Sometimes we’re exposed to things we’re unaware are detrimental to our health. While traveling, we often don’t have the same control over our environment as we may have in our native countries. Eating in restaurants, buying medicines manufactured in areas with questionable standards, among any number of other situations may effect our bodies in ways we couldn’t have foreseen. Sometimes those effects remain in the body and sometimes, those effects can be lessened, even healed through the cleansing our livers.
Think of your liver as an air filter that traps all the dust, dirt, and other germs that circulate through the air. Imagine what an air filter looks like right before it needs to be changed. It is completely saturated with dust. The role of the filter is to trap and contain dirt so that it does not become a health hazard to those in the environment.
The liver works in a similar way, it is also the body’s filter and traps toxins that have entered the body through digestion, skin, or respiratory system. The liver is the hardest working organ in the body. Weighing around five pounds, it sits close to the heart and resembles a football. The liver detoxifies the body by filtering the blood, producing bile, and breaking down toxins and waste.
More info on the function of the liver here and here.
Detoxing my liver became important after living in Thailand for a couple of years. One year spent in a gym that was serving me MSG, a chemical additive I’m allergic to, in conjunction with random hits of it afterwards killed my health and my face. I retained water, I had eczema and looking at old photos, my eyes seemed to be more swollen than not during that period. My allergy seemed to worsen with time. Eating MSG could lay me out in bed for days. It was awful. Some intensive research helped me realize that a liver detox was in order. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to a naturopath nor the herbal detox supplements I was accustomed to and local remedies didn’t help the matter. I continued my research and eventually found the Hulda Clark liver cleanse and various versions of it. Here are some of the best that I found:
Websites
CureZone
I created a simplified version of my own with what I had available:
For two days I sustained myself on 100% pure apple juice. On the third day, every hour on the hour I drank a shot (1 oz) of olive oil followed by a shot (1 oz) of pomello juice (lemons and grapefruit weren’t available in my area of Thailand). I believe I did this for twelve to fourteen consecutive hours. I don’t mind the taste of olive oil so I found the process easy. However, during the night I got hit hard with all of lovely effects listed in the above links. It was awful. I was nauseated, at times in pain and I had to spend a day in bed afterwards, but it worked. If I remember correctly, within a week or so my skin had healed and I no longer had swollen eyes. I looked and felt different. I was exposed to MSG again (and again, and…), suffered but not to the same degree. No eczema from exposure and my eyes didn’t swell. I tried the cleanse again, a few months later and it wasn’t as hard on my body. I’m incredibly grateful I found the cleanse and I continue to do it whenever I feel necessary. Generally every four to six months.
If you think you’ll benefit from the cleanse, please do your research. Check out the links I’ve posted and find some more. A number of people have blogged about their experiences with the cleanse. Connect with people on forums if you’re concerned. Figure out what will work for you. The intent of this piece is to aid those who don’t have access to a naturopath or a similar practitioner. If you do and are interested in detoxing your liver in this manner, I suggest consulting with them first.
Huh, I’ve been experiencing swollen eyes and have a patch of something I’ve assumed to be ringworm that just will not go away (despite anti-fungal creams and coconut oil treatments) on my arm, which websites often suggest might be eczema (due to duration). I had considered my eyes might be an allergic reaction but I cannot think to what as I don’t have known allergies.
Did you find it difficult to find proper apple juice or did you just buy it from Tesco (or juice fruit for yourself)?
Thanks for this post.
hi sylvie,
i bought 100% pure/not from concentrate apple juice from Big C. i also bought 100% pure/not from concentrate pomello juice, which worked fine for me.
i suspect you may be eating more msg than you’re accustomed to back home. curious if this may be the issue. to help you figure it out – here’s a list of some of the side effects for me in addition to swollen eyes and eczema. note: by this point in time, my allergy is pretty intense, so you may not have all of the symptoms:
-feels like random waves of heat coursing through my blood
-brain fog
-irritability
-water retention
-exhaustion (different than your regular training exhaustion)
-constipation
-peeling lips
-itchy skin that isn’t quite yet eczema/nothing actually visible on the skin
in regards to your comment on facebook about peanut allergies. i’m curious if it isn’t that the word allergy doesn’t translate the same meaning in thai, or perhaps it’s because you were discussing peanuts. when i spoke of my msg allergy, most people, if not all, had a sense of it and we would discuss the effects. a number of thais have the allergy. however, and this could just be from my immediate environment – when i would discuss peanut allergies as they occur in the west, some people didn’t believe me, etc. i’m wondering if the issue at the pharmacy was because you were talking about peanuts and it’s fairly uncommon in thailand?
Hi Laura,
Thx you for posting this article and the MSG one…I had a bit of bad luck after Sonkran and wondering if MSG is to blame. First off, I have asthma and should steer clear of MSG anyways…I had this nasty looking rash on my shoulder even though I did no clinching the week prior…a month now and it’s finally gone. Put oil of oregano (which you wrote about years ago) and anti-biotics and not sure if it worked so maybe it was eczema. Also had peeling lips, itchy skin and during pad-work, I was gassed and had no stamina. I’ve cut out street carts and unfortunately cut back on tasty Thai food in which I don’t know the chefs MSG habits 🙁 Also started cooking my own meals now that I moved into a proper home w/ full kitchen 🙂
Anyways, my roommate Suhaila just did a cleanse – she blogged about it here: http://rollinginheels.com/trying-out-a-5-day-juice-fast/
But I’m more interested in yours and the ones you posted about, which I read all 4. My question is :
Did you eat any solid meals at all or were you strict on just apple juice and olive oil/ pomello juice?
How did you occupy 2-3 days of detox – For me, I would prob not do any MT training and just do reading, meditation, massages, sabai-sabai. I guess I could wait til I have a bad injury or just sacrifice a weekend to do it.
Thx and keep up the useful content 🙂 The longer I’m out here, the more I learn about the un-healthy aspects of Thailand which goes against my initial notion from my first visit that everything here is healthier than the West. 🙁
On a side-note, Sylvie I’ll be in CM for a few weeks…I plan on checking out Lanna 🙂
hey!
answers:
1. i didn’t eat any solid meals the first time i did the cleanse and it was the most effective. the second time i can’t remember what i ate during the pre-cleanse fast days (of apple juice decadence), but i know i made sure i ate only one meal, in the morning and it was super easy to digest – ie. a bunch of fruit.
2. i didn’t do anything except sit around my room for the entire cleanse. i can’t function well with fasting so i vegged. note: the first time i did the cleanse it hit me hard and i needed a day or two in bed to recover. i was in really bad shape prior to my first cleanse though and i was fully functional the day after my second cleanse.
the actual day of your cleanse, i recommend that you stay in your room. even if you feel fine at first.
the day after your cleanse, eat light food is a good idea.
i checked your roommate’s cleanse….nice! i didn’t even realize you could get that variety of produce in phuket! blueberries? kale? what? if you’re in a position to buy probiotics in phuket, i suggest taking them after the cleanse to help replenish the healthy flora in your digestive track.
please let us all know if it worked for you!
to add…..i wouldn’t recommend doing the cleanse while injured. you don’t want to overload your body. also, if the cleanse works and it helps your game during training – it may help decrease the chances of injury due to bad form, overwork, stress, etc. because you’re gassing out, etc.
Hi Laura, I was just about to email you, thx for the answers 🙂 …I’m actually on the SECOND day of my fasting/ detox…I decided to not wait until badly injured plus not much is going on this weekend. Yesterday I drank water and apple juice. I went everywhere ie. Big C, Tesco, Tops and VillaMart (that’s where Sue my roomie bought her veggies/fruits..it’s catered towards foreigners and has lots of imported goods)…it seems the only 100%/ not from concentrate brand of juice I could get was “Florida’s Natural”, 155 baht for 1Liter. The rest were all concentrated so steered clear. In total I drank 1.5 liters of juice my first day/nite.
At nite I had 1 apple since I’m also following directions from this other site I found for a 3-day Liver cleanse – http://detox.net.au/detox/liver-gallbladder-cleanse/how-to-do-a-liver-gallbladder-cleanse/ It also recommended drinking a veggie broth to stay full…this lead me to do further research for a recipe, upon which I found this one – http://www.wholeliving.com/216560/cleansing-broth
The ingredients were pretty easy to find, except sweet potatoes…luckily I know one of the restaurant owners that makes them in his dishes and he was kind enough to give me 2 🙂 I drank 3-4 bowls of this broth (which tasted good), did some meditation then just read on my laptop.
This morning I was a bit dehydrated and had a headache, but I’m not feeling too bad. I also ate 2 apples so far. I’m about to go for a 2 hour massage, then pick up some more apple juice. Then will make another pot of the veggie broth.
The 3rd day definitely sounds hardest, esp. w/ all the “bowel movement” I’ve been reading on the other sites. I couldn’t find pomello juice…Can I use grapefruit juice instead (again Florida’s Natural makes this)? Last question – When can I eat an actual meal (I plan on going to the vegan resto down the road)? Is it the morning AFTER my 3rd day (which is only olive oil/ grapefruit juice) or can I eat at nite on my 3rd day after 12 hours of shots? I’m assuming the answer is after day 3 which means on the 4th day in the morning. Sorry, for not knowing this, but peoples FB pics of food had me closing my laptop, lol. Thanks LDF 🙂
nice! thanks for the links!
although i have no experience with it, you could try grapefruit juice – i would have tried it rather than the pomello juice if it was available in buriram.
i’d wait until your 4th day in the morning to eat a solid meal. there’s actually a possible chance you won’t even want to eat until then once you start ingesting the olive oil. to give you a head’s up, the first time i did the cleanse, i remember feeling fairly fine after the 12 hours or so of shots – i didn’t really have any sort of cleansing response – then it hit me in the middle of the night while i was sleeping and it was really intense. you may have a different experience, so listen to your body. you don’t want to put solid food in it while your body is trying to cleanse everything out.