from overeating. It's very difficult to eat too much bitter! Bitter herbs are detoxing to the body.

The definition of Astringent is: drug that causes contraction of body tissues and canals; [adj] tending to draw together or constrict soft organic tissue. So if you had hemorrhoids, where fluids and tissues are ballooning out, you'd want something to draw them back together. Thus drinking and applying aloe vera is a good remedy for hemorrhoids. Apples, pears and cabbage are considered astringent, which is why they are safer to eat fruits while battling candida. Overdosing on astringents would in time deplete the vitality of the tissues.

Once you know our Dosha, make a chart of what increases it and decreases it. That way you can properly categorize every food you eat and also adjust the foods you eat to balance them. For isntance, potatoes are dry, but add lots of butter and they're balanced by the oil, making them more appropriate for Vata but perhaps aggravating Pitta. Do the same for symptoms - when making a list of your symptoms, categorize them as to which Dosha they are. If you're not sure, check a book on Ayurveda (Dr. Vasant Lad's is easy reading) or Google it. Or refer to these pages:

http://www.ayurbalance.com/explore_articlesixtastes.htm

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=diet&dbid=12

http://www.naturalhealthweb.com/articles/mouze1.html

http://www.holistic-online.com/ayurveda/ayv-taste-concept.htm

and please do share good pages when you find them. :)

Lots of "gurus" out there are trying to make money off their really bad science. They'll try to tell you that vinegars are bad because they're acids (their pH may be on the acid side, but they are often potassium chloride which is alkaline to the body) and other such nonsense that only goes to prove that they never took organic chemistry, biology or chemistry of nutrition, and their papers are not peer-reviewed by other scientists. Don't listen to them, they'll drive you crazy and won't make you feel any better than before, unless of course they encourage you to give up junk foods.

We have more microbes in our body than we have actual body cells. We are totally dependent on microbes, it's a symbiotic relationship most of the time. Certain microbes are totally bad for us, and thus are called parasites because they have no benefit, only detriments. But the friendlies, as I call them, give us tons of benefits.

Gut flora (microbes in the small and large intestine) play a lot of different roles. They're our first defense against the baddies and environmental toxins. Indeed, some microbes are being cultured and developed to clean up toxic waste dumps. They generate life-giving enzymes and vitamins, keep things clean, and they both digest a lot of what we eat, and a lot of the toxic by-products of digestion - so that we don't have to.

Our friendlies are killed off by sugar, chlorinated tap water, overeating, many food additives, and the baddies. Our diets used to contain tons of pasteurized foods so we were constantly replacing them, but then Pasteur came along, made us hate and fear all bacteria indiscriminantly, and now everything is pasteurized so we no longer get the friendlies regularly in our diets. And fermented foods went out of fashion, and once out of fashion, only education will bring it back.

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Electrolytes are the blood minerals that make up the pH balance of the blood and the electrical potential of the body. Without electrolytes, the body is like a car without a battery - it just cannot get started.

Electrolytes for the most part are NOT stored, apart from salt and calcium, and you don't want to use your stores of bone for blood calcium as that can lead to osteoperosis and kidney stones. So electrolytes MUST come from the diet. They are shed through sweat and urine and used in digestion and elimination.

Bouts of fatigue and brain fog can often be attributed to a lack of electrolytes, as can muscle spasms, light headedness and depression.

Salt, calcium, potassium and magnesium are the electrolytes we need the most. Salt is stored and managed by the liver, so we don't need a lot, we just need enough. Organic salts from zucchini and celery are best, seafood next best, Celtic Sea salt is great, kosher salt is fine. Chromium and Sulfur are also electrolytes. A lack of chromium will lead to intense hypoglycemia.

A combination of Emergen-C, Cal-Mag Fizz and the Cleansing Drink or Rehyrdating Drink is a good way to get electrolytes. I have yet to find a supplement that has nothing but all of the electrolytes in proper proportions.

If you can handle the taste, you can make up an oral rehydration solution:

One quart of water
2 tablespoon of table sugar
1 tablespoon of grade B maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salts or take magnesium supplement
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
sip slowly throughout the day


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The type and location of skin eruptions tells us a lot about how our body is functioning - the areas of congestion, nutritional deficiencies, etc.

Forehead acne of any type is due to liver congestion. The liver and bile ducts are clogged with stones and bad fats. Time for a couple liver flushes or comprehensive liver cleansing focusing on ridding the liver of fats, which means Bupleurum, Lecithin, Malic Acid, Carrot Juice or Carrot Cleansing Salad - or both, and fat burners like blueberries, Taurine, Arginine, or Nutritional yeast flakes.

Whiteheads are due to overall congestion from the bowels to the lymphatic system, so good and thorough bowel management is necessary. Pungent therapy is essential.

Large acne, cystic acne, no matter where it is and especially if it is attacking the chest and back in addition to the face, means you really should do the stomach acid test and start drinking apple cider vinegar (see recipe for Cleansing Drink) 3x a day. You should also follow the candida diet (low sugar) and perhaps supplement with acidophilus/kefir, altho some people break out in reaction to acidophilus due to leaky gut. Usually that's just temporary.

Acne around the mouth, especially if you get bumps or cracks at the corners of your mouth, is Vitamin B deficiency and wonky hormones. Liver management and avoiding estrogenic foods will help with this. Wheat germ oil, eggs and nutritional yeast are excellent sources of B vits. See recipe for protein shakes.

Acne along the cheek or under the eyes involves the kidneys. You're dehydrated and must do some kidney management. The Cleansing drink will cleanse the kidneys.

Acne on the chin is usually due to toxins being stored in the reprodutive system. Comprehensive liver and bowel management, plus avoiding estrogenic foods, Zinc and the rest of the Skin Food will help with this.

Acne along the jawline, if not iodine overdose, is usually kidneys/lymph congestion.

If your skin is prone to goosebump sized acne (check the back of your upper arms), you have a Vitamin A, EFA, zinc deficiencies, and a very low metabolism. If you tend to feel cold, need lots of sleep and have a hard time waking up in the morning, you should get checked for hypothyroidism and anemia. Get plenty of Skin Food and take the thyroid self-test.

If you suddenly break out in a rash of goosebump sized acne like bumps that are very close together on your face, you overdosed on Iodine. Stop supplementing it or eat less of the clam bake next time. ;)

If your skin is slow to heal, you're low in Skin Food, especially Zinc, and possibly low thyroid.

If you tend to break out in hives on back and chest, particularly after meals, you have allergies, a lack of digestive enzymes, acidophlus and stomach acids and are probably sensitive to sugar. You should do a rotation/elimination diet and self-allergy test to find out what your allergies are. Basically, go on a very simple diet of Kichadi and the other essential recipes. Then once a day every-other day introduce a new food. Take your pulse before and after this food. If it increases more than 10% or you get other symptoms like fatigue, yawning, chances are you're allergic. You should follow a pitta-pacifying lifestyle.

In general, acne is due to these deficiencies: Vitamin A, Vit B2, Vit B5, Vit B6, Vit C, Vit E, manganese, chromium, magnesium. Nutritional yeast flakes, wheat germ oil, Emergen-C and a teaspoon of Epsom salts will make up for these deficiencies.

One must also take into account the cleanliness of the entire digestive tract, and digestive power. If stomach acids or digestive enzymes or friendly microbes are low, Ama will result, and Acne is most often due to Ama. Any acne protocol should begin with a diet that is conducive to digestive power and should include comprehensive digestive and bowel management.

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Yep, your farts can tell you a lot about what's going on with your digestion! Didn't you just know that I'd get around to making you smell your farts? ;)

Okay, to review a bit, remember that it is normal to have a bit of gas when you pass feces. But passing gas in between feces is not good, it means too much fermentation is going on and over time that can lead to IBS, Crohn's and systemic candidiasis.

Foul-smelling gas and feces is usually due to poor protein digestion. Since protein digestion starts in the stomach and is continued in the small intestine, it's usually a combo of low stomach acids, pancreatic enzymes, particularly protease, and sometimes low bile salts since protiens are usually combined with fats. Eat smaller portions and follow the guidelines for digestive power, such as not drinking a lot of fluids or eating a lot of fruit with a high-protein meal. A bit of cooked fruit sauce is okay, like the way we have cranberry with turkey, or pineapple with sweet and sour chicken, or lingonberry with swedish meat balls. But don't follow a meat meal with a huge raw fruit dessert! Especially if you have company! ;) If you have chronic foul-smelling gas, best to take the acid stomach test.

If eating fats causes nausea, burping, sudden feelings of illness like you're about to vomit or actual pain, and then you have smelly gas or slick floating stools or a visible oil slick in the toilet bowl, that's all poor fat digestion. Fats are digested by bile, which is produced by the liver and held at the ready by the gallbladder, and also lipase from the pancreas. It could be due to not enough pancreatic enzymes, bile salts or heavily contaminated bile salts due to eating things like margarine, deep-fried foods, commercial salad dressings, and a low-fiber diet or low-fat diet that caused a bunch of stones. Liver and bile cleansing is in order, which means carrot juice, carrot salad, liver herbs, stone dissolvers and perhaps liver flushing.

If you have lots of gas with no odor really, you're not just lucky, you're probably having problems digesting carbohydrates. For that, lactic acid is the best response. Lactic acid is found in fermented cabbage (cortido, kim chee, sauerkraut), or you can actually buy lactic acid tabs. Digestive enzymes are also good, as are organic salts which can be found in Bieler Broth, or zucchini and celery.

If milk and milk products give you diarrhea, gas and bad breath, you are lactose intolerant and should avoid milk unless it is hot milk simmered with spices (see recipes in FAQ) or cultured milk/kefir, and even then only in small amounts, rarely. Digestive enzymes will help with this too.

These are the foods that are most likely to cause gas:

beans, especially when combined with sugar and ketchup. When they are soaked overnight and then slow-cooked with carminitive spices (cumin, turmeric, garlic) they are much less likely to cause gas to form.

vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, onions, artichokes, and asparagus, especially if raw. Eat them cooked or fermented.

fruits, such as pears, apples, and peaches. Eat them cooked with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg.

whole grains, such as whole wheat and bran. Bran is very hard to digest, one of those foods that we think is good for us but in fact is not great. Best to get the benefits of bran from wheat germ oil.

soft drinks and fruit drinks. High in sugar, the sugars bypass the stomach, hit the small intestine and ferment, especially when combined with other foods.

milk and milk products, such as cheese and ice cream, and packaged foods prepared with lactose, such as bread, cereal, and salad dressing.

foods containing sorbitol, such as dietetic foods and sugarfree candies and gums.

Undigested food particles in the stools means not enough stomach acids. Add lemon juice to your meals, or HCL Betaine. Chew foods thoroughly or use a blender/food processor to grate them up for you. Stop drinking fluids with your meals, especially iced drinks. Some foods will always appear undigested: tomato skins, garlic skins, sesame seeds, green peas, whole flax seeds.

Burning stomach immediately upon eating means not enough stomach acids. Take a teaspoon of organic Apple Cider Vinegar and see if that helps, or peppermint tea. If they help, you don’t have enough stomach acid.

Burning stomach hours after your last meal means too much stomach acid. Take a pinch of baking soda in warm water.

Feeling full for a long period of time after a meal and lack of hunger in general means low stomach acids and digestive enzymes, low bile production too. Do pungent therapy (garlic, ginger tea, peppermint tea, cook foods as curries) and other things to increase digestive fire and stomach acidity.

Feeling burning in the general abdominal area due to stress or lack of sleep is actually the liver, not the stomach. Do liver management.

Nausea and/or abdominal pain that shoots up to the shoulders, shoulder blades and/or upper arms is a gallbladder/liver attack. Take therapeutic amounts of Gold Coin Grass, Lecithin, Apple Cider Vinegar, and do a castor oil pack.

General nausea means a backup in the works. Drink peppermint tea and take a mild laxative such as a bulk fiber mixed into prune juice.

Flatulence means fermentation in the small intestine. Avoid eating fruit or sugar with your meals, they should be a meal by themselves. Use more carminative spices like cumin, turmeric. Don’t have fruit desserts.

Diarrhea means the body wants to get rid of something bad for you. There may be a bacteria war going on with your colonies of microbes or an allergic reaction. Eat simple foods that are slow to digest like applesauce, bananas. Drink kefir to replace friendly microbes. Determine which food/water caused the diarrhea and avoid it for three months.

If you have someone close to you who has a history of stroke, or is getting along in years and their family history includes stroke, this is good stuff for all family members to know. Keep a bottle of cayenne pepper tincture so you can treat them while you're waiting for emergency services to arrive. If all goes well, by the time they get there, you won't need them!

This test is of course to be adminstered by you to the person you think may be experiencing a stroke:

First, ask them to answer a simple question. Can be anything, like what day it is, what their last name is.

Second, ask them to smile. Strokes tend to be very localized, which means only one part of the brain is affected. Since the brain is in halves, with each half running one side of the body, if a half is compromised we won't be able to smile with both sides of our mouth. So if the person in question can only manage a half smile, go on to the third part of the test right away.

The third part is ask them to raise both arms above their head. Strokes usually impair full arm movement on one side of the body. If they cannot raise both arms the same height, chances are they're having a stroke.

If they test positive to two or more, call 911 and then administer 3-5 drops of cayenne tincture. Wait five mintes, re-do the test, adminster 3 drops more if no improvement is seen. Don't administer more cayenne pepper tincture after that.

When should you administer the test? When a person is a known risk of stroke and you see them stumble, or they start slurring their words, seeming to fall asleep or doze inappropriately, or seem to be drunk without cause.

Every morning for a week, immediately upon awakening and before you get out of bed, take your temperature with a regular thermometer.

Take your temperature again after you've been active, like right before lunch. Best done on an empty stomach as digesting meals will affect temperature.

Calculate the average for each reading - the morning average and afternoon average.

Your afternoon average is your 'normal' temperature. 98.6 is the nation's average, now you've found your personal average.

The morning average temperature shows your resting metabolic rate. If it is more than 1.5 degrees lower than your active average chances are good that you're hypothyroid. Best to get this checked.

It's fun to re-do this average after cleansing and after adding the Cleansing Drink to your diet to see how much your metablism has increased.

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Dark spots on the lips may mean parasites. Constant chapping and peeling means weak immune system, particularly the spleen. Avoid raw, cold, sour foods except for citrus and accent sweet, warming foods and treatments such as pungent therapy, detox baths, massage, trampoline.

Look at the space between the eyebrows. People tend to get vertical frown lines there. If you have them, not just faint lines but deep, you have toxins and anger stored in the liver. Watch them disappear as you do liver management, it’s quite fun to see them disappear without the aid of special expensive creams or plastic surgery!

Look at your forehead. Do you have deep horizontal lines? These are worry lines. It means you worry about things too much.

Look at your eyes. Are the whites clear and bright? That’s good liver health. If they’re bloodshot, dry, itchy, you’re toxic, acidic. Do bowel and liver management, change diet. If the whites are yellow, that’s liver congestion. The liver is unable to exit toxins, it’s a plugged up filter.

Are your pupils tiny, even in the dark? That often indicates an inflammatory or arthritic condition.

Do your tears leave residue, or crunchies? That’s because of an acidic system, not enough fluids to help the kidneys do their job properly. Drink more fluids, eat more veggies, drink the Cleansing Drink and avoid phony acid forming foods for several days.

Do you have bags under your eyes? This is due to impaired kidney function and sometimes too many bad fats/mucous in the lymphs. So drink lots of water, take some fresh squeezed parsley juice to act as a mild diuretic and replace necessary minerals. Then do some lymph management such as a detox bath and trampoline. If your face seems swelled with edema anywhere, you must do kidney and lymph management.

Check your entire face for dark brown spots, or liver spots. This is not aging, this is congested, toxic liver. Do some liver management, take care to make the body more alkaline, especially if you have moles.

Do you have whitehead acne anywhere? Then you need to cleanse the bowels, liver, lymphs and avoid all mucous-forming foods such as refined sugar, refined wheat flour, milk, cheese, baked goods and gluten grains. Do the stomach acid test, most acne/hives are due to low stomach acids.

Dark circles under the eyes can mean bruising, dehydration, but if you're very symptomatic then it's liver and bowel congestion to the point of toxic blood.

The shape, color, frequency and behavior of our stools is a wonderful indicator of health. The ideal stool is at least two inches in diameter and twelve inches long, but of course it depends on how much fiber we eat. Some foods have a very fast transit time so the stool stays very thin, this is not a bad thing if you know that foods are causing this. If you are prone to thin stools no matter what you eat, then that indicates a colon with strictures preventing the formation of thicker stools.

Stools should be formed but loose, mostly uniform in color, and sink to the bottom of the bowl but slowly.

If you can tell what you ate by looking at a stool, it wasn’t digested completely and this causes many complications over time. Some foods never do digest completely, including whole flax seeds, sesame seeds, and corn as a protein-starch combo food is tough to digest, and salad greens. So don’t worry if you see these occasionally. Think about chewing your food more thoroughly, cooking the foods rather than eating them raw, or putting them through a blender.

A stool that totally floats on the surface is either mostly vegetable fiber that is full of trapped air, or full of undigested fats. Fat floats, as does wood. A sign that it’s fat making the stool float is a slick, shiny coated appearance. This proves that the fats you ate were not completely digested. This could be due to eating too much at one time for your digestive power; eating fats with something that prevented their emulsification such as fruit or starch; having a congested liver that doesn’t produce enough bile; having bile that is full of fat so it is ineffective as a dissolving agent. Digestive enzymes, lecithin, carrots, apples, beets and liver management are called for. If it was a one-time deal due to enjoying some treats, don’t worry about it.

A stool that is very compact, hard, indicates that not enough water is being drunk. If the stool is thick then the feces were very slow in transit so that all of the fluids had time to be absorbed. If the stool is grainy, or shaped into little balls, you have eaten very badly and should do an enema or fiber plus laxatives to get it all out of you properly, as the little balls can clog the appendix and cause appendicitis.

Stools should be rather brown, or red-brown, or dark brown. Gray colored stools indicates a severe lack of bile due to a stone or gunk clogging the bile ducts. This should be attended to immediately.

Other colors such as green or orange represent the foods or which microbes went to work to fully digest the foods and aren’t a worry. Green is sometimes bile full of cholesterol that moved so fast it didn’t have a chance to turn brown. Yellow indicates various toxins and a very fast transit time. Certain foods will color stools, beets and carrots especially. Carrot juice will cause orange stools. A lack of toxins such as after a liver flush will also cause orange stools temporarily.

Dark, tarry stools, black stools, indicates blood in the feces. Bleeding can be due to Crohn’s or parasites or lack of good microbes.

If bright red blood is seen, this is a recent bleeding in the rectal area and can be due to hemorrhoids or old fecal matter coming off the intestine like a scab that comes off before the skin is healed. Avoid fiber for 1-3 days, enjoy a liquid diet, and let your intestines heal. Aloe Vera juice is very healing in this case.

Stools are often accompanied by a bit of gas; this is normal and to be expected. If the flatulence happens more often, such as in between bowel movements, and you haven’t eaten any vegetables rich in organic sulphur such as broccoli or cabbage, then the gas indicates poor digestion and fermentation. Foods that are not completely broken down by chewing or the stomach’s gastric juices go into the intestines in large enough pieces that your microbes have to do a lot of work to break them down further. The food then ferments as it is eaten by yeast and propagates more yeast. This creates gas. Eating a fruit dessert after a high-fat/meat meal causes this problem.

It helps to get to know your average transit time. For instance, if you eat breakfast and dinner and don’t have a bowel movement until the next morning, your average transit time is 12-24 hours -the number of hours since your last breakfast and dinner. This should be your slowest transit time, your bowel movements should be at least once a day unless you’re fasting.

For larger people who consume 2,000 to 3,000 or more calories a day, you should be having two bowel movements a day. If you’re not, you need to take a look at your diet. You may not be eating enough good raw oils, grains, vegetables - fiber - or foods with fast transit times. The ideal diet has a mixture of fast and slow foods. You may not have a strong liver or colon.

You should not have to strain to void a stool. Straining is very hard on the rectum and can cause hemrrhoids. It is better to do an enema or, ahem, go digging, rather than strain. Use a glycerin tab as a suppository, available next to the Fleet enemas at the drugstore.

If you find yourself constantly having to wait for the bowel movement to the point that you read the entire magazine rather than just a paragraph, you’re either eating badly or have a prolapsed colon or both.

Sitting upright is not the best position for a bowel movement and doing so our whole lives long can cause weakness. Use a stool or a commercial stand that is designed to go around the toilet bowl so you can crouch over it rather than sit. Or use a training potty on the ground. There's a yoga asana where you pretend to be sitting in a chair - this exercises and strengthens the muscles that support the colon and is a good aid to constipation.

When you begin bowel management, you may see things come out of you that are pretty amazing. I never had mucoid placque myself, but plenty people do. If you had a long history of constipation or eating the standard American beef diet, chances are good that you have mucoid placque. Even if a colonoscopy didn’t turn up anything, you could have it in your small intestine.

The columnar epethelium tissues that make up the intestines are lined with villi so that the surface area, although scrunched up to fit into your abdomen, is huge. The mucous layer is where the microbes live and is the first line of defense against toxins getting into the bloodstream, while allowing the good nutrients and water to enter. The mucous layer, once compromised by undigested foods or poisons, gets thicker in order to protect the epethelium and blood supply. After awhile, this layer of mucous gets so thick that it is “shed” and left to form a kind of striated rope. Over time, it will harden until it looks like tire treads. So if you see mucous that still looks mucosy it’s a pretty recent shed. The darker and dryer it is, the older it is.

This is the same thing as with the sinuses. Mucoid placque is like having intestinal boogers. ;)

For tongue analysis, only look at the front of the tongue, the part used for speech, not at the back of the throat. If you stick out your tongue, the part that is easily visible is used in tongue diagnoses, basically.

One of the most common deficiences, and one that will really make you miserable, is Zinc. Zinc is an essential mineral that is really only stored in large amounts in the eyes, where it is needed to give us good color and night vision.

The Zinc Taste Test is for determining whether you need to take Zinc. You can also use kinesiology, of course.

This test is best done with liquid zinc, but you can also use chewable zinc lozenges, preferably ones without any flavor besides peppermint.

Zinc is a metal and so tastes very metallic. Put a teaspoon in your mouth and swish it around for one minute, OR put the lozenge in your mouth and start chewing. Does it taste metallic right away, or does it take more than 30 seconds for you to taste the zinc? If it does, you are very low on zinc and should supplement it.

Zinc is best taken 2x a day. It takes about 3 months to really alter the cellular levels of zinc, so plan on supplementing therapeutic doses (50 mg a day 4-5x a week) for 3 months minimum, then just be sure to get the RDA.

If you are prone to anemia, be sure to take the zinc apart from your iron sources, as you can only absorb either iron or zinc. Same with calcium. You can also supplement Iron and Calcium to be sure you get your needs met.

This is a very simple test to be done while you're adjusting your diet to ensure that you're getting plenty of skin food (oils, A, E, B's, C, zinc, essential aminos, gelatin/collagen).

Simply feel the back of your upper arms. The skin above your elbow should be smooth and moist.

If there are bumps, dryness, then you're not getting enough oils. Drink the protein shake with extra eggs, take in coconut oil, use butter and olive oil as liberally as you can digest.

Then pinch a bit of skin on the top of your hand, pull it up and release. Check the elasticity. It should spring back and leave no mark.

Compare with other people of various ages to get an idea as to how elastic your skin really is.

If the skin seems slow to return to its original shape or leaves a mark, you may be deficient in collagen, gelatin, E, C, B's.

If you have obvious, jagged vertical ridges on your nails, you have poor absorption in either the stomach or small intestine, or both. Slight vertical ridges easily buffed off are normal.

If the nails are weak and bend/break easily, then you are low on essential minerals and possibly gelatin. Emergen-C and Calcium and Oatstraw Tea will help with this. Use gelatin as a thickener in gravies or just swallow empty gelatin capsules.

If you have a "hump" on your nail, you have severe deficiencies. Go on a tonifying/rebuilding protocol right away - start including super-foods in your diet regularly and digestive enzymes so you can absorb nutrients.

White spots do not mean what people think they mean. They are signs of acute stress that interrupted your digestion and elimination. They do not mean consistent deficiencies of any kind.

The symptoms of an underactive stomach closely match those of an overactive stomach, and therefore care must be taken to choose the correct treatment. Low levels of hydrochloric acid (HCL) are associated with a number of disorders such as anemia, allergies, hives, acne, osteoporosis and skin problems.

When you have indigestion, drink water with 1 tsp cider vinegar in it. If it makes the indigestion go away, you are likely not producing sufficient stomach acid (hydrochloric acid -- HCL).

An underactive stomach is the result of a shortage of HCL in the digestive chamber, which causes proteins or fat to digest too slowly and remain in the stomach too long. This causes discomfort from the fermentation and gas that is created. These symptoms will be even worse if sugars are trapped in the stomach at the same time. Making the mistake of taking an antacid neutralizes and further reduces the already inadequate amount of stomach acid and causes the contents of the stomach to be dropped into the small intestine, where it continues to ferment, generating intestinal gas. Nothing is improved -- stomach gas has been turned into intestinal gas.

A better long-term solution for low stomach acid is to strengthen the stomach's natural HCL production capability as much as possible. This can be achieved by cautiously using supplements such as vitamins, minerals and digestive enzymes, and learning how to combine foods for effective digestion and maximum nutritional benefit. Organic salts (zucchini, celery), Vitamin B6 and electrolytes help the body produce HCL. Iced drinks numb the stomach and reduce HCL production.

Underactive Stomach Recommendations:

Many people who have bloating, gas and/or indigestion assume that they have too much stomach acid when they probably have too little. The symptoms of an underactive stomach are very similar to those of an overactive stomach.

A symptom of an UNDERactive stomach is discomfort (bloating, burping, gas and burning) IMMEDIATELY after meals, whereas if you have an OVERactive stomach the discomfort usually begins anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 to 6 hours after the meal, or even in the middle of the night, whenever hunger strikes. Discomfort caused by and OVERactive stomach may be relieved by a snack or by drinking a bit of milk, while symptoms of an underactive stomach will not.

Other possible symptoms of underactive stomach (low HCL) are a full, heavy feeling after meals, rectal itch, constipation or diarrhea, food allergies and nausea after taking vitamin or mineral supplements. You may be able to clear up your problem simply by making some dietary changes.

We usually secrete less HCL as we age. Most young people can eat just about any combination of food without suffering digestive discomfort, but as we age most of us need to be more careful of how we combine foods. Proteins and fats are much harder to digest when eaten in the same meal with sugars. A small amount of meat eaten at a meal that ends with cake, pie, ice cream or fruit might digest reasonably well, while the same meal with a larger amount of meat (a steak or hamburger, for instance) may create an uncomfortable digestive problem for you.

Protein and fats stay in the stomach up to four hours, while carbs are digested in the intestines and should pass through the stomach in only minutes, which they do, if eaten independent of proteins and fats. However, eaten together, proteins, fats and sugars stay in the stomach too long, causing gas to form, which results in intestinal discomfort.

If you want to eat fruit or a dessert, or drink fruit juice you should do so at least ½ hour before your main meal, or wait at least one hour (preferably two to 3 hours) after you've finished your meal. This keeps the sugars from being trapped in your stomach with the slower digesting proteins and fat, and thus avoids the cause of gas formation. (Note: this does not include most non-starchy vegetables or more astringent fruit like apples, which actually aid digestion.)

If you have digestive difficulties, it can be both instructive and interesting to carefully observe your body's responses to food, because your body will tell you when you've exceeded your power of digestion. For instance, combining eggs (protein) with orange juice (fruit) for many people is a sure formula for digestive discomfort. Simply taking more care with your combinations of food or eating less may solve your digestive problems. Always eat food slowly and chew thoroughly.

If you continue to have digestive problems, take a good enzyme supplement after your biggest meal. A broad spectrum digestive enzyme (one that includes fruit enzymes) will help in digestion of carbohydrates as well as digestion of proteins and fat. People who suffer from diabetes or hypoglycemia often need to supplement with digestive enzymes, since both involve the pancreas.

If you don't think you need digestive enzymes, you can buy a betaine HCL supplement separately. You can take one or more at each meal, but as you pay closer attention to your body's responses you will discover which meals (and which types of meals) require the digestive supplements. You may only need a digestive supplement with a meal that is high in protein and/or fat.

Too much HCL Betaine will give you a warm, burning feeling in your stomach, and you will know to cut back. If you take more than one capsule, take them throughout your meal.

After taking the digestive supplements for a few months, you will likely notice you are secreting more digestive juice on your own, and you can then cut back.

As an alternative to a digestive enzyme supplement, try drinking a bit of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice just before a meal. Do not take a digestive enzyme supplement and do not drink vinegar if you have any inflammation of the stomach lining.

Being low in stomach acids means you’re not likely to absorb vitamin B12 from non-meat sources, and this can cause major problems further on. So be sure to eat good sources of B12 (eggs, liver) and consider supplementing for a short time. A spectrum of all the B’s will also help the body produce stomach acid. B6 is especially important.

Plant-based enzymes also help the stomach to produce more stomach acids.

Hope that helps! :)
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This is a more formal way of testing for low stomach acids. Here are the steps:

Many foods contain phytoestrogens, which are plant chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body, so this is not a comprehensive list. This is a list of the foods that are known to hit the hardest and make the most difference when it comes to messing up the body.

These are foods that women should accent during menstruation, or anyone after blood loss, surgery.

Foods that increase inflammation are refined carbs, bad fats (hydrogenated), phony fats, and of course anything that you're allergic to or intolerant of.

Many people are intolerant of Night Shade Veggies, and these can cause inflammation. Potatoes (especially if they have a green skin), eggplant, tomatoes (especially if cooked and concentrated into a sauce), tend to be the worst offenders of the nightshade family.

Dehydration will increase inflammation.

foods that decrease inflammation with natural anti-inflammatory properties are fish oils, cold, deep-water, and/or fatty fish like mackeral, swordfish and salmon. Anything high in Omega 3 and 5's like Flax seed oil, Udo's Choice, most nuts and seeds.

Bromelain, found in pineapple, reduces inflammation.
Ginger
Garlic
Nettle
Barley, especially barley tea
apples - especially the skin of green apples
red onions
cinnamon
cayenne pepper
rosemary
turmeric
basil
olive oil
aspirin
probiotics
exercise
anti-oxidants (Skin Food plus ALA)


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These are foods you may want to avoid/reduce if you have metals toxicity or acne/hives. Fruit have the highest amounts of salicylate. Salicylates are also highly implicated in ADHD. Dogs especially react to salicylates. For most people, however, these foods are fantastic and should be included regularly for the many benefits these plant chemicals can give. Like alcohol, a chemical can be good or bad for your depending on many other factors.

Our potassium needs increase as we age; when we cleanse; sweat. Potassium is found in all living things so you don't really need to take supplements of it. The following list is from highest to lowest amounts of potassium, except for ACV which wasn't rated on the USDA list I referred to.

You may want to avoid these foods while chelating metals or at the outset of your program to become more alkaline. People who are prone to gas/flatulence should eat these foods cooked or fermented.

For people with joint issues, these foods are highly beneficial. They are also good to accent occasionally during a liver-cleansing diet as sulphur helps the liver exit toxins.

Barley is an excellent cure for colitis, which is an inflamed colon. If you have pain in the upper-left quadrant of the abdomen (YOUR left, not mine) it's not the pancreas, it's the colon. This will take down the inflamation. Other signs of inflammation are general abdominal pain, diarrhea, diarrhea with blood or mucus, hemrrhoids.

Great for moistening the digestive tract and colon, very easy to pass so a great cure for constipation or weak/prolapsed colon. It feeds the adrenals, helps dispel edema. Not recommended for people who are still dehydrated.

Congee is a way of slow-cooking grain so that it partially digests while it cooks. You can do this with just about any grain and in just about any dish. Some people prefer flasks, some people get out the crock pot.

You can experiment with the ratio of grain to water, but to start out go for a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio.

1/4 cup grains (brown rice, basmati rice, wild rice, whole oats...)
4 cups filtered water, boiling hot.
Pour both into a crock pot, or any pot with a tight lid.

Some people like using flasks, as in what keeps your coffee warm. Hopefully you've quit the daily dose of coffee and your thermos is free for other uses! :)

let sit for 4-8 hours.

that's it! but it doesn't have to be. You can add things to improve flavor.

If you wish to have this for breakfast, then add:
1 tablespoon Ghee or organic butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
and whatever else you'd like - sauteed apples, sunflower seeds, raisins, brown sugar, the next morning.

If you plan on having it for lunch, then make a savory congee by adding:

1 bay leaf or 1 inch of kombu (seaweed)
dash of sea salt, or tamari, or Bragg's Liquid Aminos
teaspoon cumin seeds or garam masala or curry or turmeric
tablespoon of finely chopped onion, garlic
bit of grated ginger


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Great cure for constipation. Best if eaten for dinner or before bed. You can also use it for chronic lung disorders, or apply as a poultice for inflamed or ulcerated skin.

Trikatu is part of Pungent Therapy, a wonderful way to cure indigestion, increase digestive power, get rid of bloat, that uncomfortable feeling of fullness.

You need some 00 capsules. Health food stores and some drugstores sell them. They're usually made of gelatin.

This drink is a mild laxative, mild sedative and gently increases the power of digestion while lubricating the intestines at the same time. It is not appropriate during the cleansing stage unless you end up over-cleansing and need to do some moistening therapy. It's basically Chai without the tea. Very very tasty! Fantastic for Vata people and Vata disorders. A great way to calm down a stressful day.

Feel free to improvise, add and subtract spices as necessary depending on what's in your pantry. So long as it includes ginger you're fine.

This shake is designed to be a super-vitamin. It will actually make you tingle it's so powerful! :) It is appropriate for the cleansing stage or rebuilding stage.

Lassi is a South Indian drink, and one of the easiest things to make. There are many ways of making it, but essentially it is buttermilk (yogurt whisked with water or your very own whey/klabber), and you can choose almost any consistency that you like, from the thinnest to the thickest.

Yogurt/kefir are on the okay list even though it is milk because it is pre-digested by acidophilus. This converts the milk sugars and milk proteins and makes it easily tolerated, even by some people with lactose intolerance.

If you do have milk sensitivities, you may be better off using whey instead of yogurt in these recipes, although some people have complained of intolerance to even whey, I suspect this may be a healing crisis reaction rather than a true allergic reaction. People underestimate how important microbes are to us and usually don’t have any comprehension of how strongly they can affect our digestive systems both for good and bad except perhaps when suffering food poisoning.

For a broader base of friendly microbes, you can substitute kefir for the yogurt in these recipes. The best kefir is make from scratch in your own home from kefir grains (see recipe and link below).

Pitta dosha people may want to substitute cottage cheese for the yogurt/cream part of these recipes.

Feel free to change the recipes so that the consistency is the consistency you enjoy. Some prefer a much watered down version of these drinks, which is fine. You may also want to try these recipes with your own almond or rice milk! :)

Basic Digestive Lassi

Good as a digestive aid, may drink small amounts with meals or just prior to the meal. Good for all doshas.

The cure for chronic dehydration and very necessary during bouts of diarrhea. This is the best drink for rehydration, better than Pediasure even. Take this drink after fluid loss, such as diarrhea, or if you have symptoms of dehydration such as dizziness, fatigue, depression, or when sweating profusely.

Appropriate for any stage, this drink is therapeutic during the cleansing stage and helps to increase digestive power; increases alkalinity, circulation; flushes the liver and kidneysl; reduces mucus; cures acne, sore throat, gallbladder distress, acid reflux, body odor, high cholesterol, arthritis, food poisoning. It may be used as a meal replacement.

This nourishing tonic was designed to replace multi-vitamins. It has every vitamin, mineral and EFA, it's only missing Vitamin C and plant chemicals.

You can drink it as a meal replacement during the cleansing stage, maintenance, rebuilding. It is safe to use an extra meal during rebuilding/bodybuilding. It is safer than any protein-powder shake out there.

Whether it’s a prescription drug, vitamin, tea, herbal pill or tincture, it’s important not to overdose, to find one’s balance with the active ingredients. Thus, always start with the smallest amount possible, no matter what the bottle says is the recommended dose.

For instance, the full-spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement Spectro by Solaray recommends five pills a day for the amounts listed on the label, all of which are higher than the RDA. So take just one. See how you feel. See what it does to the color of your urine. If it turns deep yellow, then you aren’t absorbing it all, and taking more would be pretty pointless.

Some people think if a little is good, more must be better. This is not always true. Sometimes more is just more, or even dangerous. Balance is key!

When I do vitamins, I tend to do one every-other day, as that is how often I test positive for their use via kinesiology. When I was recovering from candida, I needed more than that for a time, but I’ve never needed as much as I thought I did, or as much as the bottles recommended.

If you’re taking something like a liver supporting herbal complex in order to cleanse and detox, expect to get a detox headache or other reactions and increase the dose until you do. This lets you know your appropriate dose and that the compound is appropriate - you really do have toxins that must be taken out. You can leave the dose where it is and hope the headache stops as you get better, or lower it until you’re in your comfort zone. If you stay in your comfort zone for awhile, try increasing the dose to see if your threshold has increased. This will keep the cleansing and detoxing moving at a brisk pace.

If you’re taking a myriad of supplements, it’s best to cycle through them. Don’t give your body too much to do all at once. Break them up into stages, cycles (anti-fungals) or alternate days.

Always have an end date in mind with any supplement, there are very few supplements that should be taken forever. The end date can be as simple as when the bottle runs out. Most supplements and medications are temporary intervention, the goal being no longer needing them. The exceptions are certain teas, spices, super foods and essential minerals and salts.

Also be aware of the amount of intervention you are doing when choosing protocols and try to find what’s appropriate. It's often best to start with the least amount of intervention and gradually increase as necessary. Herbs should be respected – they can be every bit as powerful as a prescription drug.

So say you’re trying to be more regular. The least amount of intervention would be to drink a large cup of water first thing in the morning to induce a bowel movement. The next step up would be to take in some good oils, as bile induces peristaltic action. If these work, they’re better than taking Senna, which is a strong laxative herb that can create dependency over time. So make sure you know your options and understand the hierarchy of which intervention is stronger or weaker and try to start out somewhere in the middle, or perhaps start off strong and then be sure to back off.

Have a clear goal in mind when you take supplements. Keep a list of your symptoms and update it weekly. After adding in a supplement or two, ask yourself weekly whether your symptoms list has changed. Are you closer to your goal? Feeling less brainfog? More energy? If you’re feeling worse, is it a legitimate healing crisis, or is the compound simply not right for your body type?

The “Eat Right for Your Type” database does include guidelines on herbs and vitamins. It’s worth a look, even if you end up taking something that is not recommended for your blood type for awhile.

Since so many of the issues we deal with in restoring vital health are confusing, overlapping and don’t have definitive tests available, our symptoms become our best signposts. Beware of saying things like “I have IBS” or “I have CFS” on your symptoms list because a syndrome is general and can mean different things. Better to say “I have fatigue and experience bouts of diarrhea and constipation” because these symptoms are easily understood and require different, specific interventions. You’re no longer lost in “syndrome land.” It also helps you to write your goals: “Increased energy,” for instance.

Kinesiology is the fancy term for muscle testing, which has been in use for centuries but fell out of fashion thanks to the age of reason and scientific method that changed our ideas of what we know and don't know, what we can prove and not prove. Since there's no microscope that proves kinesiology works, orthodox medicine does not admit to its existence.

When we touch a supplement or food or even look at a flourescent light, our body reacts to it. If it is something we need, something that strengthens us, we can tell based on how our muscles respond - they get stronger. If it weakens us, our muscles get weaker. This basic truth is what we test when we use kinesiology to test for the appropriateness of our foods and supplements, even crystals and gemstones, gold, silver.

There are two ways to do kinesiology, basically: with a partner, which is what I call the "arm test" and by yourself using your hands.

In each method, you should be touching the supplement you wish to test.

To use your hands, here is a reference that explains how:

http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/AB1473/webpage.cfm?WebPage_ID=67&DID=8

It's a good idea to use both methods until you've been using the single-person method for a year.

The two person method is done like this:

First, find your baseline by holding nothing and just testing the strength of your arm. Hold your non-dominant arm (if you're right handed, hold out your left) straight out to your side like a scarecrow.

Have your partner press your arm down while you try to resist them. Feel how strong your arm feels, note how far down they can push it, while they use medium force.

Now test the supplement by holding the supplement in your dominant hand. Hold your non-dominant arm straight out to the side, again, like a scarecrow arm.

Have your partner try to push it down again.

It should either be the same, or stronger, or weaker and fall down farther.

If it falls down farther, this supplement is inappropriate for you now.

It pays to retest during another time of the day, because supplements can change appropriateness depending on a great many factors.

Kinesiology makes use of our electrical system via focus. We have to be focused on something in order to test our body's response to it. Consequently, "double-blind" studies and other methods used to debunk kinesiology won't work because they cannot work. You cannot test something that you're not conscious of. So if anyone says kinesiology is fake because double-blind studies says it is fake simply do not understand how consciousness, observation and the electrical system works.

• 1st: cleanse the body, bowel first.
  
  All illness takes place in a poisoned body. How can you expect to get better if you're poisoned? You can’t! So cleanse, and keep cleansing. Cleanse your digestive system and that will support your efforts to cleanse every organ, tissue and cell. Even if your lab tests are normal, you could have stones blocking bile ducts in your liver, decreasing its overall functionality.
  
  Cleanse the bowels thoroughly first and foremost, and keep it clean as you cleanse the liver, kidneys, lymph, etc.
  
  
• 2nd: change your diet and lifestyle; hope it's both a temporary change and a permanent change.
  
  You don't have to give up everything for the rest of your life. There are some things that you would do better without, but if you really cleanse the body well, guess what? There's a Snicker's bar in your future! Education always pays off. It's time to go back to school - remember all those times you complained that school was boring because it wasn't about real life? Here's your perfect chance to learn about real life in a way that sustains your quality of life.
  
  Hopefully you will learn to do certain things for the rest of your life to maintain vital health, even if just periodically. Some people, however, simply must clean up their diets and not cheat. The trick is knowing which body type you are and being that – or accepting the consequences.
  
  Be prepared to learn some shocking things about health and what you thought to be good habits. For instance, fat is not bad, it’s very necessary. Tofu is not great. Overdosing on tofu is outright dangerous, so don’t drink that soy milk. Milk is no longer good food once it’s been pasteurized (boiled) and homogenized (fat cells denatured). It is one of the leading causes of ear infections, bronchial distress, and acne.
  
  
• 3rd: Address any deficiencies
  
  Poisons, poor food choices, inflammation, all serve to make our bodies starved for the right nutrients. Without the right nutrients, things just don't happen. Deficiencies must be dealt with in balance, preferably with real foods. It's difficult to absorb or take in balance vitamins and minerals from supplements, usually you should take a combination rather than just one.
  
  We can be deficient in water (dehydrated) deficient in friendly microbes (systemic candidiasis, acne) even deficient in salt.
  
  Any imbalance means a deficiency of something, as imbalance means something more than the other. Nature is balanced into relationships, in order to have checks and balances for every system - a way to turn things on or off at will. One of the most important balances in the body is the pH balance. Abuse this balance and you will age, painfully. Most disease is due to too much acid by-products from digestion. Switch to an alkaline diet and alkaline eating habits and arthritis will disappear.
  
  You can be deficient in mental energy, persistence, follow-through, peace of mind, forgiveness, joy, love, laughter and sexual responsiveness. For true vital health, these deficiencies must be addressed.
  
  
• 4th: Learn how to shop, prepare and serve tasty, healthy meals – it is a cornerstone of good health!
  
  If you're not willing to cook, you're not committed to living a quality life. The person with the best kitchen skills lives longer and healthier – and cheaper. After major investments in juicers, blenders and food processors, quality pots and pans, knives, a mandolin, USE them. They will provide huge returns on your investment, much more so than any pill you can take.
  
  Finding great stores, alternative ways to buy spices cheap or find a particular herb, even using Ebay, these are all part of the adventure of taking control of your health.
  
  
• 5th: Physical issues often have root causes with mental or emotional issues.
  
  Suppressing one's self in any way long enough will cause physical harm. Constant stress, obsessive behaviors, anger, worry, lack of forgiveness for yourself and others, all will age you.
  
  
• 6th: It always comes down to the power of digestion, especially the liver and bowels. Take care of them and they'll take care of you.
  
  The liver is the body's filter. You wouldn't swim in a swimming pool with a 20 year old filter would you? think your salt water fish would survive a 20 year old filter, or your car run as well on 20 year old oil? But that's what we do to our bodies by never managing our liver's health.
  
  Eating improperly creates toxins. The toxins circulate and clog arteries, joints, organs, glands, skin, everything. Understanding the power of digestion is another cornerstone in healing and maintaining vital health.
  
  
• 7th: do your research.
  
  A fad food, supplement or diet won't necessarily make you better, and plenty of foods thought to be healthy will give you severe deficiencies. One of the best things you can do for your health is learn how to use the Internet to search for both sides of every claim and assumption. Beware of all claims by people who stand to profit or lose money.
  
  Options are power. Know as much as you can about the various options available to you.
  
  
• 8th: There are body types with certain proclivities.
  
  Find out what your body type is (blood type, Ayurvedic Dosha, metabolic type) and that will clear up a lot of the mystery as to why some people are always warm while others are cold, some people can eat anything and not gain weight while others gain weight just by looking at food, etc.
  
  People are all so very different. One person can drink alcohol while another gets sick. The same may be said for sugar, grains, animal products, herbs, NSAIDs, prescription medicine, nightshade vegetables, etc. Respect your body’s innate proclivities and you’ll be more comfortable.

90% of degenerative disease is due to weak digestion, poor absorption and asimilation of foods, giving the body too many bad foods to begin with, improperly prepared foods, and constantly exceeding the power of our digestion, constantly exceeding caloric needs, failing to rest our major organs by fasting occasionally, and failing to eliminate everything we eat by having a strong bowel movement each and every day without fail. Add to all of that the many toxins in the environment which we fail to fully cleanse out of ourselves and voila! ill health results.

Here are the guidelines for staying within and Increasing the Power of Digestion, waking up Agni (digestive fire) and increasing stomach acids. 90% of people exceed their digestive fire, create Ama (toxins), and that creates degenerative diseases. Even if you think you have acid reflux, you probably instead have weak digestion, not too much acid.

It's not so much what we eat but what we absorb and what we eliminate. If we can't absorb what we eat, the best diet in the world on't help us. If we can't eliminate the remains, we turn our bodies into sewers.

Never drink iced drinks or very cold water with meals; stop drinking fluids 30 minutes before meals and up to 1 hour after. If you must drink with the meal, drink herbal tea or warm lemon water. Spicy tea with lemon or peppermint tea is best for weak digestion.

The stomach digests best with 1/3 air, 1/3 food, 1/3 gastric juices. Watering down your stomach dilutes the enzymes and acids that digest food. If food gets into the colon partially digested, bacteria goes to work to break it down. This causes gas, microbial imbalances, and over time, mucoid placque or systemic candidiasis.

Try to have at least 3 hours in between meals. Avoid snacking as much as possible so the stomach has a chance to be completely empty and burn toxins. Eat regular meals at regular times, pay attention to the meal and the atmosphere should be calm and relaxing. Chew slowly and thoroughly. Saliva is an essential part of the process.

If possible, have your main meal at lunch rather than dinner. Don't eat a meal after 8:00 pm, digestion is weakest at night and gets weaker the later it gets. DO NOT eat if upset, stressed or grieving, digestion stops completely then. Best to fast then, drink a cleansing drink or tea instead. All those well-meaning people who say “but you have to eat SOMEthing” after a major shock or loss are not really helping you.

It's a good idea to take a short walk 15-30 minutes after meals. This really helps digestion and increases circulation, which helps the liver and absorption.

To wake up the digestion in the morning or after naps, lie on flat surface, bring knees to chest and hug them for 5 minutes. Then roll back and forth on back until little pops from the spine stop. Then sit up and do leg/hurdler stretches. Then you can begin your usual morning routine.

Avoid greasy foods. Deep-fried foods especially are real killers. Avoid very dead foods (refined) with none of their own live enzymes. Take digestive enzymes when you eat refined or cooked foods.

Digestive enzymes and fermented foods are an excellent option for increasing the power of digestion, including pancreatic enzymes for breaking down fats, carbs and protein, and the plant/fruit enzymes, papain and bromelain.

Some digestive supplements include HCL betaine, although it can be difficult to get the dose of HCL correct so make sure it’s a separate supplement and not mixed in with the enzymes. I simply use lemon juice. If you have issues with not enough stomach acids (low appetite, burpies, reflux, candida), then take 2 oz lemon juice in a glass of warm water with a dash of salt and drink 20 minutes before the meal. Or if at a restaurant, ask for water with lemon and eat the slice of lemon, or enjoy part of a glass of lemonade. 500 mg of Malic Acid or unbuffered Vitamin C will also increase stomach acidity. Peppermint tea.

Try eating just a little bit of something pickled and/or spicy before your main meal, such as Kim Chee (pickled cabbage), or pickled ginger (like what they give with sushi), sunamomo (cucumber salad with vinegar) or umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums. Very healthful and healing to liver/gallbladder).

Fermented foods aid digestion, increase stomach acidity and proper bowel flora. Most commercial versions of foods that started out as fermented foods are not so healthy, but when homemade, things like sauerkraut, kefir and pickled beets are immensely helpful to our health and friendly flora, and a lot cheaper than store-bought probiotics.

Eat a radish with a bit of salt half an hour or so before dinner to raise Agni (digestive fire).

If you're not eating fermented foods and juicing veggies, supplement with acidophilus to repopulate gut flora. Microbes are essential to good, complete digestion and get killed off thanks to refined sugar, dead foods, tap water, and not enough greens or other veggies.

Try to use proper food combining techniques at least in terms of fruit, the rest of those guidelines are probably not so crucial.
For instance, eat fruit alone as a fruit meal, never with dairy except the occasional cottage cheese or yoghurt or kefir smoothie.
Some fruits are okay to mix with other things, like apples, pears, berries, raisins, dates, but melons and most tropical fruit should be eaten alone or only with other fruit. They digest very quickly and tend to drag other things along with them whether they’re digested or not; or, conversely, the other foods delay the fruit digestion and so the sugars ferment instead.
Don’t ever follow a meat meal with a fruit dessert unless you want to be socially inappropriate (fart). Fermentation is only healthy outside the body. Inside the body it turns your intestines into something resembling an old refrigerator full of science project leftovers.

The exception to this rule is small amounts of cooked fruit with very little sugar added after cooking. Fruit sugars are easily broken down with heat. Jams and jellies have tons of sugar added into them after they are boiled down. So if you want sweet-n-sour sauce with baked pineapple rings for your teriyaki chicken, or apple sauce with your pork chops, go for it. Consider eating lots of veggie stews and soups with onion, lentils, barley or other grains, garbanzo beans and spices rather than the usual protein surrounded by starch and bread meals. That way the water is reserved with all the goodness of the veggies, and you can add cumin, ginger and paprika and cayenne pepper to make them tastier and better digested.

An easy way to prepare veggies and preserve some of the enzymes is to cut up the veggie into a medium saucepan with a tight lid, 1/4 cup water and 1 tblspn olive oil. Put on high heat for 4 minutes then check for crisp-tender. Spice, add more oil, and eat.

Try to eat only 3-4 types of veggies in a single meal, or less. Consider putting them through a blender. Most of your veggies should be cooked, as you need a strong digestive system to move to a raw diet, but the occasional veggie juice is okay. (raw foods = weak spleen = persistent colds = chapped/peeling lips.)

Broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts are often gas-producing. Fix them with carminative spices like cumin, turmeric, ginger or coriander. If you tend to have issues with gas, try to use these spices with every meal. The cuisine of India really makes the best use of these spices in their curries and garam masala, and Moroccan cuisine also likes to use carminative, pungent spices to good effect.

Try to only eat beans and lentils and whole grains only if they have been soaked overnight before cooking, or at least slow cooked, and are eaten with carminative spices and not with sugar (baked beans have sugar, that's why they're the magical fruit!).

Try to eat more spinach, kale, beets, carrots. They have healing action on the entire digestive system.

If your food just sits in the stomach and you feel full long after the meal is over, you need more bitter and/or pungent, herbs and veggies to increase digestive fire. Drink more spicy herbal tea, such as Yogi tea's India Spice, ginger, peppermint, Chai, or Fennel, in between and with meals. Wait to eat until you are very hungry. Drink lemon water as an appetizer to increase true physical hunger. Consider fasting, especially if your tongue is coated.

To really heal chronic digestive upsets, consider eating a mono-diet of nothing but Kichadi (basmati rice and mung bean stew) for one week.

If your tongue is very coated, consider a warm water and ginger tea fast for one day, or long enough for tongue to become clean (several days great for Pitta or Kapha, only 1 day for Vata types).

Triphala, an Ayurvedic remedy, is good for all body types and aids constipation, is rejuvenating to the entire digestive system. It acts like a very mild laxative but causes no dependency. It strengthens the colon and helps to clear away mucous. It has anti-fungal properties.

Trikatu, another Ayurvedic remedy: Containing ginger, black pepper and pippali, this pungent formula enkindles the digestive fire, promoting healthy absorption and assimilation. Trikatu supports metabolism of fat and reduces toxins and mucous.
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Choosing foods that taste pungent is one of the main ways to enkindle "Agni," or digestive fire, and burn away Ama, or toxins. While many of us look to eating this food or that food, in reality, we can eat just about anything if we prepare it correctly to balance its overall affect on digestion.

When digestive fire is low and the immune system is compromised by all of the undigested toxins that haven't been eliminated, the tongue will become coated; appetite decreases; some fluids like tears decrease, while other fluids like mucous from the sinuses, increase.

"Pungent herbs and spices are stimulating, promote digestion, increase appetite, increase sweating, removes phlegm, kills parasites. It promotes circulation genreally increases all bodily functions while reduing all foreign accretions in the body. Be sure to be fully hydrated when embarking on pungent therapy." (from The Yoga of Herbs by Dr. Vasant Lad)

The pungent taste arises mainly from various aromatic oils. Pungent tastes can include acrid, spicy and aromatic tastes.

Typical pungent herbs include: basil, bayberry, bay leaves, black pepper, camphor, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, ephedra, eucayptus, garlic, ginger, horseradish, mustard, onions, orgegano, peppermint, prickly ash, rosemary, sage, sassafras, spearmint, thyme.

For the most part these herbs are a pretty safe level of intervention. You can expect good results quickly with no real side effects that you have to worry about, unless of course you overdo, and then all you have to do at that point is stop taking them!

Pungent herbs are used for:

Constipation; bad breath; really really smelly feces; tongue coating; abdominal pain and distention, especially if aggravated by massage; intestinal gas and cramping pain; low appetite; heaviness; slow pulse; cloudy weather; yellow feces; heaviness in stomach; sour taste in mouth; skin rash; brain fog; saliva threads; tonsil stones; mucus in stools and urine; generalized pain; fatigue.

An easy way to get your dose of pungent herbs is to drink ginger tea.

Fix foods like pasta with plenty of garlic, oregano, rosemary and basil - yum! Throw plenty of thyme and sage in your chicken soup, make your pancakes with a pinch of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, powdered ginger, or cardamom.

You can also include more pungent FOODS in your diet. Here is a list of foods that are pungent in post-digestive effect:

Onion
radish
chicken
eggs
castor oil
safflower oil
mustard
broccoli, cabbage, carrot, celery, lettuce, okra, spinach, zuchini, pumpkin

Once your tongue has no coat and your appetite is good and strong, back off on pungent therapy. It has done its job! What you want to do now is to use just enough to keep digestion strong and to counter-balance foods that are rich, high in fats, or tend to be mucus forming for you.

For instance, if I eat eggs or cheese, I eat them with red pepper flakes or green chili peppers. If I make a very rich cake, I make it a spice cake, incorporating cardamom or cinnamon, etc., and eat it with ginger tea. Sprinkle cardamom on vanilla ice cream - it tastes great and helps you digest it properly.

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The skin is the largest organ in the body, and since it is responsible for about one-fourth of the body's detoxification each day, that makes it one of the most important paths of elimination. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most neglected paths.

The skin is often called the ‘third kidney’. Toxins/Ama gather beneath the epidermis from improper pH levels in body soaps, skin creams, anti-perspirants, synthetic fibers worn next to the skin, without causing noticeable symptoms.

Skin brushing, helps your entire lymphatic system to cleanse itself. Dry skin brushing improves surface circulation of the skin, encouraging your body's discharge of metabolic wastes and resulting in an improved ability to deal with bacteria. Your skin will look and feel healthier and more resilient.

Buy a brush with natural bristles and a very long handle. It looks like a regular bath brush.

Skin brush before showering or bathing or in lieu of a water bathe, once or twice a day. Do not wet the brush or skin, this stretches the skin.

Avoid any areas of skin eruption.

Brush long strokes towards the heart on the extremities.

Circular, clockwise strokes on the abdomen, circular on elbows, knees.

Circular or up-down on the chest.

Pay special attention to underneath the arms. Try to brush the entire body. Remember to do the soles of the feet. If you’re pressed for time, just do the soles of the feet (this affects the entire body), stomach and underarms.

Try to brush under the chin because of the lymph nodes there; you do not have to brush your face, it’s probably too tender. Brushing the scalp promotes thick hair.

Wash your skin brush every few weeks and let it dry thoroughly.

Skin Food is a term I created as short hand for a variety of vitamins and minerals that are essential for healthy soft tissues, organs and skin. These are foods you should accent if you have any skin problems, especially acne, vitiligo, psoriasis, eczema, hardening/bumps, keritinization, premature aging, hair loss, dandruff, stretch marks.

Skin food is also essential for healthy glands, which regulate metabolism and decide how "old" or young we really are. Without a strong thyroid or adrenal glands, we just can't feel or look good. Symptoms of low gland power and low metabolism are: fatigue, easily cold, cold extremities, slow wound healing and recovery, impaired memory/recall, constipation.

Other issues to look for are jagged cracks on the tongue; brain fog; red, irritated eyes; hypoglycemia and numerous nervous system disorders like insomnia, ADHD, anxiety and panic disorder, manic-depressive and obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

One of the problems with learning about health and what to do is there is TOO much information. This is one way to refine information so that you only have to focus on the essentials and let the rest take care of itself. If you focus on these nutrients plus calcium/magnesium, you can pretty much forget about the rest because you WILL be getting them as a good side-effect of good eating and proper supplementing.

Skin food nutrients/foods are: A, D, E, essential fatty acids especially cod liver oil (A, D) and wheat germ oil (E); C (preferably as Emergen-C or 500 mg of unbuffered C), all of the B vitamins but particularly B1, B6 and B12, Biotin, Zinc and Iodine, and Lecithin because it has both choline and inositol (fat busters).

To get a good mix of all of these, accent in your diet:

All of my various Protein Shakes, Kefir Smoothies

Eggs, fish, oysters, clams, caviar

Wheat germ oil, Cod Liver oil, Fish oils

Emergen-C

Nutritional Yeast Flakes

Liver (cow or chicken), pate, liverwurst

Coconut oil, Ghee, Olive Oil

Sweet Potatoes, Carrot Juice spiked with Cream (turns beta-carotene into Vitamin A)

Almonds, brazil nuts, pistachios

Occasionally supplement wih Kelp (iodine), enjoy seaweed/sushi, or use Edgar Cayce's Atomadine from www.caycecures.com

Liquid or 50 mg chelated Zinc supplements occasionally, especially if taking Cod Liver Oil

Quinoa, Wild Rice, Cream of Wheat

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The Detox Bath takes the load off the kidneys, cleanses lymph and skin, helps exit metals, pesticides, acids and other toxins. The trick is to get hot enough to sweat and promote sweating with herbs and such. It's best done on a near-empty stomach after taking in a lot of fluids.

Take 40-100 mg of Niacin depending on your size. I take 40 mg. Make sure it's the regular kind and not the non-flush kind, as you want to flush your skin and open your pores. Your scalp should itch and burn. Wait about 20 minutes for it to take effect. If you can't find the right kind, skip this step and drink extra peppermint/chamomile tea instead.

While waiting, use a dry skin brush and brush skin.

Drink a pint or more of good water, or the Cleansing Drink with cayenne, lemon, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup. Peppermint or Chamomile tea would also be good.

Run a hot bath and add:
1/2 to 3/4 cup Epsom salts
1/2 cup Baking Soda
1 cup Powdered Ginger, or make a quart of ginger tea by slicing and dicing an entire ginger root and simmering for 20 minutes on low heat. Strain into bath. You can also use ginger extract. You can also skip this step for convenience if you wish but do try it.
Optional: Add cayenne pepper - but beware! it stings. I often chicken out and don't add it. :)

Soak for as long as you can, scrubbing your skin with a loofah or washcloth the entire time.

When you get out, to continue the sweat, wrap up in towels or robe and get under the covers and continue sweating for another hour or so. Drink more water at this time. then air dry or take lukewarm shower, go to sleep. DO NOT try to do any housework or errands after bath. Rest peacefully! :) If you tend to get overheated (Pitta dosha) skip this step and simply air dry.

Note: there's a fantastic Japanese washcloth that is highly recommended for this. It's about 2 feet long and a kind of pastic synthetic that is rather abrasive and really creates a ton of suds from any liquid soap. Rinses totally clean and pristine in a second. It got an award for best invention. I get it from my health food store and from my Japanese grocery store. I have not found it online yet. It's only about 2 bucks and well worth it.

Pitta people may find this bath totally exhausting, too much heat for them. So what they can do is drink two cups of chamomile tea (it promotes sweatign and relaxation) and make the bath not so hot. They can do the post-sweat wrap up or immediately shower with a lukewarm shower, whichever helps them feel better. :)

If you want to pay special attention to your face for acne or pigmentation issues, you can:

give yourself a clay facial while dtaking the detox bath, just apply liquid bentonite clay or other clay masque after scrubbing your face clean. You can mix in colloidial silver for more of a detox effect.

Or apply a paste of ginger powder and turmeric, 50/50.

Preparation for Detox Baths is always the same - take in plenty of fluids preferably as a Cleansing Drink and/or chamomile/peppermint tea, and don't bathe if you've eaten within an hour. As the water fills, dry skin brush your entire body.

Contra-indications for immersing your entire body in a bath are diabetes and high blood pressure. Diabetics should leave their legs out of the bath and people with high blood pressure or extremely low blood pressure should not take long baths. They're better off with other kinds of hydrotherapy such as showering.

The ACV Detox Bath

You can use refined, regular grocery store apple cider vinegar for this to save money. ACV baths are excellent for excess acidosis, conditions of gout, arthritis, conditions arising after eating too much protein or kidney stress. ACV baths remove uric acid from the body and take a load off the kidneys, so they are especially good during liver and kidney management. Simply add a pint to a quart of ACV to a warm bath and soak for 20 minutes.

Oil/Salt Bath

This is fantastic for dry skin. Make a warm salted bath with one cup of Baking Soda and one cup of Sea Salt or Epsom Salts. As the tub fills, massage your body all over with pure, expeller-pressed sesame oil. The oil will open pores and relax veins, increasing metabolism so more toxins come to the surface. You can also add oil to the bath water itself. The salt encourages the body to release fluids and toxins, and cleanses the body of radiation.

Bentonite Clay Bath

Soak 2 pounds of bentonite clay overnight to hydrate it. Add it to a warm but not hot bath. Soak for at least 30 minutes. Only do this once a month or less as it may clog or seal pipes.

Medicinal Baths

Thyme Bath

Thyme is a good remedy for acute and chronic coughing, bronchitis, emphysema. Boil half pound of thyme in two quarts of water for 5 minutes and strain. Add the decoction to half a warm bath and sit in it, breathing very deeply in order to inhale as much steam as possible.

Bran Bath

For a full bath, use three pounds of wheat bran. Bring the bran to a boil quickly beofre adding it to the bath.

Bran baths have a soothing effect on inflammation since they reduce stimulation of the skin. Because they help form a protective, inflammation-resistant layer over the skin surface, tey are used to treat highly inflammatory skin diseases and hypersensitive skin troubled by eczema and hives.

Cold Half-Baths

Fill the tub halfway with cold water. Gradually get into the cold water, sit up in it, and stay in until you fllush. The water should come up to your waist but not the chest. At first your skin will get pale and goosebumpy, but after awhile it should become flushed, which is what you want. Splash your torso with the cold water.

Because this increases circulation in the lower half of the body, including the intestines, this is an excellent thing to do for constipation, prolapsed colon, hemrrhoids, estrogen dominance, cellulite. It strengthens the nervous system so is good therapy for any nervous system disorders.

Get out after 10-20 minutes and warm yourself up by toweling off vigorously. Really rub hard, massaging your body all over. Get under the covers or wrap up in a nice robe to finish warming up.

People who lack good vein food are often plagued by spider veins, varicose veins, hemrrhoids. To prevent and cure them, these are the foods to accent:

Skin Foods, plus:

Take a supplement for the stomach. It should include Glutamic Acid, Betaine, Pepsin, and sometimes Bromelain. Or just take the amount of HCL Betaine you've determined to be your needed dose per the stomach acid test.

Take a teaspoon or tablespoon of ACV with meals, and eat something vinegared or lacto-fermented such as saeurkraut.

Take 500 mg of unbuffered Vitamin C. (Emergen-C is buffered. Anything that says ascorbate is buffered.)

Drink 4 ounces of pineapple juice.

Drink a small lemonade with the juice of half a lemon and a dash of salt, or the Cleansing Drink.

Drink a cup of peppermint tea.

supplement with L-Arginine.

Avoid taking calcium with meals, or taking anti-inflammatories.

Be sure to get enough B vitamins, especially B6, and organic sodium, both of which are pre-cursors to HCL (Hydrochloric acid).

Take 500 mg of Malic Acid, a fruit acid.

All chronic degenerative disease are due mainly to a buildup of toxins. These toxins are created by the body by poor digestion due to poor food choices and eating habits such as overeating; poor lifestyle choices; emotional issues such as stress, worry, anger; and are further exacerbated by environmental toxins; plus certain proclivities due to our body types and genetic heritage.

Cleansing these toxins from our bodies is what Western and even Chinese orthodox medicine practices really neglect to mention. They just don’t bother because they weren’t taught to do so in school. Instead, pharmaceuticals are prescribed to mask symptoms, often giving you ten new symptoms to replace the original – the old ones traded for the side effects of the new drug.

There are levels to cleansing. It starts with entire systems, then gets to the major organs, and finally, on a cellular level. Our very cells have garbage in them that needs to be taken out with the rest of the garbage in our livers and colon and lymph. This is why people with persistent skin issues receive no relief no matter how many unguents they apply to their skin. The acne is an eruption from deep inside, poisons desperately trying to leave via any portal they can find; in this case, the pores. Cleanse the inside, and freckles, liver spots, acne, will disappear.

According to Hering’s laws of healing, healing (detoxing) progresses from the deepest part of the body, meaning the mental/emotional body and the vital organs, to the external areas such as skin. The second law states that symptoms appear and disappear in reverse – healing goes “back in time,” as it were. For instance, if you had poison ivy last year, those symptoms will reappear and disappear prior to the mono you had as a young child. So you’ll know your healing is progressing when you experience healing crisis symptoms from illnesses you perhaps forgot you even had. Detoxing also tends to progress from the upper to the lower parts of the body, which could explain why foot baths and footpads are so successful.

Whether your healing will progress similarly remains to be seen, but you can expect it to happen in stages. As you get clean, you may occasionally feel rather “high.” But take something to detox, and the body will dump old garbage, and that means healing crisis as another layer of toxins is released. So please do not get upset when you seem to be experiencing a “set back.” Know that this is a positive thing, and puts you much closer to your health goals. You’re just peeling off another layer of illness.

The paths of elimination must be honored and respected if you’re going to get better and stay young and energetic well into your golden years.

When people get a cold or flu, they tend to run to the drugstore to take something that will stop the fever, snot, coughing, sneezing or diarrhea. This is actually the worst thing you can do to the healing process and slows it down tremendously, turning a 24-hour flu into a much longer beast. A better response is to take things like ginger tea to help the body eliminate the mucous faster and resolve yourself to watching your favorite DVD while clutching a box of very soft Kleenex. Wrap up and sweat, this helps the lymphatic system. The consequence of these flow-stopping actions is the toxins go deeper, where you cannot see them. They will fester and cause cysts, cancer and arthritis.

To maintain health and balance, the paths of elimination must be kept clean and flowing. The main path is the colon, nothing does as much work or carries as much trash as the colon. The lymphatic system uses the colon and also the skin, eliminating toxins through sweat. The circulatory system uses the lymphatic, liver and kidneys. The urinary system is a path of elimination for salts, minerals and acids, thus we can tell a lot about someone’s health from their urine. The sinuses are a path, as is the mouth through purgation, or vomiting, and the ears. The vagina is a path of elimination.

Each path, when blocked or chronically overloaded, can back up into another path. The sinuses will use the throat and ears, for instance, via canals, and thus lead to constant ear infections. The liver uses the sinuses, which is why black pepper and direct sunlight makes us sneeze - they both wake up the liver, irritate it just enough for it to spontaneously cleanse. Meridians (energy channels) connect paths too, so you may get something like tinnitus or ear infections when cleansing the kidneys or liver.

The cleansing and detoxing stage is all about getting our major organs, systems and cells to get rid of their reserves of toxic waste. When you’re dis-eased, it’s time to take out the garbage, and even when you’re not, it pays to do a bit of maintenance twice-yearly.

The Herxheimer Effect, or Healing Crisis, or Die-Off, occurs when the body is detoxifying – releasing stored toxins - too rapidly for the paths of elimination to manage, and toxins are therefore floating around the bloodstream, poisoning you all over again.

For instance, auto-intoxication, or self-poisoning, occurs when the bowels are full of crud, because the body is designed to absorb water and minerals from the colon. Any bacteria, yeast or undigested foods will also get absorbed into the bloodstream to be filtered out all over again by the kidneys, lymph and liver or attacked by the immune system. Both the lymph and the liver rely on the bowels as a place to dump things, so the cycle continues until the bowels are cleansed with bowel management intervention such as colonics.

The process of cleansing and detoxing is a process of elimination, but the body can eliminate only so fast. Give it more than it can handle and you’ll feel poisoned – because you are! Thus, intervention that supports the paths of elimination will lessen the effect of the healing crisis, remove toxins, and get you that much closer to vital health.

A healing crisis can also happen as the body replaces old, toxic tissues with new tissues. The old tissues are broken down and added to the body’s waste materials. A healing crisis can happen when you add probiotics, as the microbe colonies react to the newcomers which “clean house.” You can even experience a healing crisis by giving your body healthy juices that allow access to alkaloids that give passage to stored acids.

What this all adds up to is: headaches, sleepiness, extreme fatigue, constipation or diarrhea, cold and flu symptoms, ear infections, acne. As long as these symptoms are happening during a detox protocol, they are a natural part of the healing process and should be supported and even celebrated – and yet mitigated so that you stay within your comfort zone.

If you take something such as an herbal tea or intestinal cleanser and experience no healing crisis, then the dose is too small or the product is bunk. Increase dosage until you feel the healing crisis coming on, that way you’ll know it’s effective. It’s pretty funny, but I’m all the time saying “Great” when people complain of a product giving them a headache. The headache is telling you it’s working, and that’s a good thing.

To minimize the Herxheimer Reaction:

• Drink lots of good water, the cleansing drink, fresh veggie juices, and keep up your essential minerals/salts with broth or EmergenC or the like. As soon as you feel a headache coming on, immediately reach for a glass of water. Make it a habit.

• Drink ginger tea with honey and lemon if mucous is being released.

• Keep the paths of elimination (bowels, lungs, skin, kidneys) clean as possible, as frequently as possible. Definitely consider a colonic or two.

• Take air/sun baths, preferably from 2:00 pm on if summer, or before 11:00 am. Avoid sunbathing during the hottest part of the day, especially if you’re Pitta.

• Reduce doses and slow down the detoxification process until you’re in your comfort zone – feeling somewhat ill but functional.

• Take a detox bath

• Sweat by using exercise, saunas, baths, and herbs

• Keep to a very pure diet, consider fasting or eating a mono-diet of Kichadi

• Get minimal exercise daily to keep circulation going. Stretching helps a lot.

• Consider getting a massage, or perform self-massage with sesame oil scented with essential oils such as lavender; peppermint; or a blend of lemon, bergamot, basil, etc.

When you’re experiencing emotional release, the therapies that seem to help best are bodywork and energetic healing methods such as massage, chiropractic, Rolfing, flower essences, Reiki, acupuncture.

First thing you want to do is to start hydrating the body. Most of us are chronically dehydrated without realizing it.

Start drinking 2-3 Cleansing Drinks a day, and decaf herbal tea and filtered water, NOT distilled. Distilled water is dead water. Anyone who recommends distilled water to you has not done their research or hasn't ever really cleansed and has never really drank a lot of it no matter what they claim. Drinking lots of distilled water will give you the worst diarrhea, hardly fun.

Reverse-osmosis filtered water is the best, but it does lose out some essential minerals that way, so replace them with a liquid trace mineral supplement - see Sources for which kind. It's like adding a drop of ocean water.

Next thing you want to do is go on a cleansing diet, or fast, or semi-fast. Simply start cutting out all the bad things in you diet - coffee, black tea, sodas, junk foods, fast foods, microwave meals, bread, margarine, non-dairy creamers, egg beaters. Also cut out mucus-forming foods such as milk, orange juice (yes it is!), and all foods high in sugar, from candy bars to fruit drinks. Cut out cigarettes, any druges that are not completely necessary, sugar-substitutes except for Stevia and the occasional Xylitol. Switch from table salt to sea salt or kosher salt. No point in cleansing if you're just going to dump everything back in your stomach!

It's also important to refrain from drama. Take a break from gossip, anger, taking offense, power plays, coveting. Watch comedies insead of horror films, calming music instead of heavy metal.

Bowel management (stomach, small and large intestine) should be done concurrently with all the other cleanses and flushes. Kidneys are cleansed by getting enough fluids, but they will need particular attention after a couple liver flushes. Lymph management should also be done concurrently with all the other cleanses and flushes.

Liver flushes may be commenced after several weeks of bowel management and cleansing diet. Liver management such as herbs and dissolvers should be done for at least a week prior to a flush, and may be done instead of a flush.

If your symtpoms warrant it, you can do a parasite cleanse after your first liver flush. It's best to flush the liver at least once before parasite cleansing so you can go into the parasite cleanse looking and feeling better than usual.

After a month or two of all this cleansing, consider doing metals chelation if your symptoms warrant it.

Cleansing is debilitating. To keep up your strength, you should be taking in some tonifying foods and supplements. Look up the list of super-foods and recommended supplements for suggestions.

Stop cleansing if you lose too much weight or start feeling really run down.

Depends on your symptoms. Create a symptoms list, being as clear and simple as possible. Update it every week, keeping the old lists and starting a new one, so you can see improvement. List the actual symptom rather than the disease ro syndrome. For instance, instead of saying "IBS" say "bouts of diarrhea followed by bouts of constipation." Diarrhea is curable, as is constipation. A syndrome is not curable. It's just a label.

If you're under 25 and have never cleansed before, figure on doing 1-3 months of cleansing. Commit to at least a month and then re-commit if your symptoms suggest it.

If you're over 25 but younger than 40 and have never cleansed before, commit to 3-6 months. The rest of us should commit to 6 months to a year. It took a lot of time for us to get out of balance, it will take time to get back into balance and vitality.

Once you start cleansing and educating yourself, after the first major cleanse you only need to cleanse twice a year for a week or two, or when symptoms arise, or whenever your tongue is coated.

Fasting is a general term meaning to abstain. Most people use the word to mean eating nothing at all, but it doesn't have to mean that. Just avoiding a few foods for health reasons or Lent is a kind of fast. We were not meant to eat absolutely every single day, really. Tests on single-celled organisms discovered that feeding them sporadically helped them to live 50% longer than organisms fed every single day.

Fasting is a fantastic way to restore and maintain vitality. It helps us to realize how few foods and protein we really need to make it through the day, a great way to reset the perspective that gets thrown out of wack by the standard American diet and commercials urging us to eat eat eat. Fasting is highly recommended for certain illnesses, chief among them is arthritis, general toxicity, digestive complaints including a coated tongue, adult-onset diabetes.

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When to fast

• Arthritis or other degenerative disease.
• When the tongue is coated.
• One day once a month just to give your body a rest.
• At the Equinox as a kind of spring and fall cleaning.
• When suffering from a virus, cold or flu.
• When you have no appetite, fast but for broths and digestive teas.
• When you are constipated and not eliminating your meals.
  
  When not to fast
  
• When recovering from surgery.
• When it's time to rebuild and tonify rather than cleanse.
• When you're too thin.
• When you suffer from lack of bile production (clay colored stools), as this can lead to more stone formation. If this is an issue for you and you still want to fast, then take 1 tablespoon of good EFA oil 2x a day.

• Water fasts
  Like the name says, a water fast is where you only drink water with a bit of salt. It's the most extreme kind of fast and not recommended for long-term unless you're under the care of a healer or not too ill to begin with.

• Juice fasts
  Fasts that allow freshly-squeezed veggie juices and fresh or organic bottled fruit juices, even snacking on fruits and veggies occasionally. Fruit juices should be diluted about 50%.
• The 3-day fast
  1st day: nothing but fruit juice, preferably prune and green grape or cranberry, and veggie juice.
  2nd day: nothing but potassium broth and teas.
  3rd day: nothing but veggie juices and teas. Repeat cycle for longer fast.
  
• The Dry Fast
  The simplest fast, you simply don’t eat and only drink a quart of water so as to not flush out your electrolytes. Only do this for 1-3 days.
  
• Teas
  Herbal teas are a great way to pinpoint the fasts to heal certain ailments and reach certain goals. For instance, parsley tea flushes the kidneys and gets rid of edema. Dandelion tea cleanses the liver and lymphs, purifying the blood. Nettle tea cleanses the lymphs.
  
• Mono-diets
  Eating nothing but Kichadi can preserve your strength and energy and still allows the body to detox and rest somewhat.
  
• Limited Diets
  My recommendation is for everyone is to get to the point where you can enjoy a diet of 80% healthy foods, 20% fun foods. But after a holiday season where it's more like 50/50, it's a good idea to switch to 100% healthy for a week or so.
  
• Weight loss
  I don't recommend water fasts for weight loss, the loss is usually muscle mass and the weight returns right away. People who lose fat with extreme fasting often lose it too fast, and are left with unsightly pouches of skin at the arms and tummy that only surgery can remove. It's great to start a weight-loss campaign with 3 days of fasting just to get in touch with the body, but after that, the basic diet should be maintained.
  
• The Master Cleanse
  The Master Cleanse was created by William Burroughs and includes laxative tea, salt water flushes, and a lemonade drink made with maple syrup and cayenne. It's a great drink but the fast has problems, including overdosing on laxatives. Burroughs didn't like enemas for some reason, and daily salt water flushing can be hard on the digestive system or urinary system. Another problem is that you really shouldn't have more than 6 lemons a day for extended periods of time, as it is hard on the liver/gallbladder because of its contraction/cleansing effect. Over time, it will weaken the liver and spleen, so if you have a weak liver or gallbladder problems, this is not the fast for you. Adjust it to lessen the # of MC drinks you have and include teas, potassium broth.

CARROT JUICE – One of the richest sources of Vitamin A with an excellent supply of Vitamins B, C, D, E, F, G, and K. Promotes and normalizes weight and appetite. Helps digestion and maintains bone structure and teeth. Promotes healing of ulcerous and cancerous conditions. Improves health of pregnant women. Liver cleanser, helps with impotency and dermatitis.

CELERY JUICE – Vital organic sodium good for improving digestive juices. Adds tolerance to heat. High in magnesium and iron, which build blood, cells. Excellent for nervous conditions.

CUCUMBER JUICE – Natural diuretic, promotes nail and hair growth. Decreases uric acid in system and improves rheumatic ailments. Normalizes pressure and beautifies skin.

GARLIC JUICE – Natural antibiotic, promotes peristalsis, intestinal cleanser, diuretic, reduces intestinal parasites.

MUSTARD GREEN JUICE – High in magnesium, which vitalizes muscular tissue, brain and nerves. Nervous afflictions benefited by high amounts of phosphorus and sulfur.

PAPAYA – Excellent for digestion, high in papain, helps heal ulcer, crushed pulp makes good poultice for wound healing.

PARSLEY – Very potent genito-urinary tract, improves weak eyes, cataracts and conjunctivitis, alleviates menstrual cramps and irregularities (too concentrated for consuming large quantities).

POTATO JUICE – Clears skin blemishes, decreases gout and sciatica pain.

RADISH JUICE – Promotes mucus membrane function and decreases sinus problems from asthma and allergies (too concentrated for consuming large quantities).

SPINACH JUICE – Corrects constipation regenerates degenerated tissues, good for teeth and gums and disease pyorrhea, alleviates joint pain from arthritis and rheumatic conditions.

STRING BEAN JUICE – Beneficial to diabetics

APPLES - A good source of quercetin, a phytochemical that fights the free radicals that lead to heart disease and cancer. Unpeeled apples are also rich in fiber, which benefits digestion and lowers cholesterol by sweeping it our of your intestines. Because they contain fiber and fructose, a fruit sugar, apples have a low rating on the glycemic index, which means they keep blood sugar levels steady and hunger at bay longer than other fruits.

BELL PEPPERS - Bell peppers are outstanding for their ability to boost your immune system and fight free-radical damage to your cells, helping you to fend off ailments such as cancer and heart disease. Green, yellow, and orange bell peppers are among the best vegetable sources of vitamin C, but red bell peppers are even better, they provide three times as much vitamin C as oranges. Bell peppers are also an excellent source of cancer-fighting beta carotene, but red peppers provide 20 times more than other peppers.

BERRIES - They're sources of lycopene and ellagic acid, phytochemicals that prevent the cell damage that may lead to cancer. Blackberries are one of the few fruits that contain heart-protective vitamin E and 1 cup of raspberries supplies a third of your daily requirement of fiber, which benefits digestion. Berries also strengthen blood vessels, protecting eyesight and reducing heart disease risk.

BROCCOLI - Broccoli contains sulforophane, a phytochemical that may prevent the growth of cancerous tumors. Lutein, a powerful vision protecting antioxidant found in broccoli, may also reduce the risk of colon cancer. This cruciferous plant is also rich in folate, fiber, beta carotene and vitamin C, all of which help prevent heart disease.

GARLIC - Garlic promotes circulation and lowers cholesterol. It also contains sulfur compounds that may prevent cancer-cell growth. In a study, women who ate garlic frequently were 30% less likely to develop colon cancer.

GINGER - This rhizome is famous for its effect on nausea. It can help relieve motion sickness, morning sickness, and nausea caused by anesthesia. Ginger also contains a compound called ginerol that may lower blood pressure and increase circulation.

KALE - This anti-cancer food provides all three of the vitamin antioxidants-beta carotene, C, and E. And it offers more beta carotene and vitamin C than other greens such as collards and Swiss chard. It's a rich source of folate and of calcium and magnesium, two minerals important for strong bones. It also contains lutein, an antioxidant that protects against macular degeneration.

MANGOES - The mango is the single best fruit source of cancer-fighting carotenoids-with more beta carotene than either apricots or cantaloupe. Mangoes are rich in the antioxidant vitamins C and E. One mango contains 7 grams of digestion helping fiber, much of it soluble fiber that keeps cholesterol low.

ONIONS - promote heart health because their sulfur compounds help lower dangerous levels of blood fats and keep plaque from adhering to artery walls. They contain a flavonoid called quercetin, which is particularly abundant in the red varieties.

If you suffer from abcesses, acne, asthma, cancer, hives, fibromyalgia, memory problems, brain fog, dark circles under the eyes, bloodshot eyes, floaters, irritability, night sweats, infections, colds/flu, headache, cold hands/feet, hormone imbalances, reduced sexual function, psoriasis, eczema, then these blood purifying herbs should be part of your protocol.

Several blood purifying herbs have already been mentioned in Liver, Kidney and Lymph management, as anything that helps the liver cleanse itself gives us cleaner blood, so here are ones besides Dandelion, Nettle, Slippery Elm, Licorice, that are excellent:

This is a root vegetable that we should be including in our diet. The Japanese eat it as often as we eat carrots, and usually with carrots, and is probably one of the reasons why they are the longest living people on the planet. It looks scary with its scabrous skin, but this skin is actually quite thin and comes off easily. You can do anything with it that you would do with a carrot. It has an earthy flavor, rather like asparagus, when boiled. It's very nice eaten raw, marinated in vinegar.

You can also drink burdock tea or take burdock supplements. Yogi Tea's Detox Tea has burdock root in it. It is safe for long-term use, say 30 days.

Burdock root detoxes the liver, cleanses the kidneys, promotes sweating, breaks down poisons, is an anti-fungal and antibiotic, and is the main ingredient in the Essiac formula that Rene Caisse would give her cancer patients. The other herbs in a true Essiac Formula (which may be purchased by several herb suppliers) are Rhubarb, Slippery Elm and Sheep Sorrel.

Best thing about Burdock Root is it cleanses without side-effects!

Sarsaparilla, a root that made the first root beer, cleanses the blood, is fantastic for acne, and regulates hormones. Suitable for long-term use (one month) unless you start having increased PMS symptoms.

red clover is often used for abnormal growths and acne. Suitable for long-term use.

Fo-Ti helps purify the blood through better kidney function. This one should only be used for a week.

For short-term use, a combination of Echinacea, Yellow Dock and Goldenseal is appropriate for about 3 days. They are so strong that they soon end up depleting the body. Echinacea stimulates the lymphs, so if you have over-active immune function such as Lupus or Hashimoto's thyroid, this is not an appropriate herb for you. It's good to keep tinctures of these on hand for cold/flu season, and at the first sign of a cold/flu, make yourself a cleansing cocktail by adding a dropperful of each to the Cleansing Cocktail juice.

All of these herbs are aided in their action by getting plenty of fluids, Vitamin C, A and minerals.

If you haven't yet removed your mercury fillings (assuming you have them) and don't feel ready for a full metals detox (which can be quite stressful) here is the way to gently help the body get rid of, or at least manage, heavy metal toxicity.

1. Get plenty of water-soluble and fat-soluble anti-oxidants. That means Vitamin C, E, A, and essential fatty acids. E and A should be derived mostly from wheat germ oil, avocados, fish oil, cod liver oil, sweet potatoes and butter, carrot juice and cream, eggs, liver. C can be gotten from chyawanprash, an excellent anti-oxidant, Emergen-C or equivelent.

2. Thoroughly cleanse and support the bowels and liver until you have no inflammatory issues. Take in a dose of good oil each morning chased by the cleansing drink, and use good fats and organic, cultured butter or Ghee liberally with your meals. This keeps the liver producing bile, and many metals are managed and excreted by the liver and bile. Coffee enemas are good. Take Milk Thistle or a liver-supporting complex like Livatone Plus that includes Milk Thistle.

3. Include a super-green supplement that has chlorella, spirulina and blue-green algea in your diet, as well as plenty of cilantro and other leafy greens. Some people react negatively to chlorella, however. Dr. Andy Cutler, the metals chelation guru, says to avoid these when you have mercury toxicity. So if you react badly, stop.

4. Sweat near-daily, detox bath weekly. Many toxins, including metals, are best excreted by the skin rather than delicate kidneys.

5. For 2-3 weeks, take large doses of Selenium (100 mcg or 2 mg), MSM (500 mg), zinc (50 mg), and eat plenty of sauerkraut, cabbage, garlic, onions. This is contra-indicated if you have Crohn's Disease or Leaky Gut, however. In those cases, and in cases of negative reactions to certain foods (MSM, garlic, onions - see list in Diet Management), it is best to avoid sulphur entirely. Dr. Cutler says this is a common issue for mercuty people.

Selenium and MSM will bind metals like aluminum, lead and mercury and take them out of you safely, with next to no side effects. You must be getting large amounts of vitamin E when you do this, and something like ALA to actually pull the metals from where they've been deposited, otherwise they'll just make sure you don't absorb anything you eat that contains aluminum, lead, etc.

6. After step 5, return to an alkaline state (MSM is acid) by making potassium broths, taking calcium, drinking kefir/raw milk, and avoiding sulphurous foods for awhile (cabbage, broccoli, garlic, onions).

Symptoms of heavy metal toxicity are:

allergies
white horizontal stripes on the nails
hair loss
poor sense of smell
anemia
bone pain
constipation
convulsions
depression
dermatitis
diarrhea
dizziness
dry skin
fatigue
gastritis
hyperactivity
HBP
learning disabilities
liver degeneration
multiple chemical sensitivities
Tremors
Nausea
Vision impairment... and many other neurological disorders.

All of the above symtpoms have other causes, so don't automatically assume you have heavy metals toxicity just because you have these symptoms. If you've tried all the known cures, however, and these symptoms remain chronic, get a hair analysis done and in the meantime follow this protocol. If the hair analysis test is positive, follow Dr. Andy Cutler's protocol for metals chelation.

In a nutshell, Dr. Cutler's protocol is to take about 50 mg of Alpha Lopeic Acid, a powerful anti-oxidant, every 3-4 hours round the clock. Some people take larger doses but they get really sick.

At the same time, you should be taking calcium and anti-oxidants vitamin E (tablespoon of wheat germ oil a day - add to protein shake), and vitamin C (emergen-C is great for this).

You can also take DMSA, but it's risky, brings on quite a reaction. Great for taking out mercury though.

It's also important to support the kidneys with plenty of fluids, as metals are hard to pass.

The liver should be protected with Milk Thistle while undergoing metals chelation. The morning oil cocktail and Cleansing Drink chaser is a good daily thing to do while taking ALA. A high-fat, high-fiber diet is highly recommended.

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• 6 tablespoons unsalted organic or European style butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 6 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced into discs.
• 1/3 cup dark rum
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar completely dissolves, about 2 minutes.

Add the bananas and cook on both sides until they become slightly soft and begin to brown, about 3 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the rum and cinnamon. Tip the pan slightly and carefully ignite the alcohol with a long kitchen match or kitchen lighter to flambי. Let it burn until it just goes out, shaking the pan (back on the stove if you don't have gas or are very careful) a bit. This burns off the alcohol and leaves the flavor behind.

May add pecans – they go great with this.
May eat as is or serve over ice cream, pancakes, French Toast, hot whole grain cereal, kefir, yogurt.
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This dish goes fantastic with an egg brunch or pancake brunch, and it’s a great light dinner (you ARE supposed to be having your main meal at lunch, you know!).

Hit the grocery store and in the refrigerated fruit/veggie section you should see those newish jars of fruit. I love these, they’re handy, allow you to use them several times, and are still healthy because they are canned in glass rather than metal. Find the citrus mix – the one with grapefruit. Use the entire jar if you’re serving more than one person. Most people can digest citrus fruits with other foods, so don’t worry about food combination unless you plan on overeating.

You can also use fresh grapefruit, fresh orange, canned mandarin oranges. Pink grapefruit looks especially lovely. The jarred stuff is so nice and convenient however that I rarely pass it up. Plus I’m too clumsy to get grapefruit sections out neatly and in one piece!

Turn the oven on Broil setting, at about 400 degrees.

Use corning ware preferably, a shallow casserole dish. Drain the fruit and dump it in.

Now if you want decadent, then add 3 ounces of orange liqueur, such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier.

If you don’t want alcohol, then squeeze two oranges. Pour orange juice over fruit.

The sweetener may be brown sugar if you’re on maintenance, or an allowed sweetener if you’re on a cleansing/healing diet. A large handful of brown sugar should do you, just throw it on. If you’re using a more natural sweetener, add it to the orange juice so it dissolves properly. Add a bit of molasses for the brown sugar flavor.

Place right underneath the hot broiler for about 10 minutes and serve. Look for the brown sugar to bubble a bit. YUMMY!

This sauce has whole figs in it, so it’s a great cure for constipation. Serve this sweet dish with an egg dish that has blue cheese, or just slices of blue cheese (two ounces per person) for a great, guilt-free cheese meal. the figs offset blue cheese or gorgonzola or even brie really wonderfully. I serve it with a blue cheese soufflי. You definitely need something salty with this dish.

1/2 cup water
1 orange, zested and juiced
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon brown sugar or allowed sweetener – maple syrup works really well, as does molasses
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 cup dried whole figs

Combine all the ingredients – figs last - in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the dried figs are reconstituted, about 10 minutes.

Very young people or people with weak digestions need cooked fruit because they cannot handle any chance of fermentation. Cooking fruit breaks down the fruit sugars and makes them easier on the digestive system. Dried fruits are much better for our power of digestion if they’ve been reconstituted. That’s all a fruit compote is – dried fruits soaked and cooked in fluids. You can make any kind of fruit compote you like, the sky is the limit. Here is one version, but definitely feel free to experiment.

The basic recipe:

Water or fruit juice covering the dried fruit in a bowl, soak for 20 minutes.

If you used water, drain before cooking. If you used a fruit juice such as apple, cranberry or cherry cider, retain about a cup and use this to flavor the compote. Add enough water or fruit juice so the fruit is stewed rather than fried.

Add lemon and/or orange zest for more flavor.
Add lemon juice to bring out the flavor of the fruit.
Add sweetener of choice to taste.
Add spices such as whole cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, pumpkin pie spice.
Simmer for at least 20 minutes.
Eat hot or allow to come down to room temperature.
Store in fridge, it will keep a week.
Eat as is or use as sauce for ice cream, pancakes, French toast, etc.

Here’s a more definitive recipe:

1/3 cup chopped dried apples
1/3 cup chopped dried pears
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberries or cherries
2/3 cup dried apricots
1/4 cup sugar or 2 packets of Stevia blend
1/2 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
1/2 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest
1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, or to taste
1 cup water - or apple juice or grape juice and subtract sweetener

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Good for every Dosha, this is a great meal to leave in the fridge because it holds up well as a leftover and is a great source of energy, a very healthy and tasty snack. If you start craving sugar you should eat this instead.

This meal is fantastic for those of you who wish to cleanse your bowels or maintain clean bowels after you’ve worked so hard to get them clean. It is a great meal to have after a bout of diarrhea. It's basically apple pie without the crust, so it's very comforting. It's the best "cheat" to have while cleansing and totally allowed during rebuilding and maintenance stages. Candida people should cook the fruit longer (breaks down sugars) and use Stevia as a sweetener, or add apple juice as the sweetener.

Peel and core a greenish but sweet apple such as braeburn, fuji, gala. Slice about an eighth-inch or quarter inch thick, the same kind of slices you’d see in an apple pie. If you’re making the dish for 4 or more people, figure one apple for each person minus one, so three apples for four people.

Squeeze a slice of lemon over the apples to keep them from browning and to add a bit of sour taste, which really brings out the flavor and makes it more complex.

In a medium saucepan, melt one tablespoon of butter per apple. Preferably unsalted butter. Add brown sugar if you’re allowing yourself refined sugars, maple syrup or brown rice syrup if you’re not. You don’t need much, just about a flat teaspoon per apple. You can also use apple cider as a sweetener. Stir until sugar dissolves/incorporates the butter.

Add a large pinch of cinnamon per apple. (the more the better IMO!)

On medium heat, add the apples and flip them every now and again with a spatula until they are softened and sweated. Do not cook until mushy, you want them to keep their shape.

Options:
You can add raisins for sweetness and extra fiber. Back off on the sweetener if you do so.
Add pecans or walnuts – or both - for essential fatty acids and fiber.

For decadence, add a tablespoon of brandy or dark rum. If you use dark rum, definitely add in the pecans and some sliced banana for a kind of apples-banana foster. If you use alcohol, take the pan off the stove and light it on fire to burn off the alcohol so you only get the taste of the booze and none of the actual alcohol.

Eat this dish alone as your daily fiber supplement, or serve it over whole-grain pancakes, whole-grain hot cereal, or French toast, or ice cream, which are all allowed on a maintenance diet. J Or eat with kefir or yogurt. Yum!

This is a good first course or side dish for a meal because the vinegar and raw cucumber aid digestion tremendously. It also makes your meal hit all the taste buds by providing the sour/astringent flavors that are missing from most meals. Getting all the different type of flavors in one meal makes them doubly satisfying.

Bowel Cleansing is a HUGE subject. How much you do and exactly what you do depends on whether your bowels are still shaped okay or not. This first part will assume your colon is basically shaped okay.

When we talk about the bowels, we mean both the small and large intestine. It also involves the stomach and liver, because if they don’t do their jobs, the bowel’s functions are compromised.

The names are misleading. The small intestine is approximately 22 feet long. It is a thinner tube so it is called smaller. Because of how it is wrinkled, if spread out it would cover about a third of a football field.

The colon is approximately 6 feet long, but it is a thicker tube so is called the large intestine.

The small intestine is where most of digestion takes place. The colon is where all kinds of wastes end up - not just food, but also waste from the lymphatic system. The liver dumps bile and toxins into the small intestine via the common bile duct.

When the colon's shape is compromised or fecal matter gets stuck somewhere, because of how nerves are inter-connected, this will indirectly cause problems in other parts of the body. Here's a great diagram that illustrates this:
http://www.bestcare-uk.com/images/colon_reflex_points.jpg

When the colon is healthy, we have:
1. A waistline that is equal to or thinner than our chest
2. good overall posture with shoulders back
3. at least 1 BM a day, that may change its shape and length due to diet but is easy to pass, with only very occasional constipation when we eat wrong or drink too few fluids.

If we're hunky linebackers and eat 3 or more large, fiber-rich meals a day, we really should have more than one BM the following day - or one exceptionally long one. But for people who eat about 2,200 calories a day or less, it's common to only have one BM because all the meals "catch up" to each other overnight when digestion slows down.

Foods have various transit times, but ideally, you should eliminate all meals by the next morning. To make sure you are doing this, fast for a couple days on only liquid foods and see if you're still having BMs. Then when you eat again, see how long it takes before your next BM. If it's more than 24 hours, you're constipated and have a compromised colon.

A textbook-perfect stool for a larger adult is over 10 inches long, 2 inches thick, well-formed but not totally compacted, eliminates easily. It may or may not float depending on how much veggie fiber is in it. If it is slick looking and floats, you have undigested fats and that's not good. Any kind of brown color is acceptable. Green is usually okay. Certain foods will turn it odd colors. Beets usually come out still red. Yellow feces means fast transit times, as bile is yellow but tends to turn color during digestion. Most toxins are yellow or orange.

A bit of gas expelled with the feces is fine. Lots of gas in between elimination is not.
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If your constipation is but a difficult meal (chocolate, cheese, deep-fried, low-fiber) that gets stuck in the rectum, either an enema or glycerin tab suppository is the best thing to do. NEVER STRAIN. It is better to, ahem, go digging rather than strain. Straining causes hemorrhoids. The rectum has tons of veins very near to the surface that break easily under pressure. Change your eating/drinking habits and this should cease.

If your constipation is a long-term thing evidenced by long periods without a BM, thin stools, hard/compact stools, bloat, gas, an uncomfortable feeling, irritability, stooped posture, distended abdomen, acne, then it's time for a cleaning.

If you're not suffering any real pain, burning or diarrhea, then your best options are:

• Colonic irrigations
• Colema setup with 5 gallon bucket
• Flushing Enemas with a 2 quart bag or bucket setup. Use salted water, or H202 solutions, or Liquid Chlorophyll.
• Retention enemas of oil (only if tongue is not coated) or coffee
• Cayenne tincture - drink the Cleansing Drink
• Taking a teaspoon of olive oil 1-3x daily to induce bile release. Bile encourages peristaltic action.
• Fruit laxatives
• Herbal laxatives
• Saline Laxatives
• Bulk Fiber Supplements

- flax seed - whole or ground or as tea is best
- psyllium seed fiber. Not everyone can handle psylluim, it is a very slow fiber. Best when combined with cascara sagrada like in Agape's Perfect 7 Intestinal Cleanser.
- apple pectin. Really scours the colon. Can be irritating to the small intestine over time.
- Guar gum. Makes the fiber supplement more like gelatin. Glycerin tab suppositories

• a strong cup of coffee (in case of emergency)

Cleansing Carrot Salad and Beets - a clean liver gives up more bile and induces more peristaltic action. Carrots have a very safe fiber.

After a series of these, follow with probiotics to replace friendly flora. You don't have to take probiotics after every flush.

Note: the salt water flush is only suitable when fasting. It is not a good solution for when there is impacted fecal matter or constipation.
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1. When you wake up in the morning, drink a glass of very warm water or a warm Cleansing Drink. The warmth of the water should enduce a BM.

2. Drink 2-3 Cleansing Drinks a day, cayenne promotes regularity.

3. Take one tablespoon of good oil (cycle between cod liver old, wheat germ oil, flax) 2x a day, and a dose of castor oil right before bed (castor oil is a laxative).

4. Eat a high-fiber diet: hot whole grain cereal; congee; plenty of veggies; avoid really rich, high-fat, high-dairy dishes with cheese.

5. Eat at least one bowl of fruit a day, preferably a fruit compote of prunes, dried apricots, etc., see recipes in Essential Recipes/Misc recipes - all those fruit recipes are great aids for regularity. Snack on nuts, dates and raisins.

6. Go for a short walk 15 minutes after meals and keep your ab muscles strong.

7. Keep in touch with your body and never ever delay when you first feel the urge to go.

8. If the stool gets stuck in the rectal area, never strain. Use glycerin tab suppositories instead. Available at any drugstore. Or use a Fleet enema, or your own enema bucket.

9. As your evening snack, have either hot simmered milk (you can use rice dream - recipe in the FAQ) or better yet, flax seed tea.

10. Drink Eater's Digest tea (fennel, peppermint) 30 minutes after a meal.

Keep a fiber supplement on hand, one that has cascara sagrada in it, and take a couple capsules before bed if you missed a BM that day. Agape's Perfect 7 dietary supplement works every time.

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Only use laxatives if you are trying to dislodge mucoid placque, have transit times slower than 24 hours, or have less than 1 BM a day even tho you're eating 3 meals or more a day.

Always find the minimum dose that works. Start out with fruit. Fruit laxatives do not cause dependency unless you use them for years. The best fruit laxatives I've found are:

• Triphala, an ancient Ayurvedic remedy that tones and soothes the entire digestive tract and is a mild laxative. It may not be enough of a solution for chronic constipation.
• Fruit-Eze, a combo of prunes etc.
• Rhubarb - either eat it or get the tea or supplements. Medium strength and safe for most Doshas and ailments.
• Fennel or Fennel Seed Tea or supplements – excellent for Pitta type complaints. A good medium strength laxative. You can also simply drink prune juice and include plenty of dates and figs in your diet.

Some herbal laxatives like Senna or Aloe Vera Gel (not liquid, gel is very strong liquid is mild) cause cramping and are unsuitable for Vata types. Senna is quite strong and should only be used for a month and only as needed. Cascara Sagrada works really really well and if you've never cleansed before or never passed mucoid placque and wish to, start out with this one. It's quite strong and so a little goes a long way.

Dr. Schulze' formula #1 and #2 are fine products. I only disagree with his prescription on how to use them. He recommends taking #1, the laxative, all by itself for several weeks and THEN take #2, the bulk fiber. This is good advice IF you have the worst kind of constipation and many many meals in your colon. And if you're a large male, over 40, with a huge girth and a history of a red meat and potatoes diet, this is what you need to do. If however you're smaller with only a bit of bloating and have generally tried to eat healthy and rarely experienced constipation, you'd be better off taking both #1 and #2 at the same time.

Other options are:
Vitamin C. Be sure to get adequate amounts of Vit C in your diet, and supplement with 500 mg a day, or one Emergen-C every-other day for a month. If you get diarrhea, stop taking it for a week.
Potassium: Drink the potassium broth. A lack of potassium will cause constipation.
Magnesium: TAke Cal-mag fizz, or take a detox bath with 1/2 cup baking soda and 3/4 cup of Epsom salts, or dissolve one tablespoon of Epsom salts in a liter of very cold water and drink.
Eat a spoonful of lecithin 1-3x a day for one to two weeks.
Do all four things if constipation has been chronic for longer than a year.

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People who have a prolapsed colon have the worst kind of constipation – the kind that is toughest to cure. It requires a dedicated, consistent protocol to reshape and reposition the colon.

A prolapsed colon will place pressure on all of the organs under it: uterus, ovaries, gonads, bladder. The decreased circulation prevents toxins and acids from leaving the area. This coupled with the pressure can cause sterility, ovarian cysts, prostrate problems, frequent urination and hemorrhoids.

A prolapsed colon should show up on an iridology test. It won’t necessarily show up on a colonoscopy.

• The cleansing protocol should include a fiber-based intestinal cleanser rather than just the other options. It may begin with something to soften the impacted fecal matter, such as an oxygen-based cleanser and colonic irrigations, but must include fiber.
• Don’t use bentonite clay, it will get in the way of the herbs that must be used.
• There should be cycles of at least 3 days of astringent/toning therapy (see table below) every week.
• Correct your posture while evacuating. This means either squatting down over something on the floor, or place some kind of a step to stand on around the toilet so you can crouch over the toilet seat. Special contraptions are manufactured. Failing that, at the very least, put your hands high over your head while you void. This will change the pressure. Very helpful for hemorrhoids.
• Exercise! walking, slant board exercises, ab exercises
• Massage. Can use a tennis ball.
• Yoga and Inversion. Should stands, hand stands, gravity boots, slant boards - lying so your feet are higher than your head. This reverses the effects of gravity, relieves pressure on the colon, allows for better circulation, clears thoracic duct, and so greatly speeds up the detoxing process. Try to do 15 minutes a day. Even a minute is better than none.

Swollen blood vessels in and around the rectum, technically, although swollen blood vessels may happen anywhere there is soft tissue and could happen elsewhere in the colon and small intestine, but when they happen there the name tends to change. Spider veins, varicose veins, are all swollen veins.

Vein health depends on good nutrition, moderate temperatures, good circulation. Things that wreak havoc with veins are alcohol; saunas and steam baths if done to excess or beyond your limits; standing or sitting for long periods so that blood pools.

Hemorrhoids will happen simply due to gravity if you tend to be constipated and have feces placing pressure on the area whether you’re trying to evacuate or not. Pushing to evacuate will burst or weaken veins. Incorrect posture for evacuation will encourage hemorrhoids.

Preparation H offers temporary relief and is quite safe to use, so do avail yourself of this OTC ointment as needed. But don’t expect it to cure your problem, and don’t assume that the problem is incurable or requires surgery.

If the hemorrhoids are giving you extreme discomfort, a liquid diet may be called for. The protein shake with extra eggs and fresh-squeezed veggie juices will help keep you nourished.

If the discomfort is not extreme, moist fiber is essential to keep stools from getting too hard. Either a fiber and mild laxative or oxygen-based intestinal cleanser to ensure softer stools is appropriate at this time. Flaxseed tea is excellent at this time, followed by the toning/astringent herbs in the table below.

• Eat more garlic, ginger onion, dark berries for the compounds that aid vein rebuilding
• Mild to medium doses of blood thinners/circulatory aids: garlic, ginger, aspirin, cayenne pepper, rosemary, turmeric/curcoma. Don’t take these prior to surgery.
• Keep stools soft
• Void as soon as you feel the need. Never wait. Use proper posture
• Skin food and wound repairing food, especially cod liver oil, Vitamin C, zinc, Bromelain – in pineapple juice and digestive enzyme supplements.
• Aloe Vera Juice (see below) followed by marshmallow or slippery elm tea

Using Aloe Vera Juice

• Get the drinkable liquid, not the gel. Try to find a brand with very few preservatives. Drink 1/2 cup 3x daily for at least 3 days.
• Marshmallow or Slippery Elm Tea

For thoroughly cleansing both the small and large intestine a basic protocol would go something like this:

Diet management: Fasting or cleansing diet. Include Kefir/Yogurt in your diet. Should include Kichadi, cleansing carrot salad, beets or a beet supplement tab (Dr. Jensen sells one), artichokes, fruit compote, dates, figs, hot cereal.

Drink at least 45 ounces of water. You shouldn't have to drink more than 80 fluid ounces overall, and indeed, if you do, you may be depleting yourself of valuable electrolytes and interrupting digestion too much.

6 colonics (or colemas or enemas). Do one or two a week. If enemas, do 3 a week.

Concurrently, take digestive enzymes with every meal and one before bed.

At night before bed, take a combination of mild laxatives and intestinal cleanser, bulk fiber. This should be taken with at least 12 ounces of water.

In the morning, drink a large glass of very warm water. This induces a bowel movement. Do not start rushing about and starting your day until you have one.

Take one teaspoon of olive oil or a nut oil 1-3x daily.

Drink one cup of herbal laxative tea as part of your late afternoon snack, or Triphala.

Eat kefir and after the series of colonics take acidophilus supplements for a couple days and perhaps a retention enema of kefir/acidophilus solution.

Exercise helps. Walking, stretching, Yoga, exercising the abs.

A proper enema IMHO is done with an enema bucket or colema setup or very large, 2-quart bag in order to flush the colon with as much water as possible. It should use good surgical tubing with some kind of clamp to interrupt water flow as needed.

A good tip goes a long way to making an enema a comfortable experience. The tips can be simply thinner surgical tubing, or a piece of specially designed plastic, etc. The tip should be cleaned after every use and may be reused.

K-Y jelly is an awesome lubricator. Betadine is a good disinfectent for the tip, for the rest just a weak solution of bleach is enough. About 10% bleach to 90% water.

1 quart very warm but not hot filtered water with 1 tsp sea salt is the basic enema. You should always add salt to soften the water. To this can be added: bentonite clay, chorophyll, acidopholis, and tons of other things for medical reasons, like 1/2 cup sesame oil for constipation. More details at the end of this post.

If detoxing metals, use distilled water, otherwise avoid it.

I like to lie on my back with my fanny raised in the beginning, with my feet on a wooden foot roller. It's amazing but rolling the feet good and hard will relax all the muscles and colon to allow better water retention. I also press down on my left side, low, near pelvis, to help water move UP the colon. I keep massaging abdomen counter-clockwise as water comes in, and sometimes the outer right thigh, which is a gallbladder point.

Afer taking in about a pint of water (I have to guess this now that I have a metal bucket) I roll over onto my right side to help the water move down the transverse (horizontal part) of the colon, then return to my back to commence more massage of the entire abdominal area and soles of my feet.

I release as needed and go right back to taking in more water until I've taken in at least a quart or two.

It's also good, while retaining water, to squat down and keep massaging the abdomen.

Do not do an enema if you are suffering from diarrhea. DO take probiotics occasionally if you are doing an intense series of enemas, say, after every 7th one. There's no need to add acidophilus with every single enema.

The Salt Water Flush is basically an enema that you drink. The advantage over the enema is that unlike an enema, you also flush your small intestine. The disadvantage is you have to drink a lot of salty water, blech! :)

Warm up one quart of good filtered water, NOT distilled, in a safe, non-reactive pan. It should feel comfortably warm, but not hot, to your elbow.

Add two tablespoons of salt. It can be Hains Sea Salt - UNiodized, or a better Sea Salt, or Kosher Salt. Just don't use an iodized salt.

Taste the water. It should be as salty as chicken soup. If it is not salty enough, you will absorb the water rather than pass it, which will make you bloated and ill, and overwhelm the kidneys, so if in doubt, use too much salt rather than too little.

Drink it all down at once best you can.

Crouch down and start rubbing your abdomen in a clockwise direction, helping the water pass through and dislodging any impacted fecal matter.

Release as needed. It should come out as "butt pee."

Note: You should skip at least one meal, preferably a few meals prior to doing a SWF. For instance, do it in the morning after skipping dinner and snacks the night before. It is best done while fasting. It's safe to do the day after a good fiber shake if you used a safe fiber, but not good to do if you are suffering chronic constipation and wish to induce a BM. The water might balloon out your instestines too much around the impacted fecal matter. Do not do a salt water flush if your tongue has thick cracks and grooves on it.

Triphala is an ancient Ayurvedic herbal remedy. It is made from 3 different fruits that all have a rejuvenating affect on the digestive system. It is tri-doshic, meaning it is appropriate for any digestive disorder and any Dosha.

Ayurvedic practitioners often prescribe Triphala for an entire year for choronic conditions. It is a mild laxative but not habit forming, it won't create dependency. It has anti-fungal properties, so is great for candida. It strengthens the bowels and promotes the growth of healthy tissue and friendly flora.

As to dosage, that depends on the strength of what you buy. Most bottles will say to take two pills a day. It is usually safe to take more, since this is just concentrated fruit. Take apart from meals, about 30 minutes prior or one hour afterwards.

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For basic flushing, and it's good to start out with at least one bucket's worth of a flushing enema before trying any other type of enema, all you need is one tablespoon of salt to one quart of water. Use kosher or sea salt, do not use refined white salt, as it has additives.

To cleanse the bowels of candida, add 2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar to a quart of warm, salted water.

To oxygenate and soothe the bowels and also get a little bit of nutrition, add 1 tablespoon of liquid chlorophyll to about 2-3 cups of salted water and retain as long as possible.

To grab and exit toxins, add 1 tablespoon of liquid bentonite to however much water you want. Especially helpful in reducing Herxheimer symptoms.

To replace the friendlies, do a retention enema of 1/2 cup of kefir to 2 cups warm water. Retain as long as possible, massage it up the colon best you can.

To cure constipation, add 1/2 cup of pure sesame oil or olive oil or almond oil to 2 cups warm water. Do not do this if you have very weak digestion or very coated tongue.

To cure colitis, IBS, prolapsed colon or hemrrhoids, make up some barley tea and use it instead of plain water.

If your digestion is very impaired, then do a nutritional enema. Mix these together: 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
2-4 cups of broth
retain as long as possible.


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Liver flushes can make you feel very hot and sweaty on the night you do them as the toxins are released and the body cleanses. You can feel nausea, dizzyness, burp up stomach acids, blech!

To completely cleanse the liver, you can't just flush. In fact, sometimes you don't even need to flush. I highly recommend that anyone with severe acne or other symptoms of chronic degenerative disease flush, but it's not mandatory. What is mandatory is being thorough.

Some people don't need to flush so much as dissolve stones. Anyone who plans on flushing should dissolve stones as much as possible before sending them thru the bile duct. These are all good options for softening and dissolving stones. You can do just one, but preferably two or more. If you do this thoroughly, you will see more sand and chaffe than stones when you flush.

Not everyone can handle Epsom salts, or need them. Epsom salts are used to relax the bile ducts and flush the intestines. If you plan on getting a colonic, you don't want to use Epsom salts as that will cause cramping. If you still want to relax the bile ducts but not get diarrhea, take 500 mg of any kind of magnesium you like about 1 hour prior to taking the oil.

Instead of a major liver flush that takes all night and the majority of the following day, this is a drink you can take for a week every morning and accomplish pretty much the same thing slowly. The slow way is much better for people who are greatly debilitated or have complications like Gilbert's Syndrome or Hepatitis.

First you need to take stone dissolvers and bile cleansers, so for one week at least take any combination you like of: 500 mg of malic acid with every meal, eat or juice green apples, drink the Cleansing Drink 1-3x a day, take gold coin grass.

Plus you need to do Bile cleansers, which are carrot juice, the cleansing carrot salad (see recipes), 1 tablespoon of lecithin taken with every meal with fats or in the carrot juice or Protein Shake or just eaten off the spoon. Eat 1-3 tablespoons of lecithin a day. Nutritional yeast flakes will also aid in cleansing bile because of the fat burners like taurine, arginine, etc.

After one week of this protocol, start the morning cocktail cleansing and do this for one week in conjunction with your stone dissolvers and bile cleansers :
1-2 tablespoons of any of these oils: olive, flax, cod liver, wheat germ, sunflower, almond, walnut. cycle thru them for best results.
Peel and press two garlic cloves, add to oil.
Put about 1 inch of fresh ginger root thru the garlic press until you get about 1 tablespoon of ginger juice. Add to oil.

Drink this down and IMMEDIATELY chase it with a Cleansing Drink.

If you need a different drink for variety or what have you, cooled down peppermint tea or grapefruit juice will also work.

About 30-60 minutes later you can have breakfast. The best breakfast would be hot cereal or fruit compote, because the fiber will trap the toxins that were released and make sure they get exited quickly.

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The spleen is very much aided by liver management. Additional things you can do are:

Avoid cold, raw foods. They chill the spleen, which needs to maintain a very warm temperature because it deals with friendly microbes. They also chill the appendix, which is a furnace for culturing more friendly microbes. Appendicitis became much more prevalent when refrigerators and iced drinks became the norm.

Do lymph management. Anything that helps the lymphs helps the spleen.

Goldenseal and Turmeric, both considered blood purifiers, help the spleen.

If the spleen if exhausted from a sugar-rich diet, sour foods like lemon, lime, are cleansing and strengthening. If you do too much, however, they have a cold and depleting action on the spleen. You can tell you've crossed over from healthy to bad when your lips start peeling excessively and perhaps you get chills, or feel cold when you shouldn't.

If your immune system/spleen are exhausted (catch every cold that comes to town, candida, auto-immune disorders), then be very careful when including raw foods in your diet. Make sure they are at room temperature and heat them up chemically with spices, oils, cream. Chew them very carefully. It helps to have your carrot juice with a slice or two of real veggies or even a cracker so that you are forced to chew and activate enzymes and warm the juices up.

If you want to drink the protein shake, try to let it come to room temperature. Avoid iced drinks altogether.

It's much easier on the body if the raw veggies are fermented.

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Cleansing the lymphs is an often-overlooked part of a cleansing regimen, and it is essential. It is also essential at the first onset of a cold or flu, as it is up to our lymphatic system to help the body fight infection and toxins.

People recovering from long, debilitating illness, cleansing diets, fasts, or bodybuilders or people who wish to lose weight, assume that you have to eat a lot of protein and animal meats in order to gain weight and build muscle mass, or lose weight without losing muscle mass. They drink protein shakes and think this is healthy. This is simply not true.

Certainly you do need some extra protein, and that can include animal meats, preferably liver because most fasts and cleansing diets are low in vitamin B12, but really all you have to do in order to bulk up is:

1. Eat more calories than your basal metabolic rate.
2. Eat enough fat and carbs to spare your protein for things other than fuel.

Fuel, or glycogen, is the first priority for the body, because without glycogen, which is metabolized and stored by the liver, the brain will die. The brain has to come before everything in the body, naturally! :)

We get energy from the Kreb's Cycle, which requires fat, protein and carbs together in a good combination. That is the proper fuel mixture, so limiting fats, carbs or protein causes a nightmare for the body because then it has to rob our storehouses of muscle, fat, vitamins and minerals in order to convert things into what it needs.

Carb Energy is so important that both protein and fats will be converted to carbs whenever carbs are in short supply. Thus fats and protein cannot do their main jobs if we eat a low-carb, low-calorie diet.

Fats build and protect cells and scavenge out free radicals, and proteins are the bricks that build muscle, hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters and immuno responses. When we feel angry, frusrated or joyful - or horny - or kill a virus, it's thanks to a protein. When eating fewer calories than our metabolic needs in order to lose weight it is often a good idea to eat a high-protein diet at least 4 days out of the week.

High-protein, low-fat diets are risky over long periods of time because the digestive by-products of protein digestion and converting fat stores are highly toxic, require minerals for buffering, congest the liver and overwork the kidneys. So unless you're under 30, don't even think about eating a high-protein diet for more than three months at a time, even if you’re O positive blood type.

Because proteins are builders, having too many proteins in the body can clog delicate tissues and prevent them from exiting toxins or receiving the oxygen and nutrients they need. Proteins clog up the cell-sized channels that allow nutrients to go into cells and waste materials to come out, making things stagnant and polluted and eventually cells die.

In Ayurvedic medicine we call foods that build up the body "sweet." They can be sweet in taste or sweet in post-digestive effect. For instance, Honey is both sweet in taste and sweet in post-digestive effect. Meat is not sweet in taste, but it is sweet (building) in post-digestive effect. When it's time to rebuild, it's time to include more sweet foods in your diet. Here's a list:

Wheat, barley, All types of Rice, corn, millet, oats
Nuts and seeds
lentils
Milk, butter cheese
Honey, maple syrup, raw cane sugar
Dates, figs
Licorice Root
Red Clove
Peppermint
Slippery Elm
beef, fish, pork
oils
cucumber
potatoes
bananas, grapes, melons, oranges, peaches, pears, plums

As you can see, many of these foods are alkaline, so you can rebuild and remain alkaline.

The most alkaline way to get perfect protein (perfect protein means every essential amino acid) is to mix grains and legumes at a 4 to 1 ratio, and teeny-tiny portions of meat, or cook the grain/legumes in chicken broth. Snack on nuts.

As an example, make up a batch of basmati rice with green peas (a legume) cooked in chicken broth. Top with two slivers of chicken breast meat and all the veggies you want. Every culture has a meal that follows this principle of perfect protein - paella, couscous, Chinese Fried Rice, Japanese rice bowls or noodle dishes (Ramen) with just a bit of beef teriyaki or shrimp tempura, etc.

It's important to remember that vegetables and grains have protein in them, and that we only need GRAMS of protein a day, not ounces. So you can have grams of protein each day in your servings of veggies and grains, and only have larger portions of chicken, fish, beef or eggs (eggs are perfect protein, nothing beats an egg, and they're more alkaline than most protein sources) about 3-5x a week.

So that you don't clog your digestive systems up again now that's it hopefully nice and clean, be sure to use pungent herbs liberally and to occasionally have whole meals of nothing but fruit or nothing but salad or nothing but sweet potato and fast on digestive teas once a week. Overdosing on grains can be just as problematical for some people who have a small pancreas and an ancestral background that does not include a lot of rice, so be sure to accent veggies more than grains.
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The only time I prescribe a totally pure diet is during the first 3 months of the candida protocal or any cleansing/detoxing protocol, the rest of the time I think aiming for an 80% health/20% decadadent is a nice lifestyle. :) That includes periods of 100% clean, such as days around a liver flush, but otherwise... be sure to enjoy your 20%! Here's how to "cheat" without totally ruining all your fine efforts towards health and balance.

First of all, when you want junk, don't force yourself to "make up for it" by eating two meals - the junk meal, and the healthy meal. If you want a candy bar for dinner, then just have the candy bar! Don't think you absolutely have to follow it with salad in order to "cancel it out."

the super-best way to enjoy fun foods is to *eat them alone.* Most fun foods tend to take over one's digestive system and leave little room for anything else. So anything else you eat, no matter how "healthy," will, by the time it meets and greets that candy bar or prime rib or cake, will be just as unhealthy! One of the things thin people do that overweight people do not, is they allow themselves total junk meals without feeling like they have to eat *more*. Get your nutrition later on in the week!

Try to make your cheats a celebration, not a mindless snack. You know how it is, you open that bag of potato chips, and next thing you know, you reach into an empty bag and you can't remember eating a single chip!!!

And try to have your cheats on a special night, not every single night of the week. Fridays are my cheat night, also the nights of the full-moon, and if PMS strikes. Remember, absolutely anything that you limit for any reason or anything that breaks your "rules" is considered "dessert," even if it's red meat. For instance, anything I eat after 9:00 pm is dessert, because I'm not supposed to eat late at night (mitigate eating late at night by eating small, light snacks, fruit).

Another good thing to do is to follow a night of baccanalian delights with a day of fasting, drinking nothing but tea and the Master Cleanser drink, and plenty of bowel managment. At the very least, before you go to bed, drink lime water or lemon water with ACV to give your body plenty of PH balancing compounds to mitigate that prime rib or sugar. Moreover, P&B shakes, flax seed, and enemas are great ways to make sure the cheat doesn't sit around and make you miserable.

If you want to totally be a carnivore, then go for it! Just try to avoid following it wtih dessert or fruit or cheese, eat less of the wonderful garlicky mashed potatoes (starch + meat = NO digestion) on the side. Eat it with salad. Avoid other proteins, try to have just one animal protein in the meal. Try to eat spicy meat, Mexicali or Cuban or Cajun style with cayenne or chili peppers. And go for the very best - Ruth's Chris, not Sizzler!!!

Heavy or cold desserts with dairy are best digested wtih a bit of warming. Sprinkle cardamom on your vanilla ice cream (yum!), cinamon on your rice pudding, and drink ginger tea with the dessert. If it's white food, think hot and spicy, and your tongue will be less coated the next day. :)

If your fun meal gives you indigestion, no problem: just heat up a cup of water, add juice of 1/2 lemon and a dash of baking soda.

Chocolate is a stimulant that can depress the digestive system. Try to eat it with cardamom or cumin. Coffee is best with nutmeg, just add it right to the coffee - yum!

Tobacco can be mitigated somewhat with gotu kola, calamus root or celery seeds.

Alcohol is best taken as red wine or very fine spirits as close to 100 proof as possible. Brandy is good too. As part of your hangover cure, chew 1/4 teaspoon of cumin seeds or 1-2 cardamom seeds. A glass of EmergenC or lime water with salt helps to rehydrate and replace electrolytes.

If your diet prohibits something, when you have it, have it in the most decadent way possible so you really really enjoy your cheat. For instance, I try to limit white flour. Bread is a complete waste of calories. I try to only have it when it is the finest french bread with the perfect crust and yeasty goodness fresh from the oven, OR I have the flour in my home baked cakes and souffles (I make a mean chiffon cake!). No Wonder bread for me!!!

So keep your pantry stocked with ginger tea and things to make Chai (cinamon, cardamom, cloves, black pepper) or Yogi Tea's India Spice. Next time you do a Baskin Robbins run, just be sure to enjoy your banana split with a cup of spicy tea and you'll be good to go the next day.

Here’s how to tell the good diets from the bad whether it’s one you design for yourself or a nationally recognized diet plan that seems popular. When you read up on a diet, see if it falls into these pitfalls.

• Says this is how you should eat forever and ever. Doesn’t recommend occasional periods of fasting or cycling your weekly plans.
• Says when you eat as in the time of day doesn’t matter and how you prepare the foods doesn’t matter.
• Doesn’t make alternative recommendations for age, gender, weight, lifestyle, body type, metabolic factors, environmental factors, availability of ingredients, etc.
• Is totally inconvenient and/or flavorless.
• Makes a fetish out of one or two foods and prohibits the rest, or has a really strict list of rules that severely limit your choices as to what you can eat and how you can eat it without a good therapeutic reason for such limitations. Extremist.

People are cyclic. Bodies are cyclic. Digestion is cyclic. Our needs change based on various factors. Digestion and metabolism slow down at night, speed up in the winter or around the full moon.

Peoples’ lives are dynamic, going from one extreme to another. A good diet will change according to the weather, work load, stress, trauma. It will cycle from maintenance to cleansing to rebuilding as necessary to maintain top energy. It will cycle from high-protein to low-protein according to the weather, age, injuries, weight regulation, cleansing, healing, stress, etc.

Our needs change with age. The protein we can enjoy heartily in our youth could kill us quicker in our golden years. Men have different needs than women. Physically active people have different needs than sedentary.

No two people have the exact same tolerances for alcohol. One drink of hard liquor could put one person under the table while another could do shots all day. One person gets sicker off tequila while another does worse on white wine. This same truth applies to refined sugars, phony fats, food additives, starches, meats, dairy, nightshade vegetables, fungi, rice and beans, caffeine, NSAIDs, prescription medicine, natural herbs, vitamins and minerals, stress, and sensitivity to emotions and surroundings.

Beware of any recommendation that doesn’t give you the math. For instance, if a dose is listed, does the dose mention body weight or size? Is it even affected by mass? Most recommendations come from 200 pound men and therefore petite women should halve them.

The ideal diet is one that is manageable, enjoyable and has a wide variety of whole foods. It should challenge your pallet in a good way. Sure you can occasionally be required to eat something you really don’t like all that much, but this is something that has to work for you overall or you won’t do it. What’s the sense of trying to follow a diet that doesn’t work for you, or takes away as many hours as it promises to give?

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This is a rebuilding or maintenence diet plan designed to help you get rid of cravings so you can stick to your more cleansing or regulating diets. If you are cleansing or trying to manage your weight and start feeling really crazy, do this diet for a few days. You won't need any willpower after eating this diet plan. You may even lose weight. Vata and Pitta people can do this diet for several days, Kapha should just do one or two at most.

Each day have:

Two large glasses of whole, raw milk (Homogenized, pasteurized milk won’t work. Goat’s milk should be okay if it’s not homogenized).
Alternate: 12 ounces Almond Milk, but must take calcium supplement, 500 mg daily.
Alternate: One large glass of Kefir blended with 1/2 cup frozen mango

2 ounces of organic or European style butter - just eat it, or have it on Ezekial bread.

1 Protein Shake with two eggs).

2-4 cups of Bieler, chicken or turkey broth.

A bowl of fresh blueberries (frozen okay) drizzled with raw honey and kefir or yogurt.

1 EmergenC or Ester-C or Effer-C daily.

1 or more Cleansing Drinks daily.

Optional (if you weight over 130 pounds): 1 regular meal of your choice, preferably bitter green salad, soaked or sprouted sunflower seeds or almonds or brazil nuts, raisins, fruit compote, kichadi, hot cereal, veggie soup, fish, liver, sweet potato, basic veggies, quinoa pasta, veggie juice. The above list is probably enough for people who weigh up to 130 pounds, so don’t make this optional meal a huge one unless you weigh over 130 pounds.
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A wealth of experiments have been performed over the last 15 years to see how much of what we eat goes to feed us, and how much of what we eat goes to kill us. There's a saying inscribed on one of the Egyptian pyramids that was true 10,000 years ago and is doubly true today:

One-fourth of what we eat goes to feed ourselves, three-fourths goes to feed our doctors.

The first experiments were done on single-celled organisms in a Petri dish. Those that were given regular feedings lived a month. Those that were fed every-other day lived two months. It was seen that constant feeding, constantly metabolizing and eliminating foods, exhausted the mitochondria. A mitochondria is an "organelle," which is basically an organ on a cellular level, inside the cell. It is responsible for producing cellular energy, so it's pretty much the equivelent of the liver.

A forty percent reduction in caloric intake may lengthen human life span as much as twenty five years. Rats and mice fed a diet forty percent less than what they consumed if allowed to eat as much as they wanted, lived one third longer. It doesn't seem to matter whether the calories are in the form of fat, protein or carbohydrates.

The studies are assisted by the use of a new biological tool called an "Affymetrix chip" which measures aging at the cellular level. The chip monitors which genes are switched on or off. A theory of aging is that free radicals, which are a by-product of energy production, damage cells. In calorically restricted mice, the control genes are quiescent. Less energy means less damage to the cell's mitochondria.

To date it appears that even though the consumption of a healthy diet, rich in fresh fruits and vegetables is highly desirable, the real key to longevity is a reduction in food consumption overall. Does that mean we need to reduce our food intake by forty percent? Not necessarily, the experiments on mice revealed that even a ten percent reduction in food intake proved to add to the length of life.

I was listening to the audio commentary on Gosford Park, and the screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, mentioned a relative who 'took to her bed every Friday and drank or ate nothing but water. By the time she was 70 she looked not a day over 45.'

This practice is what we call dry fasting. You don't drink a whole lot of water or take any supplements, you just sip on water all day and leave it at that.

So not only is it important to maintain a healthy weight in order to feel good and energetic, it's also important to eat less than we think we need to exceed typical life expectancy and to remain youthful longer.

One way you can "eat less" and still eat and rest the digestive system is to eat cultured foods. Cultured foods give more nutrients, enzymes and probiotics than they use up in the digestive process. They help us feel full and energized without depleting any reserves.

Test with kinesiology or pendulum before taking anything, and test several times a day if you're symptomatic!!!

Take B vits with any kind of food. Since they and Emergen-C are so energizing, they're best early in the day. They might keep you up if you take them late in the day.

Take Minerals with Oils for best absorption, so take them either with your cod liver oil or a meal with plenty of fats

Take Calcium/Magnesium type supplements at Night to help you sleep better.

Take your oils like the Protein Shake or Cod Liver, Fish, Wheat Germ, first thing in the morning to break your fast and prevent the creation of gallstones due to liver stagnation.

Here's a Vata-pacifying diet that supports the immune system and gives steady energy for people who tend to crash.

Getting tired and irritable due to not eating regularly means you need more complex carbohydrates, and meals that combine good proteins with oils. So...

Assuming an 8 to 5 day:

Breakfast 7:00 am:
Hot cereal. Bob's Red Mill, the one without wheat preferably, or Lundburgh's Almond Brown Rice Cereal, or a mixture of Amaranth and Quinoa.
Cook in water with a dash of seasalt. Post-cooking, use Rice Milk, butter or oil, and cinnamon or nutmeg or cardamom or ginger - or a combo - for flavoring, brown rice syrup for sweetening, or maple syrup, or crystallized fructose or stevia.

Make up a protein shake and bring it to work wtih you, along with digestive enzymes. Drink around 10:00 am.

Lunch at 12:30ish:
Morroccon Chicken soup - omit chicken, could be allergan, add extra veggies instead.
or Kichadi with plenty of veggies (can be eaten cold like a salad if it's a thick stew)
or lentil soup and/or sweet potato (they're good cold too actually).
Any Salad.

3:30 snack: banana or avocado or nuts, raisins

Dinner by 6:30, preferably earlier.
stir-fried or steamed or par-boiled veggies with a basmati/wild rice pilaf or brown rice pasta.

Can have freshly squeezed veggie juice any time, with or between meals. Should include ginger or other heat.

Can have breakfast for dinner, dinner for lunch, sweet potato for dinner, soup/salad for dinner, or dinner of all fruit if it gets late at night. Be sure to have beets 2x week minimum.

To change to Pitta or Kapha: change grains and fruit to Kapha-Pacifying (quinoa, green apples, pears) or Pitta-Pacifying (oatmeal, apples, pears). Pitta should add more bitter greens.

1. Follow my candida diet guidelines. Most guidelines on the 'net or in books have weird rules that are scientifically incorrect, such as avoiding vinegar. Vinegar is a yeast killer. You can use it to clean and disinfect your house even. It's nearly as thorough as bleach. Avoid foods generally thought to be healthy that aren't, such as soy milk, rice crackers, puffed cereals, fresh raw wheatgrass juice, raw veggies in general except for small cleansing salads.

2. Follow all the guidelines for digestive power. That means making sure you have adequate stomach acids, digestive enzymes, and eat small, easily digestible meals. If you don't digest it the yeast will, so even if you avoid sugar you may still be feeding the yeasties. More info in the FAQ under Vital Health Management. Prepare foods so they are easy to digest with fast transit times. Most people need to avoid short-grain brown rice because it is constipating.

3. Do pungent therapy. That means eating and preparing things that are mostly cooked with hot, pungent and carminative spices such as cumin, ginger, garlic, basil, onion, cayenne, chili pepper, turmeric, curry, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves. In FAQ under VHM.

4. Do two weeks of anti-fungals every 3 months. Take probiotics the rest of the time, preferably as unsweetened kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar, and live acidophilus supplements from the refrigerated section of the health food store. You can also take Primal Defense in large doses for 2 weeks after the anti-fungals, small doses after that.

5. Do thorough bowel management. That means salt water flushes weekly, candida fiber shakes daily, and the occasional enema/colonic/colema. I did enemas 3x a week for months even tho I have rarely had constipation, and this kept me from getting any brain fog or die off symptoms whatsoever, so a home setup such as an enema bucket is highly recommended. This is essential, probably the most important part of curing candida because it removes the trash that candida is living on. It's also important to oxygenate the bowels, so you should be taking liquid chlorophyll or chlorophyll tabs, and taking a super-green supplement like Perfect Food. It's also a good idea to do 2-4 weeks of Oxy-powder or Colosan before the fiber shake.

6. Practice thorough lymph management. Your immune system needs support! That means daily dry skin brushing, weekly full-body massage or near daily self-massage, and detox baths, near-daily sweating such as a sauna, regular bath, castor oil pack.

7. Oxygenate!!! light cardiovascular exercise will help you cure your candida much faster. Rebounding, walking, yoga, stretching, 5 Tibetan rites, are all good things to do. You can also supplement oxygen by drinking aerobic water and increase circulation with cayenne tincture.

8. Liver management. Since candida excretes alcohol, your liver is very overworked and needs to be dredged. Liv.52 or Dr. Cabot's Livatone Plus are great for that. If you have a fatty liver, then take either Julia's tinctures or Planetary Formula's Bupleurum Liver Cleanse. Links in Sources forum. It would be a good idea to do at least 2 liver flushes after a month of liver herbs. Coffee enemas done every 2 weeks are fantastic.

9. Support the body and every system, especially lymphatic and endocrine, nutritionally. Support electrolytes, and become more alkaline. Super-foods and supplements such as cod liver oil, fish oil, nutritional yeast, Emergen-C, Cal-Mag Fizz and my Protein Shake are highly recommended. Avoid synthetic vitamins for the most part, especially the "one a day" pills. Total junk. See the FAQ for list of good superfoods.

10. See guidelines for Leaky Gut in the FAQ.

Lots of Candida people are taking tons of Olive Leaf Extract and Caprylic Acid to fight off the candida. This stuff actually does kill yeasties, however, when it comes to digestion, HOW you take it is just as important as WHAT you take.

Herbs, oils, probiotics, must be DELIVERED to the site of infection or they simply get digested and absorbed like anything else, leaving the candida still there lining the intestines. The candida must be exposed to the active ingredients for it to work, and candida can bury itself pretty deep into the mucus and tissues.

So don't just swallow a bunch of caprylic acid gel capsules and expect them to do any good. They won't.

The best delivery system for anti-fungals is fiber and oils. The combo creates a glutinous, gel-like consistency that really presses against the walls of the intestines, delivering the anti-fungals where they need to go.

First off, find a bottle of [b]liquid caprylic acid [/b] and add about a teaspoon to a couple tablespoons of good EV olive oil.

Add this new oil (Caproil) to your fiber shake. You can add it to any kind of fiber shake you make - psyllium, ground flax seeds, whole flax seeds, even a commercial intestinal cleanser. Mix it well. This will make psyllium much better for candida people too. Use about one teaspoon of fiber and take 1-3 times a day.

Go ahead and add Oil of Orgeno, Olive Leaf, or any other anti-fungals you wish to add. Grapefruit seed extract is great.

About every four days, instead of adding the Caproil, make the fiber shake with Kefir and open up a capsule of live acidophilus and add that too. That will deliver the friendly microbes where they need to go. They will continue the balancing of the intestines and further reduce yeast. If you have Primal Defense, take it on these days too, but apart from the fiber as all of GofL's products have their own patented delivery system.

Okay, there are many reasons, but here are a couple facts that people really must understand in order to appreciate why they feel the way they do. It is confusing that a yeast infection can make a person feel so bad. Some of us end up feeling like hypochondriacs. Well, we're not!

Candida Albicans is a yeast fungus, that you probably already know. You may even know that it eats sugar. Okay, after it eats sugar, it produces alcohol. One of the myths out there is that it EATS alcohol, but alcohol is candida's excrement. Can anything eat its own excrement and enjoy it? Well, a couple vegetarian animals do to get enough B12 in their diet, but that's another story.

ANYway, one of the byproducts of alcohol metabolism is Acetaldehyde. People, whenever you see a chemical word ending in "hyge," think Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde. Chances are it's not a compound you want in your body.

Acetaldehyde is a carcinogenic chemical (meaning it causes cancer). It is a component of - get this - cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, and embalming fluid. So if you have an overgrowth of candida, your blood is full of embalming fluid. Gee, not a great way to feel good, is it?

Acetaldehyde interrupts nerve signals to the point of brainfog, memory lapses, inability to recall words, and eventually kills the liver. Thus, blackout drunks and cirrosis.

The liver, our best pal, filters out acetaldehyde and converts it into a much more harmless acid, acetyl acid. But to do that, it needs enzymes, which are protiens, and those enzymes need zinc. If the liver doesn't have either one, acetaldehyde is left in our bloodstream to tamper with our brains and bodies.

Most of us don't get enough zinc in our diets. One of the reasons a night on the town gives us a hangover is the depletion of zinc stops energy production.

You know you've reached the point of alcohol addiction when you get sugar cravings. Stopping sugar at that point results in less alcohol, so you're not getting your fix, and you start "jonesing." Alcohol withdrawal symptoms include negative thoughts, anxiety, shakiness and fatigue.

So that's why one of the principles of Vital Health is "microbes are always involved in sickness and health."

So when people ask me what they should do when they or their loved ones feel depressed, suicidal, brainfogged, fatigued, or achy, my first best answer is always cleanse, detox and go on my candida diet. They think they have to keep looking for a more serious reason for why they feel bad, such as a seratonin uptake issue or some kind of syndrome, and they really don't. Cut out sugar, eat right and start cleansing and detoxing and see if you start feeling better. If you do, then you know that's what's going on!

Primal Defense and Fungal Defense are two products offered by Garden of Life. No one else does anything like Primal Defense, it stands alone both in terms of what it is and in terms of its patented delivery system.

Primal Defense is a probiotic, and all probiotics need to do two things: they need to keep the organisms alive somehow, and they need to keep them alive despite the fact that they're going to be eaten and go thru stomach acids before they reach the small or large intestine where they can safely live and populate mucus membranes. Primal Defense has found a way to do this effectively, most companies do not.

PD must be taken orally, it will not do anything if you put it in an enema solution. It expects to hit those stomach acids and is prepared for that.

What Primal Defense is in fact are a few residents (acidophilus) but mostly Soil Based Organisms (SBO's). Modern farming techniques rob us of our daily dose of SBO's even if we eat organically. SBO's are transient microbes who come in and help the residents win the war against invaders, the baddies. They clean house and create enzymes, restoring a normal environment in the intestines - one that supports acidophilus and keeps yeast in check.

It's not a good idea to take PD when you have leaky gut, as then the organisms end up in your bloodstream to go anywhere willy-nilly. This is not a great thing to happen, it often leads to icky symptoms like skin rashes.

PD can be taken for months on end, but you don't really have to. After a first thorough cleansing, which can take anywhere from one month to three depending on how systemic your yeast infection is, all you have to do is periodic cleansing, perhaps twice a year. Or take one caplet a couple times a week, whenever you think of it. Work slowly up to the recomended therapeutic dose, for instance, just take two caplets a day for four days, see how you feel, then increase the dosage and take for another four days, etc. Don't just start out with 12 caplets, you'll be quite miserable!

PD can be taken while doing regular bowel management such as fiber shakes or Oxy-powder, you just can't take them at the exact same time. PD needs time to dissolve. Oxy-powder may react with it.

Fungal Defense is a good combination of the most effective yeast busters. It should only be taken for 2 weeks at a time so that it doesn't start killing off the friendlies, as not all of the compounds differentiate between baddies and friendlies. It's best to start out with FD and then do the PD for one month, then another two weeks of only FD, then PD, repeat the entire cycle again if needed.

You should definitely be doing some kind of bowel management and lymph management while taking FD or you'll go crazy from die-off. Colonics, enemas, fasting, SWFs, fiber shakes, rebounding, detox baths, are all good ways to ensure that your healing crisis is minimized.

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To regulate the adrenals, the first step is to avoid stress of all kinds. If you used to get a high from meeting intense deadlines, being in on the wild gossip, watching scary movies, indulsing in road rage, quit cold turkey. Start meditating and detaching from your emotions. If you do get mad or stressed, walk for 20 minutes.

The second step is to quit all caffeine, even green tea. After a month or two you can have green tea again. Caffeine makes us energetic because it tells the adrenals to pump out adrenaline.

The third step is a no-sugar, low-glycemic diet that supports the liver. The adrenals are part of the feedback system that tells the pancreas how much insulin to release into the bloodstream to manage blood glucose.

Ashwaganda regulates the adrenals and is safe to take for a month to three months.

Licorice Root feeds the adrenals, and is safe to take for a month if you're estrogen dominant, longer if you are not. You should also be getting plenty of potassium and calcium, as licorice root tends to leach you of these vital nutrients. Potassium Broth, kefir, broccoli soup, and Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc supplements are highly recommended.

Gotu Kola is a nervine, which means it feeds the brain and nervous system. It also feeds the endocrine system as well and has a very nice energizing, yet calming affect. It's much like caffeine without any of the negative side effects.

Take the RDA of Vitamin B1 daily, and a tablespoon of lecithin, or a choline supplement (much more expensive than lecithin). Also important are Vitamin C, Iodine, Nickel and Tin.

Eat Bieler Broth as often as possible. Bieler Broth is full of safe, organic salts, which feed the adrenals.

If you have a bad case of Addison's Disease, you may want to take Gland Caps. You should only take Adrenal Support Gland Caps as a single supplement if you are under the care of a practioner, but it is pretty safe to take a full-spectrum (all the glands) gland cap support such as Solaray's for 2-3 weeks.

Some practitioners prescribe Cortisol to replace what the adrenals aren't putting out. This is risky and should only be done after both saliva and blood tests, and in very small amounts to start with. The practitioner should have an end date in mind, this is not something to take indefinitely.

As always, liver cleansing and semi-fasting will speed up recovery times.

If you also have low stomach acid, then you are deficient in Nickel. Nickel is actually an essential trace mineral and its lack will lead to adrenal insuficiency. Supplementing with zinc and vitamin E will further reduce nickel, so if you need Skin Food, are getting lots of Skin Food and have low adrenals, eat foods rich in nickel to maintain the balance: legumes, peas, kichadi, hot whole grain cereals, oysters.

If you have been diagnosed with an abnormally large thyroid, or if your thyroid has cysts of some kind, then you have a problem with your posture that is impairing circulation.

The thyroid is a very blood-rich gland, it has to accept new blood and excrete the blood full of thyroid hormones. It is also connected to the lymphatic system, another circulatory system but one that is dependent on body movement as it has no heart.

If our collarbones are out of place because our shoulders are stooped, or if our necks don't have the proper curve to them so that it seems like we have no throat around the Adam's apple area (this area should protrude, a healthy neck curve means an aggressivelly forward neck), this means that the thyroid is unable to drain blood and lymph at the same rate that it accepts it and so it gets larger.

A visit to the chiropractor will help identify any subluxions in the neck area, and neck stretches are highly recommended. They're awkward but worth it - you have to prop up your neck so your head falls backwards. You should feel the pull in the ligaments that go from collarbone to chin.

It is very easy to massage the thyroid, neck muscles and lymph nodes in the neck. Just "pinch" the skin gently between thumb and bent forefinger (use the second knuckle of the index finger) as your hand goes up and then down the side of the neck. Start at the bottom of the neck almost at the front, pinch the fleshy area only, then as you move up, move diagonally, towards the ears, still keeping to the fleshier area.

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Adaptogens are a class of herbs that help the body manage adrenal hormones correctly. While licorice feeds the actual adrenal glands, these herbs act not on the gland but on the receptor sites for the hormones. If we were talking about baseball, the glands would be the pitcher, the hormones the baseball, and the catcher is the receptor site.

When we've been overstressed for too long, our receptor sites go away. It's part of the checks and balance system, a way to have two ons and two offs. Let the pitcher keep pitching, but take the catcher out of the equation - ball never lands.

So then our adrenals run out of balls to throw, we're not catching half the ones that are thrown, presto, adrenal exhaustion results.

This is why all chemical highs eventually build up tolerance and crash.

When the adrenals are in over-production mode and we're still catching, our symptoms are:

fatigue
sugar cravings
allergies
multiple chemical sensitivity
palpitations
aches and pains
arthritis
irritabilitiy
intolerance to cold
decreased concentration.

When the adrenals have been totally drained, we then get:

fatigue
weight gain around waist
insomnia
elevated triglycerides
anxiety
stress
reduced libido
hair loss
increased facial/body hair (women)
acne
memory lapses

Wonky adrenals severely impairs our ability to utilize minerals and certain B vitamins, making remineralization and skin food crucial.

To manage the body's receptivity to hormones, you can take a supplement of adaptogenic herbs. The most famous adaptogenic herb is ginseng. Here is a list:

Ginseng (Asian and Siberian)
Licorice
Rehmannia
Schizandra
Codonopsis
Atractylodes
Astragalus
Gotu Kola
Aswagandha
Reishi


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It is recommended that a standard blood test is performed, but to see whether it is worth the expense, here's an easy self-test you can do to see where your metabolism/thyroid is at:

Every morning for one week, before getting out of bed, take your temperature.

After you've been active but before you eat lunch, take your temperature again and write it down.

Average the first, bed-resting temperature.

Average the second, active temperatute.

If the first is 1.5 degrees below the second, you are very probably hypothyroid.

If it is just half to 1 degree lower, chances are you just need to alter your diet a bit, take more zinc and increase your general metabolism by drinking the Cleansing Drink and doing some liver management.

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Kidneys are quite susceptible to the wrong herbs, and not many studies have been done to see which herbs are renaltoxic. There's a list of mostly Chinese herbs that are known to be kidney killers. And most herbal cleanses you'll see include several diuretics. They push the kidneys to work harder. Only if your lab readings are completely normal would you even want to consider an herbal cleanse, and even then I don't recommend much beyond uva ursi for infection and parsley/dandelion as a very gentle diuretic.

Kidneys are extremely delicate and the best way to keep them healthy is to keep the liver and bowels clean and get plenty of fluids. If they're not doing their jobs, the kidneys get bombarded, and they don't have the regenerative powers of the liver, which can regenerate an inch a year.

The safest kidney cleanse is the simplest: fasting from everything, including vitamin pills; drinking citrus juices and about half your body weight in ounces of filtered water a day (unless you weigh more than 200 pounds). Unsweetened cranberry juice should be drunk if there is any chance of infection. Marshmallow and Slippery Elm can also help with irritation.

If you don't want to completely fast, then eat nothing but kichadi, vegetables, broths and citris drinks. A low-protein, no-dairy diet is one of the nicest things you can do for your kidneys. Eggs are okay, and since eggs are the very best protein, it makes sense to get your protein needs met with eggs so you can eat the least and get the most benefit, and the kichadi will help with that too.

Kidneys don't like beets or spinach or most legumes - mung beans are the exception- or peas, because they have to excrete the purines that come from digestive breakdown.

Kidneys also don't like NSAIDs, such as Advil, Aleve.

Most antibiotics are tough on the kidneys. Most pharmeceutical say "take with a large glass of water" and this is why.

If you have stones you would know. They are extremely painful. If you tend to create a lot of tartar on your teeth, then you have a phosphorous/calcium imbalance that could make you more prone to kidney stones and should not be drinking coffee or black tea.

It's a good idea to do a kidney cleanse after about every 2-4 liver flushes. For the most part, as long as you watch your urine output and make sure it is the closest to clear as you can get it, have no other symptoms, are getting adequate skin food, eat vegetarian occasionally, you're doing enough for your kidneys.

• Strong, solid urine flow/stream rather than a "spray"
• clear yellow urine
• relatively infrequent trips to the bathroom - at least a couple hours or so between visits
• no nocturnal urination unless it's just once, rarely, and usually after 5am
• steady energy overall, no flank or back pain, no sciatica type pain
• no anemia

• Frequent Urination with minimal output
• strong need to urinate even when output is minimal
• burning, stinging urination
• dark blackish; dark yellow; greenish; pinkish; foamy urine
• flank or low back or sciatica type pain
• light-headed or dizzy when standing up quickly
• cold or tingly feet/hands
• small patches of eczema
• anemia (when coupled with other kidney type symptoms)
• too low or too high blood pressure
• swelling below the waist
• painful/arthritic toes and ankles, usually just one big toe or one ankle
• shins painful to the touch
• very puffy lower eyelids

If you suspect you have a urinary tract infection, or bladder infection, do see a doctor for a urine analysis and complete physical. The reason is many times people have an auto-immune dysfunction rather than a true infection, and this goes undiagnosed until permanent damage happens. Be especially careful if you are 40 or older, as this is the age that these diseases tend to strike.

Most true urine infections are actually yeast infections and taking antibiotics does not help. So try this cleanse before resorting to antibiotics:

Some people are prone to forming kidney stones because of imbalanced diet, some because of how their bodies manage minerals. Either way, diet adjustments help. The easiest adjustment is to simply get adquate vitamin C. C will dissolve several types of kidney stones, including the most common calcium ones.

These foods tend to form kidney stones due to oxalates and phospholates:

To prevent kidney stones, be sure to get adequate amounts of B6 and Magnesium and to have the proper balance of Calcium and Phosphorous in your diet, about a 4 to 1 ratio of calcium to phosphorous.

The easiest way to get rid of kidney stones is to dissolve them. This drink will dissolve most stones and prevent infection:

Burdock root is a blood purifier and one of the safest, gentlest kidney cleansers there are. You can eat it like carrots or drink a burdock root tea. When drunk as a tea all by itself it has next to no symptoms, no healing crisis symptoms. If you combine it with dandelion and parsley it's even stronger, but you may have healing crisis symptoms at that point.

This is how you make just about any vegetable soup. It will work great for broccoli soup, butternut squash if you can find the already prepared bags of cut up squash - have the grocer cut it up for you, they're really tough! - carrot soup, cabbage, or a mixture of veggies.

Chop one medium onion and add to your soup pot with 2 tablespoons of olive or coconut oil. Cook on medium-low heat until the onions are sweated. Add garlic at the last minute if you want, I find that garlic is not needed for broccoli soup or the sweeter vegetables, but is great with the greener veggies like zucchini and kale.

Add a carton of chicken broth. You can use vegetable broth too, but I find that chicken or turkey broth makes a much more savory and satisfying soup.

Chop one and a half pounds of broccoli (to serve 4-5 or have leftovers to freeze for a later day). You can take the harder, courser fiber off the stems, but do include some of the stems and not just the florets. Slice edge of the top of the florets so you get a kind of green snow. Chop the rest inth thin slices.

Salt and pepper to taste. Often those are the only spices you need. You can of course get more creative. Butternut squash is especially wonderful with cardamom, ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and a bit of honey.

When the veggies are tender, either eat as-is or put the veggies into a blender. I like to have something for my teeth to do so I don't bother with the blending part.

Garnish the soup with any of your favorite garnishes. You can easily turn this into broccoli-cheese soup, for instance. I prefer cheddar and creme fraiche, but others in my family prefer the grated 4 cheese mix from Trader Joe's and sour cream.

Other fun garnishes include nuts, croutons, cranberry sauce, cream infused with rosemary or cardamom ...

Here's how to prepare vegetables so they are both tasty, fun to eat and nutrients are retained for your benefit. These instructions work well with carrots, broccoli, beans, peas, zucchini, things like that.

Chop the veggies into bite-sized pieces.
Place them in a medium saucepan with a tight lid.
Add about one to two tablespoons of water and one tablespoon of olive oil or coconut oil.
Cook on medium-high for about 4 minutes. Be sure to leave the lid on so the water steams and cooks the veggies by steaming them.
Check for fork-tender - the fork should go in easily but there still should be some resistance so you get a bit of crunch.
Drain any remaining fluids - there shouldn't be actually but some veggies are more water-logged than others.
Dress however you like - garlic, basil, rosemary, butter, salt and pepper.

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Buy calves liver from a good butcher who only buys pasture-grazed, free-ranging beef with no hormones added.

You may want to freeze the liver for 14 days to ensure that any parasites are killed.

Slice up the liver into thinnish strips, cut out big bile ducts entirely for a better texture.

Soak in lemon juice - need about 3 lemons for 1 liver - for 3 hours. This takes out any toxins from the liver, since the liver IS the body's filter and toxins end up in it, and it aids the texture tremendously. Drain and Rinse thoroughly then use paper towels or tea towel; to get the rest of the moisture off. (Note: Be sure to strain the lemon juice, it's tough to get pulp and seeds off the liver, and then you end up with lemon-flavored liver, which is not ideal! LOL!)

Dredge the liver in flour, preferably seasoned with Emeril's Essence or something similar (paprika, pepper etc.) I use tongs for this.

Heat a nice frying pan on med-high heat. You want the bottom of the pan fully lined with your oil, which can be coconut or a combination of olive and Ghee/butter. Yum!

Fry the liver quickly - let it lie on one side, then flip it to the next - should only be fried like 2 minutes, if that. you should hear it sizzle but not pop like crazy.

Set aside and drain most of the fat from the pan, if there is any left at this point. Now we get to make pan gravy - not mandatory by any means, but man is it tasty!

Add about 1/2 cup of good beef broth to the pan and reduce by half. Add about a tablespoon of a good balsamic vinegar and a couple dashes of Worsteshire sauce. Thicken with the thickener of your choice - I use cornstarch out of habit, but apparently that's not the healthiest way to go ooops. Salt and pepper to taste.

Put the liver back into the pan just to warm and serve with basmati and wild rice pilaf cooked with chicken broth and cumin seeds, marjoram, thyme sauteed in olive oil, and preferably a green salad.

Now, it sounds complicated, but once you do it, you'll find that it's actually quite easy. Basically, you simmer the rice/beans while you saute the spices to bring out their flavor, then add them to the bean pot with any veggies you like. :)

• 1 large organic beet washed and finely grated
• lemon juice of 1/2 lemon
• 2 Tbs flax oil

• 1 cup carrot pulp leftover from juicing, or freshly grated carrots
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  
  Optional: raisins or ginger or and anything else for flavor.
  
  

A great soup for anyone who's tired of the same old chicken soup or tortilla soup. The chicken is optional, this can easily be a vegetarian soup.

A great meal when you need something with substance that isn't too heavy or congesting. Complex carbs give you steady energy, and the addition of legumes gives you perfect protein, every essential amino acid. Adding wild rice increases nutritional value tremendously.

It is best to to do a partial fast when taking anti-parasite herbs to kill parasites. You can still eat and drink, but very sparingly, accenting foods that are clean and safe. Follow the candida diet, for the most part, accenting the following:

1. Eat NO sugar, reduce all sweeteners.

2. Eat lots of cultured foods, Kefir, Saurkraut, to replace the friendlies, which help to kill the baddies. Take Primal Defense too if you can afford it.

3. Eat/drink fresh, raw Pineapple, or take a Bromelain supplement. Bromelain digests protein and really irritates tapeworms.

4. Eat a handful of pumpkin seeds several times a day. parasites hate pumpkin seeds. Make them spicy with cayenne pepper and they'll really hate it.

5. Eat raw garlic anyway you can. The Basic Cleansing Salad is a great way to eat garlic and kill parasites. Or you can just swallow the cloves whole. Some people chew raw brown rice and garlic and swallow.

6. Eat cloves or take pills of clove oil. Clove oil is highly concentrated pungent therapy, it can burn you, so be careful.

7. Increase stomach acids with Apple Cider Vinegar or HCL Betaine supplements prior to your meals. This will keep the stomach free of parasites and H.pylori. It will also ensure that you will kill off any larvae you inadvertantly eat with your meals.

8. Practice Pungent Therapy. Pungent spices like turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, chilis, horseradish, are all irritating or even deadly to parasites.

9. Drink fennel tea. Fennel is a mild laxative and has an effect on some parasites of making them release their hold.

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Parasites are creatures large and small that live off a host. The small are microbes such as bacteria and protozoa, the large are flukes and worms such as pinworms, flatworms, tapeworms, heartworms. Parasites are designed to live off our own nutrients without betraying their presence.

Pinworms are easier to detect than other worms as they will make their way outside of the anus to lay their eggs. Noctorunal anal itching may be pinworms. Children commonly get them. Since the eggs survive outside the body, you must thoroughly cleanse all bedding, towels and clothes, and vacuum thoroughly.

People who have had years of impaired immunity, chronic complaints or cancer should just go ahead and do a parasite cleanse. Even if parasites are not the cause of these complaints, the original issue may have weakened your body to such an extent that parasites see you as a viable host.

A study of all kinds of parasites reveals that pests tend to go where they are welcome. A completely healthy animal or plant will simply not attract pests. In fact, fertilizing a plant is much more effective than pesticides in keeping insects balanced in a garden.

The profile of people who may be infected goes something like this:

• eat raw meats and fish
• frequently around children, dirt or pets, rural areas
• in contact with damp areas, stagnant water, fleas, ticks, mosquitos
• habitually take antacids
• Has chronic complaints ranging from: insomnia; bruxism (teeth grinding); TMJ; mucous in the stools; ulcerative colitis; ulcers; nausea; dizzyness; general feeling of listlessness; various digestive complaints; diarrhea; body odor; bad breath; frozen shoulder; roseacea; acne; depression.
  
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  • Testing for Parasites
    

    The first test is the profile above - if you fit more than 3 of the parameters, you should continue on to the candida test and parasite expulsion protocol.

    The candida test is in the candida notes. If you have candida, you may want to focus on just candida, especially if you contracted it due to taking antibiotics. Chances are you don't have parasites, you just have systemic candidiasis, and the protocols are vastly different. Best to just focus on candida at first and maybe do the expulsion test after you've been on the anti-candida diet for awhile, or if the candida diet is negative.

    You can have your stool tested for parasites, but since they are so good at hiding, a negative result is not conclusive, so it might not be worth your money. If you do decide to send a stool sample, don't gather the sample until you've been doing the parasite expulsion protocol for at least 6 days.

    Great Smoky Mountain labs (800-522-4762) does parasite testing, including yeast.

    You can start a parasite cleanse for 14 days and if you don't see a baddy, stop, or you can do the expulsion protocol to ensure that a parasite cleanse is necessary.

    
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  • Parasite Expulsion Protocol
    

    This protocol is designed to irritate the parasites with anti-pyretic compounds, flush them out with fiber, and catch them long enough to verify they are there. You can either then continue with the protocol for up to two weeks, then do the two weeks off, two weeks on, or switch to a parasite cleanse. You can also do this protocol after a parasite cleanse to verify that it was successful.

    For a minimum of 7 days:

    Eat only 1-2 meals a day (consider nearly fasting), one meal being a fruit/vegetable meal, the other a substantial stew like Kichadi. No meat except for broth, raw or poached eggs. No junk.

    Keep up your fluids, especially with cleansing drinks, broth, veggie juices, spicy teas.

    Every day take at least one fiber drink, of any fiber that suits you, including commercial intestinal cleansers.

    Add to the drink:
    one tablespoon ACV
    cayenne pepper
    

    Make at least 21 pills of tumeric. Just buy the spice (preferably a spice that has not been irradiated) and a bag of gelatin capsules sized 00 (large) and fill the capsules. Take 2 at a time minimum, a minimum of 2x a day. You can take more if you wish.

    Also take at least the minimum dosage of Kyolic, OR take 10-20 fresh garlic cloves, smash them with the flat edge of a blade, peel, and *let sit for 10 minutes*. This allows enzymes to flourish that the baddies hate. Swallow them raw. You can blend them up and add them to a fiber shake.

    Eat at least 1/2 cup of raw pumkin seeds. You can soak them overnight and eat them with spicy tea to aid digestion, plus digestive enzymes.

    Use digestive enzymes with every meal.

    Do thorough bowel management - at least one BM a day, if not more, and inspect every stool. If it's compact, break it up. Consider using a colandor placed over the toilet bowl but under the seat, or a child's training potty.

    If you don't see a baddie, alive or dead, in 7 days, stop.

    If you are allergic to any of these foods you may substitute with other anti-pyretic foods and herbs.

    
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  • Parasite Cleansing
    

    Do this after and during good bowel management.

    The parasite cleanse should be done in cycles: about 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, 2 weeks on again. This is to make sure that every cycle is attacked, from egg to larvae to adult. You really only need three herbs for this cleanse, altho continued bowel management is good: black walnut; wormwood; cloves. Unfortunately, the FDA has made it difficult to get strong black walnut or wormwood, as they can be very potent and they don't like anything that works. Things that work tend to make you feel sicker before you feel better, and that upsets people. Also, in the wrong doses, wormwood can be harmful to the nervous system.

    If you can't find a good source of these herbs, go for a commercial cleanser. The most popular and effective parasite cleanse from the ones I’ve studied is Parastroy and Colonix from www.drnatura.com.

    After a complete rotation, do the parasite expulsion protocol to ensure you were successful.

    If you don’t wish to take herbs, then find food-grade diatomaceous earth and eat a teaspoon 3x a day. This will cut up the parasites. It has been used for centuries on humans, pets, livestock and horses.

    If you or your children have pinworms, the pharmeceutical solutions tend to be best. You can also buy over-the-coutner solutions like PinX.

    
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  Rebuilding/Tonifying
  • Rebuilding Foods
    

    When you're rebuilding, tonifying, trying to make up for years of bad diet, here are some foods to eat. They are especially good for recovering from debilitation and will go a long way to keeping you youthful and active well into your golden years. They are essential for mothers, both before during and after pregnancy, and for growing children.

    This list is in addition to the usual recommendations of cod liver oil, Emergen-C, Protein Shake with extra eggs, Bieler Broth, Potassium Broth, Juicing, coconut oil, coconut milk, raw milk, goat milk, creme fraiche, fermented foods, lecithin, wild game, etc.

    These foods are also what I call 'beyond dosha.' They are good to accent or at least include regularly no matter what your dosha is because no matter what your body type they have nutrients that you need.

    BEEF:
    Have once every 7-10 days.
    
    

    Liver - calves liver from pasture-fed beef. Marinate in lemon juice for several hours, dredge in flour and pan fry on medium heat in a combo of oil/butter. You won't believe how good it tastes. Make a pan gravy with beef broth and balsamic vinegar. Recipe will be in the FAQ soon. You can also enjoy chicken liver so long as it's organic chicken like Rocky, and pate.

    Pot Roast or Beef Stew or Gravy - made the old-fashioned way with the bone left in. The bones release gelatin which is essential for absorption and building the harder soft tissues.

    Menudo - a Mexican soup made with beef tripe.

    SEAFOOD:
    
    Have one serving every 10 days at least.
    
    Caviar - doesn't have to be beluga, it can be paddle fish, salmon roe, or osetra. Great source of iodine, feeds the thyroid.
    Oysters - same as above.
    

    Wild River Salmon - one of the best foods you can eat. Since it comes in and out of season, eat it as frequently as you can afford when it's in season.

    Kombu - a seaweed that makes a wonderful broth, this broth is used to make Miso soup. Other seaweed and sea veggies are good too.

    SUPERFOODS
    Have as often as feels right.
    
    Noni Juice
    Goji Juice
    If you have a food dehydrator, mix equal parts chopped sunflower seeds and raisins and shape into cookies. Dehydrate until crunchy.
    Chlorella, Spirulina & Blue-Green Algea. Klamath Lake Blue-Green Algea is best. Or get a super-food supplement like Perfect Food, E3Live.
    Oat Straw Tea
    Umeboshi Plums
    Liquid Chlorophyll - better for you than fresh raw wheatgrass juice.
    
    Herbal/Fruit Concoctions:
    Chyawanprash
    Amrit
    Triphala
    
    
    VEGETABLES
    Eat as often as you feel appropriate, at least 2x a week is good.
    Artichokes
    Asparagus
    Beets
    Borscht (beet soup)
    Dark Leafy Greens: spinach, kale, beet tops, cilantro, parsley, spring greens, basil, collard greens.
    Daikon
    Sweet Potato
    
    FRUIT
    Avocado
    Pineapple
    Grapefruit
    dried apricots
    Blueberries
    Sweet and sour cherries
    
    HERBS
    Gotu Kola
    Licorice (estrogenic, stop if symptoms)
    Ashwaganda
    Astralagus
    
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  • Super Foods & Skin Food
    

    I recommend getting your vitamins, minerals, EFAs and other plant chemicals from the real source - whole foods. But this is not always good enough, or convenient enough, so here are some super-foods and concentrated foods to add to your diet assuming kinesiology says they are appropriate. At the very least you should avoid the "one a day" type vitamin pills. They just strain your liver and kidneys.

    Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil
    A truly amazing oil. Burns clean, cleanses lymphs, increases immunity, reduces inflammation.
    
    cod liver oil
    for Vits A, D, EFAs.
    
    Nutritional yeast
    B vitamins. Safe for candida people.
    
    Raw eggs
    the very best multi-vitamin, multi-mineral. Everything but Vit C.
    
    Wheat Germ Oil
    Great source of E, B vits.
    
    Fish Oils
    Omega 3 and 5 fatty acids.
    
    Chyawanprash
    Indian fruits cooked into a jam tonic full of C and anti-oxidants.
    
    Oatstraw Tea
    Great source of minerals.
    Sea Salt
    Trace minerals.
    Caviar, kelp, seaweed
    Great source of iodine.
    
    Liver
    B12, iron.
    
    Safe vitamin supplements:
    Emergen-C (or Ester-C or Effer-C)
    Highly-absorbable C and Electrolytes. Raises the electrical potential of the body. Like putting in a new car battery with extra amps.
    
    CalMagFizz
    Highly-absorbable calcium supplememnt with all the necessary vits and mins to aid calcium absorption and utilization.
    
    Skin Food
    A, E, C, B's, EFAs, zinc. So cod liver oil, wheat germ oil, avocado, almonds, nutritional yeast, Emergen-C, coconut oil, my Protein Shake.
    
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  • Increasing Fertility
    

    Be sure to read the posts in the Rebuilding/Bodybuilding forum and FAQ on what tonifying foods to accent. A lot of these, like the protein shake, you can eat while cleansing, but most should wait until you've done a month's worth of bowel management and two weeks' worth of liver management and your tongue is clean, no coat.

    Then to increase fertility for you and your wife, you can take herbs as powder pills (Two capsules a day) or tincture (one dropperful a day) or teas (one to two cups a day).

    Both of you might want to take:
    Astralagus - increases sperm motility, helps the ovaries too. Should be able to take for a month. Shouldn't need more than that.
    Gotu Kola - overall rejuvenator for the brain, nervous system and reproductive system. One month.
    Ashwaganda - overall rejuvenator
    

    Your wife might want to take: false unicorn, Vitex - Julia's website has "Fem-Mate" which is great. Has Vitex.

    Both of you should take a complete B complex, get plenty of EFA's and the rest of the Skin Food.

    Cod liver oil is essential, daily, as is kelp, and occasional caviar.

    Colloidal minerals and/or full-spectrum mineral supplement would be good for both of you. Daily, long-term. Should have Selenium. Find a good liquid zinc and take max doses daily.

    Calcium, magnesium, zinc plus Inositol helps create healthy sperm. Calcium should be taken 500 mg at a time, 2x a day. The rest can vary.

    L-arginine increases sperm count. Can take indefinently.

    Gland caps - raw ovarian glandular for your wife, raw orchic glandular for you, take just for 2 weeks. Very powerful. You can go ahead and take a full-spectrum glandular support if that's all you can find. Solaray has a good one.

    Drink fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, as much as you are comfortable with for several days out of every two weeks. Dilute it with soda water and add the juice of one inch of ginger root for a tasty drink full of folic acid and bromelain. Juice or eat grapefruit on some of the other days.

    Have carrot juice with a handful of cilantro or parsley, spinach or kale, as often as possible. You can add other things as you like to this juice, just be sure to have a handful or two of 1-2 greens at least. Add cream to the carrot juice or follow it with an olive oil chaser - just a spoonful. You need fats to induce bile so the beta-carotene converts to vit A and minerals are absorbed.

    Get a B12 shot once a month or as directed by your physician. DO try to get a physician who's either an osteopath or naturopath and has a good background in nutrition to help you thru this. It would be great if they know how to do applied kinesiology. You need a smart, supportive team of advisors who look at the whole person to support you in reaching your goal. That way, if you decide to re-try any of the fertilization techniques six months from now you'll know for sure that you've done everything you can to ensure a healthy child and that kind of confidence really does work wonders.

    Reduce or avoid gluten grains. They irritate tissues, especially mucus membranes, and so makes it more difficult for the eggs to develop and sperm to get where they need to go.

    See if you can find raw, organic, unhomogonized goat milk and enjoy that occasionally.

    Men with low sperm count or reduced motility should get plenty of B vitamins, Lecithin/Choline and Essential Fatty Acids. They should also wear loose clothing, boxer shorts rather than briefs. It is important for the scrotum to be cool and get good circulation.

    
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  Ailments
  • Acne
    

    People who produce a lot of oil and get skin rashes/acne are usually Pitta Dosha or at the very least have a Pitta imbalance. If you get hot easily and perspire freely and have a healthy appetite then you are a Pitta dosha and really must read up on how to balance Pitta.

    Acne may be due to a hormonal balance, lack of B vits, liver and bowel congestion, lymph congestion, kidney congestion. It may be due to a lack of friendly microbes; too much sweating creating yeast; too many partially-digested foods (Ama) clogging everything up; too much protein and fats; too few enzymes, too little stomach acid.

    To cure acne forever, you must learn tongue diagnosis and how to respond; the power of digestion; basics of cleansing and detoxing, and certain recipes. You should have at least one BM a day, and take care to get out all of your previous meals.

    For the quickest road to recovery, get a series of colonics done and/or buy an enema bucket setup. Do at least 4 liver flushes, followed by a bit of kidney management. See my bowel management notes for more details.

    Diet is ESSENTIAL. You can't cheat, not for awhile at least. Your diet should be mostly pitta-friendly grains, vegetables, legumes and nuts for protein, some fish or poultry. NO dairy except eggs and fermented dairy, and the eggs should be raw organic. See my protein shake drink. Use rice milk instead of cow milk until you can find organic, hormone-free milk. Look for an organic goat milk source too, you may do better on goat.

    You may need lots of lecithin. Consider taking Guggal, an excellent herb for taking fats out of the body.

    Dandelion and goldenseal are blood and lymph purifiers. You can take tinctures or tea, whichever is easiest.

    You need to follow a good lymph cleansing regimen. The lymphs are essential for managing fats well. Do at least one detox bath a week, but keep the temp medium and use 60 mg niacin. If you can't get a trampoline then jump rope and lie inverted or stand on your head or do hand stands.

    NEVER eat deep-fried food. Use only a minimum of oils in your cooking, and try to add them afterwards so they don't cook at all. Use good EFA oils such as flax, coconut, etc.

    Avoid all sugars, even artificial sweeteners. Only have 1-2 servings of fruit a day, and try to make those apples, pears, berries.

    Eat a cleansing salad every single day. See my notes for recipes.

    Drink my Cleansing Drink every day (recipe in Essential Recipes), first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.

    Consider eating nothing but Kichadi for lunch or dinner for a week, the cleansing salad or hot cereal or protein shakes for the other two meals.

    Drink aloe vera juice, 1/2 cup 2x a day for about 3 days every 2 weeks.

    Drink raw cucumber juice or eat lots of cukes as snacks.

    Always make your own salad dressings, commercial salad dressing will murder your skin. Just mix flax or olive oil with apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, orange juice, and a mixture of dried herbs and let it sit so the herbs infuse.

    Use liquid bentonite clay as a mask on your face for 15 minutes. You can also use a paste of ginger powder and water. For whiteheads, mix powdered ginger and turmeric, 50/50, into a paste and apply to a clean face. Then apply warm moist washcloth or breathe into a bowl of steam with your head covered.

    Out of all the expensive facial cleansers I've tried, these two very cheap and readily available masques are the best when used regularly: Freeman's Avocado and Oatmeal clay masque, and Queen Helene's Mint Julep. Just about 4 bucks each!

    For beautiful skin you need plenty of Skin Food. Wheat germ oil, cod liver oil, nutritional yeast flakes, eggs, liver, oysters, nuts, are highly recommended.

    
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  • Brain Fog
    

    Brain fog is the symptom that got me researching into what was wrong with me back when I had candida. I had long been used to being a bit absent minded, but brain fog is a nightmare of not being able to think coherently. It feels as if your mind is encased in cotton and nothing’s getting through. Another symptom of a brain that isn’t working right is aphasia, the inability to recall words or attention deficit disorder.

    Brain fog can attack for many different reasons, so it’s important to diagnose it properly and know which stage of healing you are in. If you’re still in the cleansing/detoxing stage, then the brain fog is most likely part of the healing crisis and means you should step up your colonics and enemas. If you’ve thoroughly cleansed and are still experiencing brain fog, then you need to work on addressing deficiencies, avoiding allergans and becoming more alkaline.

    The main culprit in brain fog is a toxic bowel. Thorough bowel cleansing should be done, preferably while maintaining a strict diet or fast. Leaky gut, Crohn’s, or lack of microbes, contribute greatly to brain fog because the inflammation and permeability of the gut increases the level of toxins in the bloodstream.

    Candida leads to brain fog because having systemic candidiasis means you’re constantly drinking alcohol, as yeasts convert sugars into alcohol. This also congests the liver, another major co-factor in brain fog. If the liver, the filter for blood, is congested, it cannot take toxins out of the bloodstream fast enough. These toxins will pass the blood-brain barrier of the brain and deplete the brain of oxygen and glycogen. So taking the candida quiz and cleansing the liver are essential if you suffer from brain fog.

    The brain requires a steady stream of glucose and oxygen. Anything that interrupts this, such as poor diet, parasites, lack of essential fatty acids, minerals, poor circulation, hypoglycemia, diabetes, hypothyroidism, asthma or adrenal exhaustion, can cause brain fog.

    Another culprit that's gaining popularity is the high-protein, low-carb diet. If the body becomes overtaken by nitrogen (proteins have nitrogen, carbs do not) you'll actually become mineral and oxygen-deprived. In this case of brain fog, breathe into a paperbag for about 5 minutes or less to flood the body with carbon dioxide. That will help replace oxygen and strip out excess nitrogen. Then drink cleansing drinks and perhaps a bit of baking soda.

    So basically, to cure brain fog, you must follow the basic rules for curing ailments, including detoxing – cleanse the bowels, do at least 2 liver flushes, do lymph management – and modifying your diet and lifestyle.

    Things you need to pay special attention to include:

    Mercury or other metals/organic compound poisoning. A hair analysis may be in order. Avoid tap water, arsenic and chlorine are implicated in brain fog. Don’t drink distilled, however, it’s too acidic. Just filtered is fine. Consider replacing your older fillings if you can find a dentist who knows how to do this properly. If you can’t afford to deal with your dental work now, then just keep up with the liver and lymph management, as a clean liver will break down toxins and sweating will excrete metals.

    Environmental factors. Many synthetic products such as plastics and foam give off toxic off-gases. Cheap furniture, fake futons, mold under the sink, new cars, pesticides and herbicides, all can contribute to brain fog. Be sure to cook with good, non-aluminum pans and use glassware rather than plastic or acrylic.

    Lifestyle. Lower your stress quotient, get rid of toxic people, abstain from worry or taking offense easily. Cut out the drama, you don’t have the energy for it!

    Diet. Make sure your meals have a bit of protein, complex carbohydrates, and oil, so that everything can be metabolized properly. Avoid refined sugar, allergens and mucous-forming foods. Avoid foods that are constipating, difficult to digest, tough on the liver.

    more tips to be published in pamphlet or Vital Health book
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  • Cankor Sores
    
    Cankor sores are usually due to:
    
    deficiency in the friendly microbes
    excess acids, including fruit acids like lemon juice, tropical fruit
    candy and other lozenges that you suck on for long periods upsetting the balance of the mucus membranes
    lack of Zinc and other skin food like the B's, E.
    reaction to the sudsing compounds in toothpaste, especially gel toothpastes.
    
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  • Colds/Flu
    

    Best thing anyone can do when their area is being hit by a virus is:

    • take Flower Essences if you have them or know someone who does.
    • Do the Microbial Balancing Program from Perelandra
    • Take 1,000 mg of Calcium, morning/evening, apart from meals.
    • drink ginger tea with a bit of honey to help release mucous faster (don't EVER take over-the-counter cold/flu stuff, especially decongestents, as that slows down the healing process. That stuff has to come OUT of you).
    • If your fever is less than 101.5 degrees, don't try to lower it, that will prolong the illness. Instead, help the body's attempts to kill the virus by sweating. IF it is higher, take a lukewarm bath and apply cold compresses to the forehead and back of neck while drinking ginger tea to heat up the stomach. Some fevers are due to the body trying to “kickstart” digestive fire.
    • Drink and gargle with ACV mixed with warm water, honey and cinnamon. It will totally cut down on mucus and cure strep throat.
    • drink or take Echinacea for 3 days only, and only at the outset. May drink/take nettle and dandelion tea for longer periods of time.
    • Drink other spicy teas like Yogi India Spice to keep the stomach fire burning hot, as a lot of mucous gets swallowed and needs to be burned up thoroughly.
    • Do a detox bath and take EmergenC before and after, take at least one EmergenC daily
    • Keep *sipping* the Cleansing Drink constantly
    • Fast except for broths, Protein Shake, Kichadi, veggie stews, or eat an Immune Support Diet (no junk, no flour, no sugar).
    • Avoid raw veggies and raw fruit except for citrus and green apples.
    • Avoid oranges, they actually increase mucous. Get your Vit C from EmergenC, Ester C, grapefruit and bell peppers instead.
    • Take digestive enzymes with every meal.
    • Take probiotics: Kefir if you're not very mucousy, PRimal Defense, live acidophilus supplements. When the bout is over and done, start drinking kefir.
    • Pracitice good lymph management (see Lymph Cleansing post in FAQ). Sweating is a very important part of getting better fast.
    • Do enemas/colonics/colemas DAILY while the virus is going around or while ill, unless you’re suffering from diarrhea.
    • take Aloe Vera juice to help mucus membranes to heal faster
    • Take 3 tablespoons of extra-virgin cold-pressed Coconut Oil daily for the Lauric Acid, which is in mother's milk and key for aiding the immune system. Take other oils like castor or wheat germ oil for the vitamins, EFAs and anti-oxidants.
    • Take raw, crushed garlic. Simply peel at least 3 cloves, smash them with the flat of your knife, and let them sit for 5-10 minutes so the enzymes are activated. Swallow. Do this 1-3 times daily until symptoms are gone.
    • Take a super-green drink of blue-green algea, spirulina, chlorella
    • if you have a sore throat, gargle with apple cider vinegar, or salted water, or colloidial silver, and then give yourself an Epsom salt foot bath. Whenever you have throat/fever issues, heating the feet helps shift the heat/energy away and down. Always keep the feet very very warm when ill.
    
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  • Diarrhea
    

    Many illnesses, diseases and food intolerance reactions involve diarrhea. Diarrhea due to cholera and dysentary used to take millions of lives each year until people were educated to start drinking the Rehydrating Drink (filtered water, dash of salt, lime juice, bit of sugar/natural sweetener with glucose). Diarrhea is much more serious than constipation. People can live with chronic constipation for years but chronic diarrhea will kill you in a week or two.

    Diarrhea is the body's way of cleaning house. It often means your microbes have been fighting on your behalf something that just doesn't agree with your body, for whatever reason. It's not smart to take something to stop the diarrhea, like immodium, because the body is trying to get rid of a poison. It doesn't make sense to keep a poison in the body, after all.

    Children are very prone to diarrhea because their digestive systems aren't very strong or very well populated with friendly flora. This is why children should mainly only eat cooked foods, especially cooked fruit - a raw plum will have them squirting in no time! - and pasteurized fruit juices, at least until about five years old.

    The best response to diarrhea is to step up fluids, preferably the Rehydrating Drink, broths and herbal teas sweetened with honey. The best foods are cooked, bland, very simple. The usual choices are the BRAT foods: banana, rice or just the water from soaking and cooking rice, applesauce, tea or toast.

    Rice water has been used for centuries. A tastier version of that is Rice Congee, a slow-cooked rice soup made with water or a good broth.

    It's very important to replace elecrolytes, which get flushed out and are the main cause for the weakness and debilitation. The Rehydrating drink will do that, as would a combination of EmergenC and CalMagFizz.

    If you can handle the taste, you can make up an oral rehydration solution:
    
    One quart of water
    2 tablespoon of table sugar
    1 tablespoon of grade B maple syrup
    1/2 teaspoon of salt
    1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
    1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salts or take a magnesium supplement
    1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
    Mix, chill, sip slowly throughout the day
    
    
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  • Estrogen Dominance
    

    Estrogen dominance is caused by a myriad of factors, so to manage it you must take a holistic, systemic approach.

    First factor is the liver. The liver is responsible for breaking down estrogen and progesterone and taking it out of the bloodstream. This is low on the list of things for it to do, tho, so when it gets clogges, this gets neglected. Signs of this neglect can manifest in various ways, including increased PMS symptoms and even varicose veins, spider veins, hemrrhoids. So comprehensive liver cleansing is in order.

    Estrogen dominance is also a "sugar disease," one of the side-effects of a diet that's too high in sugar for you to handle. It means you've exceeded your personal sugar threshold. So a non-sugar diet like the candida diet is highly recommended for about 1-3 months so you can recover fully and get your insulin and everything back into shape.

    Liver congestion and sugar overdose means extra storage of fats, and those fats can contain the estrogen the liver isn't cleansing, as the body will use fats as the dumping ground for excess estrogen. That is evidenced by disproportionate weight gain around the hips and thighs.

    Nutritional deficiencies/toxicity that contribute are:

    Mangenese. Mangenese helps the liver break down estrogen. Without it, it can't do its job.
    Iron.
    Bioflavanoids - plant chemicals which help the body utilize vitamin C. A lack of bioflavanoids and Vitamin C means estrogen dominance.
    Zinc/potassium imbalance
    copper toxicity
    

    Some people think it is advisable to avoid foods that are high in phytoestrogens, but no one can agree - some people say that these plant estrogens are friendlier than our own estrogen. Still, during a cleanse or while trying to regulate estrogen until your liver is clean, I recommend avoiding these foods:

    Soy (avoid all forms of soy, even the fermented kind which at other times is okay.)
    Millet
    Barley
    Flax seed.
    Kidney beans.
    Lima beans.
    Rye.
    Clover.
    Raspberry tea
    Evening primrose oil
    licorice
    garbanzo beans
    

    Many forms of pesticides mimic estrogen in the body, and it is stored in fat tissues, nervous cell tissues, and even the brain, so it's hard to detox. The detox bath and liver/bowel/lymph cleansing helps with this. If you live in an apartment complex or work in a restaurant that sprays for roaches you really should detox bath regularly.

    It is also important to increase circulation so the estrogen doesn't deposit somewhere, or get stuck to the veins and cause varicose veins - exercise, massage, the Cleansing Drink, will help with this, as will blood thinners like fish oil and blood purifiers like burdock root.

    
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  • Gilbert's Syndrome
    

    Gilbert's syndrome means you're not releasing toxins via bile fast enough. There are several reasons why this would be so, but since there's no pharmeceutical solution manufactured, they consider it an incurable syndrome rather than a simple, temporary blockage.

    Bile is released by the liver into the bile ducts and into the gallbladder for storage until needed. If the bile ducts are clogged with dreck and stones, or perhaps more narrow than average thanks to genetics so that clogging is more likely to happen, you jsut have to clean them more regularly, like a fuel injection system on a race car. To solve this, take stone softening agents, herbs that promote bile production, things that clean the bile of old fats (the same bile is used for every meal about 6 times, so like car oil it gets cruddy), and oil to promote bile flow. Flushing may not be the best thing to do, most all the other forms of liver and bowel management are highly recommended. For instance:
    
    

    • Get an enema bag or bucket or colema setup so you can -keep the colon clean -relax bile ducts to release toxins and get them OUT of you before they enter the bloodstream.
    • Take therapeutic doses of granulated lecithin
    • drink dandelion tea and eat artichokes
      
      
    
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  • Headaches
    

    There are many causes for headaches, and the type of headache that you have will explain why you have it.

    If your headache is centered at the base of the skull and the muscles there are sore to the touch, then that pain is due to a combination of toxins and tension. Not a lot of toxins, probably just a healing crisis if you're taking detox herbs and such. Best thing to do is to drink a Cleansing Drink and take a Detox Bath. Emergen-C is also helpful.

    If your headache is more severe and involves the temples, forehead, throbbing/pusling, and forehead feels hot, that is from toxins such as pesticides, nitrates, nitrites, MSG. Best thing to do is to swallow a tablespoon of olive oil or nut oil, chase it with the Cleansing Drink and apply a paste of ground ginger to the forehead to draw out toxins. A coffee enema would also be great.

    If your headache is right or left side dominant, then you have a magnesium deficiency or imbalance. Take either a Calcium/Magnesium supplement right away, or drink a flat teaspoon of Epsom salts in a large glass of water.

    If you press one and above your eyebrows and they are painful, they you have a sinus headache. You need to irrigate your sinuses and then perhaps, if the weather is very dry and windy, massage them with a pure oil.

    If you have nausea, then it's a toxic headache and skewed elctrolytes. Emergen-C, Epsom salts, coffee enema are best responses.

    If in doubt, take some oil, drink the Cleansing Drink and wait half an hour or so before taking an over-the-counter pain relief medication.

    Tyelonel is hard on the liver, but it is the safest for the kidneys. All NSAIDs like Aleve and Ibuprofen are very hard on the kidneys. Given that the liver can regenerate quite quickly and the kidneys cannot, it is probably better to abuse the liver in this case.

    
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  • Heart Disease
    

    The best cure for heart disease, particularly in men, is a combination of:

    Blood Purifiers like burdock root (see FAQ for list)
    Liver and bowel management - especially if this has never been done and the patient is 40 or over
    
    Anti-oxidants - there are many sources of these, from Vitamin C type supplements like Emergen-C to fruit/veggie based supplements like Garden of Life's anti-oxidant formula that is very powerful to freshly squeezed veggie and fruit juices like Noni, etc.
    
    a pure, mostly sugar-free diet of whole foods, much like the candida diet or mediterranean diet, for at least 6-9 months. NO sodas, coffee at a minimum, no phony foods like non-dairy creamer and margarine. Lots of garlic, onion, berries - vein food, and skin food (see FAQ for list).
    
    Therapeutic doses of good oils and Omega 3's and Lecithin. Cod liver oil is highly recommended. See Protein Shake recipe. Men need LOTS of linoleic and linolenic acids!!! Pungent therapy (see FAQ) and following the guidelines for increasing digestive power (in FAQ) so that the tongue is always free of any coating. IF the tongue is constantly coated, the veins will become coated too.
    
    Gentle, steady and regular cardiovascular exercise other circulation aids like the Cleansing Drink and blood thinners (cayenne, ginger, garlic, onion, aspirin).
    
    Avoidance of stress and toxic situations/people
    
    drinking at least 50 ounces of fluids a day, preferably as filtered water, cleansing drink, herbal/digestive teas, freshly-squeezed juices, and traditional bone and veggie broths.
    
    Also, be sure to keep a bottle of Cayenne Tincture on hand. Administer 5 drops sublingually whenever angina or stroke is experienced. Wait 10 minutes, if symptoms have not subsided, adminster another 5 drops. Will stop a heart attack or stroke before 911 arrives!
    
    The above combination will scour the arteries of placque deposits and rebuild healthy tissues.
    Also, Angina pain can be an indication of nutritrional deficiencies and mineral imbalances, particulary essential fatty acids (already listed above), low Vitamin B15 if the pain is on the RIGHT side, low vitamin E if the pain is on the RIGHT side. Best source of Vitamin E is wheat germ oil. Best source of B's is Nutritional Yeast Flakes.
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  • IBS
    Irritable Bowel Syndrome is not a disease. As soon as you see the word "syndrome" it means there's no pathogenic cause, it's a lifestyle problem, which, as we know, modern medicine is not good at addressing because it can't be cured with a pill. Oh they still make the pills but so far they haven't made any that I would recommend.
    
    IBS means different things for different people, so it's important to accurately describe the symptoms and deal with each symptom appropriately. The most common definition of IBS is bouts of diarrhea followed by gas, bloating, achy or burning discomfort, and sometimes constipation. What you do depends on which stage you are in.
    
    If you are prone to diarrhea, there can be many reasons for that, beginning with a genetic predisposition. Genetics decides which foods our body enjoys and which foods puzzle it. When a food puzzles our body, it decides it is a poison, which means the best response is to exit it rapidly, hence, diarrhea.
    
    Genetics decides whether you can digest milk, wheat, nightshade veggies. If you can't, you will get diarrhea, gas, bloating. All you can do is avoid it for the most part and take digestive enzymes when you partake. This is a food intolerance rather than a food allergy, and it is permanent. It means the body is lacking digestive enzymes, your pancreas simply does not create them. You can provide them however and still enjoy ice cream every now and again.
    
    Knowing your blood type and following the blood type diet is an excellent way to cut back on foods your immune system reacts to. Keeping a journal while doing a rotation diet and noting reactions is also a fine response to the situation.
    
    If you have gas and bloating, and if you press your abdomen it hurts, then don't eat at all. Just drink warm herbal teas, broths. If you're not prone to burning you can use carminitive (gas reducing) spices. This symptom is a sign of low acidophilus, the friendly microbe. Kefir and homemade saeurkraut will take care of that right away.
    
    If you feel full all the time or feel very full after a meal for hours, then you're low in stomach acids and might have a very congested liver or weak gallbladder. Take the stomach acid test (see FAQ/Diagnostics) and start claensing the liver. If you've never cleansed your liver, you need to.
    
    Stress is the factor that must be addressed if IBS is going to go away completely. Many IBS sufferers simply have the wrong attitude or lifestyle. If you're a gentle person, stick to nice gentle jobs! Don't have jobs with deadlines or stay at a workplace full of toxic people. Get some exercise, adaquate sleep, and avoid people who don't make you laugh. Get a better perspective on life. It's that simple.
    
    Stress goes straight to the heart and digestive system via the vagus nerve. Digestion stops, which causes fermentation and yeast buildup - gas and bloating and gallstones. Once there are gallstones and liver stones things spiral ever downward. Caustic, contaminated bile punches holes in the instestines, leaky gut results, and the body becomes more allergic to every protein out there. Yuck.
    
    Taking adaptogenic herbs helps to reduce the fight-or-flight response, so if your IBS is really just Stress with a capital S, get some ginseng, astralagus, licorice, hopefully all together in one complex. Planetary Formula has an adaptogenic blend.
    
    The best diet for someone with IBS that includes diarrhea is a combination of candida diet and blood-type diet, non-gluten, slow cooked and mostly bland, although salts are okay. Have a non-gluten hot cereal for breakfast - preferably brown rice farina, check out Bob's REd Mill for that - you can add rice milk, honey and butter to make it taste nice. Yum!
    
    Lunch is best taken as soup and fresh squeezed veggie juices, or my Protein Shake. Dinner is best as either a warm fruit pie or cobbler, or sweet potato, or very simple protein, preferably slow-cooked with the bone in like pot roast or beef stew. Gelatin and protein heals the intestines very quickly.
    
    See the FAQ for other bowel management options and foods that promote digestive health.
    
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  • Leaky Gut
    

    This protocol is for anyone experiencing Stage 2 Candida; Celiac Disease; IBS; Crohn’s; Acne; fatigue after meals not explained by hypoglycemia; food sensitivities; alternating bouts of diarrhea/constipation; dark circles under the eyes; fatigue; fibromyalgia.

    The cycle that needs to be interrupted is a cycle of a too-porous intestine allowing large molecules into the bloodstream. The immune system then has to go into overdrive, attacking these large molecules, which causes inflammation of the intestines, which increases gut permeability.

    This wreaks havoc on the liver, which must take these inappropriate molecules out of the bloodstream. Bile can be compromised, causing a highly acidic bile that burns the small intestine. So liver management is required. Flushing helps, but mostly the liver needs things that cleanse it and bile.

    The intestinal lining can heal itself in as fast as 24 hours, but nutrient deficiencies and inflammation will slow down the process to as long as 3 days, and subsequent allergic reactions will create new pores.

    If Candida caused the pores to begin with, it should be brought under control before beginning this protocol.

    Your first line of defense is diet. You should follow an anti-candida, anti-celiac disease diet for at least 3 months. That means only vegetables (except for nightshade), alternative, non-gluten grains; protein shakes.

    Avoid wheat, oats, corn, white potatoes, tomatoes, even garlic, as it may be an allergen if you ate a lot of it in the past, or used it to kill candida.

    You can have legumes, nuts if raw and soaked, you should get plenty of EFAs as they help repair tissues, you can only eat non-hormonal, organic beef, chicken and turkey; and fish.

    You should get most of your nutrients from freshly squeezed veggie juice. If you don’t have a juicer yet, get one! Until then, visit the local juice bar or buy Naked Juice.

    Your second line of defense is keeping the intestines clean. You should clean the colon as often as possible. Clean tissues heal faster. That means enemas almost daily; a diet of mostly juices; and a combination of insoluble fiber (veggies, whole flax seeds) and only a small bit of soluble fiber (psyllium, guar gum, apple pectin) as it may irritate.

    After a flushing enema, do a retention enema of liquid chlorophyll or aloe vera juice to aid healing, or simply add some to your flushing enemas and retain them a bit longer before voiding. The basic enema is just salted water; neither baking soda or coffee are recommended for leaky gut treatments.

    Your third line of defense is taking the amino acid, L-Glutamine. It is a major component of the connective tissue of the intestinal tract. You should buy the powder so that it is absorbed easily and gets into the bloodstream right away. For best results, take at least 1/2 teaspoon 2x day on an empty stomach.

    There are supplements designed for leaky gut, a list of common components follows so you’ll be able to recognize a good one or so you can create your own with a combo of supplements, juices and teas.

    Take in Lecithin to help cleanse the bile and liver.

    Carrot juice cleanses bile and liver, beets detox liver. This is important as harsh bile will create more permeability.

    Cabbage is a good source of organic sulphur, which aids the action of the glutamine. Some supplements have MSM for this reason.

    Digestive Enzymes – leaky gut exhausts the pancreas, help it out, and help foods get fully digested so only smaller particles end up in the bloodstream.

    EFA’s – gamma linolenic acid, linoleic acid, only from animal sources of fruit oils or fish oils, not nut oil.

    B vitamins – they are so essential for good fat absorption and repairing of tissues, and tough to Over Dose on, so do take these regularly.

    Zinc – zinc absorption gets interrupted by leaky gut and you need it. You may need magnesium too - especially if experiencing brain fog and twitching.

    N-Acetyl D-Glucosamine is an amino-sugar (amino acid joined to a sugar) that aids in the formation of connective tissue of the intestinal tract. Glucosamine is an integral component of the mucous membranes lining the digestive, respiratory and urinary tracts.

    Marshmallow has been shown to have soothing and healing properties upon the epithelial tissue lining the gastrointestinal tract. It also soothes the kidneys/bladder. Slippery elm is a soothing nutritive demulcent. It helps to buffer the membranes of the intestinal lining from irritation from foods and assists the passage of foods through the intestines. It may also help to support the healing process of the gastrointestinal tract and urinary tract.

    Acidophilus and other probiotics – these should be taken after the permeability issue has been addressed. If you take microbes while the gut is leaking, they will end up in the bloodstream and cause rashes and other issues. If you’re not sure where you are in the cycle, take it every 3 days or so after every 2 enemas.

    Since the immune system is exhausted by leaky gut syndrome, avoid taking Echinacea to ramp it up - it needs a break. Kombucha tea and all the guidelines in Lymph Notes are highly beneficial.
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  • Menstrual Cramps
    

    Women who are prone to menstrual cramps are usually very low in iron, magnesium, calcium, EFAs, so I'd start there. Since I started supplementing with nutritional oils (cod liver, wheat germ) especially I'm completely surprised by my period. No more PMS at ALL.

    Have a high-iron, high-protein day (avoid simple carbs as much as possible, limit salt) and that will take down fluild retention. Green tea is a mild diuretic and will help with retention even further.

    Drink a peppermint/fennel/spicy type tea to keep things moving, that will take care of any digestive upsets that your spasming uterus causes.

    Use a hot pack of some kind - hot bath, castor oil pack, heating pad - on the abdomen or back to reduce pain. You can soak a cloth in a hot solution of water and Epsom salts, thath will help the muscles relax.

    It helps to keep warm in general and avoid cold, iced, raw foods.

    Walking helps smooth out the muscles so they don't hurt as much.

    
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  • Muscle Cramps/Spasms
    

    Nocturnal muscle cramps are almost always calcium deficiency. If your cramps tend to always attack the left leg, it is definitely calcium. If the cramps tend to attack the right leg then magnesium is out of balance. To be safe, it's best to supplement both calcium and magnesium at a 2 to 1 ratio. For the body to maintain the right amount of calcium within the bloodstream and within cells, it needs magnesium to support the absorption of calcium.

    Many things interfere with calcium absorption, such as taking prescription drugs, OTC painkillers, leaky gut, anti-nutrients like refined flour and sugar, or taking supplements that antagonize calcium and interfere with calcium absorption. A high-protein, highly acidic diet will leach the body of calcium, such as taking mega-doses of Vitamin C and eating large portions of meat and poultry every day. Be sure to supplement calcium on your high-protein days, or follow your high-protein days with high-calcium days.

    It is rare, but it is possible to get cramps from getting too much calcium. Usually the only way to get too much calcium is to supplement with it, so the easiest thing to do is to simply stop supplementing calcium for a day or so and take just magnesium. You can also make your cellular pH more acidic and thus shed excess calcium by taking lots of Vitamin C and protein.

    If you are having a run of leg and body cramps that come out of nowhere and hit at any time of the day just because you used that muscle, chances are you have a messed up thyroid, parathyroid or kidneys or are reacting to prescription drugs such as beta blockers. Do what you can to increase electrolytes (potassium, calcium, magnesium, chromium), even eat some salt if you've been avoiding salt, or reduce salt if you've been eating salt and soy sauce.

    If you're getting muscle cramps due to working out, this is because of a lack of oxygen and should reduce over time as you get in better shape. The better shape we are, the longer it takes for the Krebs Cycle to break down due to a lack of oxygen and create lactic acid rather than energy.

    You can support this process by actually eating lactic acid in the form of sauerkraut or pickles post-work out, which has a flushing effect to get rid of stores of lactic acid quicker so you lose that awful muscle soreness quicker. It also helps to take in a little bit of creatine prior to the workout to make sure your oxygen stores last longer and form less lactic acid.

    If your cramp/spasm is a locked-down toe, this is usually due to resting them for too long in a bad position, and/or tight shoes. The best remedy for this isn't supplementation, all that is needed is to stretch them out by doing toe stretches (force them UP) and walking barefoot while grasping the floor with the toes as if you're making a toe-fist.

    Back muscle spasms are almost always the result of a misplaced vertebrae. If you ever had an injury to your spine such as from playing contact sports, 10 to 20 years later you may develop a herniated disk. It's best to get X-rays and be sure of what's going on. See a chiropractor or osteopath for these issues, orthodox physicians will simply give you a muscle relaxant which encourages more damage over time. Demand an x-ray, no one should treat the spine blind.

    
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  • Natural Alternatives to Drugstore Remedies
    

    Here's a list of things you can do rather than swallow a pill and mess up your liver and kidneys. Please do add to this list in any way you like - suggestions, remedies, other ailments that I haven't covered yet. It would be nice to make this as comprehensive as possible. This is just a first draft, it will probably end up in table form. :)

    Aspirin - for headaches: 200 mg Magnesium; Electrolytes (EmergenC or Cleansing Drink); Salt; Water; Colonic irrigation/enema; detox bath; walking; sex

    Aspirin - as a blood thinner: Ginseng, ginger, garlic, Turmeric/Coptis, cayenne

    Tylenol/Aleve - for aches/pains: Epsom salt baths and compresses; castor oil packs; camphor oil; tiger balm; icy-hot; a tea/tincture of Valerian/Hopps/Skullcap/Licorice

    Maalox/Nexium/Tums: Glass of warm water with pinch of baking soda when acid stomach hits; peppermint tea or those Curiously Strong Mints; ACV; HCL Betain; Milk; Water; Lecithin; Castor oil.

    Diuretics for swelling/water retention: Electrolytes; potassium; parsley; dandelion; protein; 8 oz water every 1 hour, or cleansing drink; urine therapy; raw milk cure

    Laxatives: see Bowel Management Notes. Warm water spiked with ACV is often all you need. Castor oil.

    Bactene Disinfectent: Tea tree oil; GSE; colloidial silver; pascalite clay

    Sinus Spray: salt water irrigation followed by colloidial silver spray

    Acne medication: pascalite clay; turmeric/ginger paste for whiteheads/boils

    Tooth pain: oil of cloves or suck/chew on a whole clove. Acupressure on gum, the end at the back of the mouth on the same side as the pain.

    Wart/Corn removal: sugar & flour free diet for 2-4 weeks.

    Cold sore ointment: EVCoconut oil

    Prozac/Zoloft/Paxil: Electrolytes, especially Calcium/Magnesium; Protein; Water; EFA's; Vitamin A; Lecithin; Vit B12; liver/bowel management; sugar-free diet; 30 minute brisk walk 3x week; Turkey/Tryptophan

    Anti-Perspirant/Deoderant - that mineral rock thingie - what is it called???

    Toothpaste: baking soda

    Basic skin care: baking soda baths; pure sesame oil or coconut oil; castille soap; vitamin E cream, oatmeal baths, detox baths

    Exfolliant: add baking soda to castile soap, or coconut oil or pureed avocado

    Insect Repellent safe for skin: mix mint oil with rubbing alcohol and put in spray bottle (check cooking supplies for metal spray bottle, or drugstore for plastic)

    
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  • Tendonitis
    

    Ask around, I have yet to find anyone who really benefited from those darned steroid injections. They just don't do what the doctors promise.

    One thing you need to do is get a consultation with a posture expert (chiropractor, rolfer, feldenkrais, physical therapist, osteopath) and see if you have any characteristic movements that are putting undue pressure on your elbow, or spinal subluxions. It pays to take a look at the "big picture" when one specific area is in trouble. Make sure your desk and chair and keyboard and monitor are all in the correct position. Proper ergonomics is very important! You may need a foot rest or an under the table keyboard holder.

    What you want to do in the meantime is:

    Reduce inflammation
    Become more alkaline
    Exit toxins from the body as a whole and the affected area in particular.
    

    The general cleansing guidelines are good, and you should go on an anti-inflammation diet for 1-3 months at least. An anti-inflammation diet is mostly vegetarian (broths, eggs and fish are good) and no refined sugars, no junk, no nightshade veggies, no wheat, corn, chicken or beef. Just stick to Kichadi as much as possible.

    Natural anti-inflammatories include ginger, bromelain/pineapple juice, Omega 3's (fish oil, flax), Flax combined with Kefir or Cottage Cheese; lots and lots of dark leafy greens.

    You need to soak your elbow (or affected area) in detox baths, compresses, castor oil packs. I also highly recommend getting a detox patch and applying it to the area. You can get a footpad or a patch designed for tendonitis. Pascalite clay mixed with colloidial silver would be good too, or a paste of ginger powder and turmeric.

    Be sure to get plenty of calcium and good Electrolytes/Minerals, such as Emergen-C and potassium broth and bieler broth. Molasses and grade B maple syrup should be your main sweeteners, besides Stevia. Skin food and coconut oil are good.

    You may want to take a supplement designed for feeding the tendons. They usually have chondroitin, B vits, MSM, glucosamine.

    
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  • Tinnitus
    

    What most people tend to overlook in terms of tinnitus is bowel and liver health and nutritional deficiencies. Tinnitus is one of the side-effects of being too acidic.

    The nose is a path of elimination for the liver. That's why black pepper and occasionally direct sunlight makes us sneeze - it causes the liver to heat up and spontaneously cleanse, which it does by releasing mucus. Clogged sinuses will back up into the ears. When the liver is clogged or when you have candida, it's much easier to get excess ear wax and this will eventually cause ear/nose infections and tinnitus. So cleansing the liver should help.

    If you don't have much mucus or excess ear wax, simply address the nutritional deficiencies and consider drinking ACV several times a day - see recipe for the Cleansing Drink.

    Which SIDE the sounds are heard will tell you which minerals you're deficient (or overdosed - if supplementing or eating lots of foods rich n the nutrient in question) in.

    Sounds on the right side mean you have too much chloride, a pH electrolyte, sounds on the left side mean too much flouride - change toothpastes and avoid tap water. These two get too high when you're too low in calcium, magnesium, potassium, which a pH strip may not reveal because we're talking about the pH balance inside the cells.

    Very high or very low sodium and phosphorous will cause it too, as will a sensitivity to aspirin, aleve, ibuprofen. If the tinnitus is accompanied by general sporadic itching, your phosphorous is way too high. You may be dehydrated and should force fluids in addition to calcium.

    Consider taking Cal-Mag Fizz (see the Sources forum, the amazon post has links), avoid really salty foods and NSAIDs, be sure to get PLENTY of fluids (particulary my Cleansing Drink - see FAQ for recipe) and consider doing some comprehensive liver and bowel cleansing.

    If the ear is clogged, you can use hydrogen peroxide or white/refined vinegar or refined ACV (in this case you don't want "the mother") as ear drops.

    
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  • Vaginal yeast infections
    

    each night for at least a week, do the "finger douche." That means turning on the tap, letting the water run, so you can rinse off your longest finger after digging out that blasted yeast. Really scrape the walls of your vagina, getting up and around the cervix, rinsing each time. When no yeast or white discharge is evident, use a gelatin capsule of live acidophilus as a suppository. You'll need to wear a panty liner as you will drain as things equalize.

    You can also use GSE in water and vinegar as a douche, but I find the first way to be the most effective.

    Use Blistex on your labia to soothe it.

    Drink the Cleansing Drink 1-3x a day.

    Take Folic Acid supplements, or drink fresh Grapefruit Juice.

    
    
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