Cleansing is Personal!

Connie Hernandez, ND

Patients frequently call our office and ask if we sell body cleanse and detox supplies.

We certainly could sell those “detox in a box” kits that you’ll common find at your local Whole Foods or health food store. But we believe it’s far better to adapt your cleansing approach to the needs of your individual body.

You wouldn’t want a “one size fits all” kit if, say, you had extreme food allergies, if you were chronically ill, or if you had suspected issues with heavy metal or environmental chemical toxicity, or liver problems.

Dr. Connie Hernandez, ND

I’ve long been a believer in combining physical detoxification with a mental, emotional, and environmental detox.

For mental and emotional detox, you could, for example, seek counseling, or investigate the right combination of flower remedies.

Next comes dietary detox. Many of our patients have a long familiarity with this step – they’re already eating healthy, non-GMO, organic foods. But our newer patients may not have given much thought to adjusting their diet to help their bodies better eliminate harmful substances.

Consuming a diet laden with sugar, gluten, dairy, and other foods to which many people are sensitive is like consuming poison with one hand and the antidote with the other.

If you find yourself pulled in two directions – you love ice cream, but you’re eating lots of healthful salads – it might help, for example, to start by thinking of choosing healthier ice cream alternatives – for example, the great-tasting, naturally sweetened faux ice creams made with coconut milk or soy milk.

But if you’re already well along the cleansing path – you’re eating a healthy, non‑allergenic diet – you might consider fasting for 10 to 14 days on a medical food-nutrient and detoxification shake, while selectively eliminating or challenging your body with certain foods to see how your body reacts.

The channels of elimination are the lymph, liver, colon, kidneys, lungs, and skin. For each, there are helpful steps that you can take to improve how these organs eliminate toxins.

For the lymph system, consider jumping on a rebounder. Or try drinking “cranwater” (unsweetened cranberry juice in water). Or indulge yourself with a lymphatic massage to stimulate the lymph system.

To detox the liver, try drinking a tea made from roasted ground dandelion root, and consume liver-friendly foods such as beets, watercress, artichokes, and cruciferous veggies. Castor oil packs are another proven approach to help detox the liver.

Make sure to maximize elimination through the colon. If this is a particular issue for you, you might need professional help. It’s a very important concern, since toxins cleared by the kidneys are dumped into the colon, and may be reabsorbed if they cannot be promptly and efficiently eliminated.

Clear your kidneys by drinking pure water between meals.

Clear your lungs by freshening the air in your home with HEPA filters. And find an outdoor space with natural greenery where you can practice deep-breathing exercises for lung health.

The skin is the body’s largest organ of detoxification. Infrared sauna treatments will help you sweat out toxins through the skin. And a dry brush massage will improve blood and lymphatic circulation and skin health.

More intensive detox protocols, such as heavy metal chelation and others, are best initiated after first ensuring that your body’s channels of elimination have been cleared.

Homeopathic or spagyric homeopathic detox protocols are generally directed toward lymph, liver, and kidneys, but they can also help with occult infections and organ stagnation. (We use Pekana medicines for this purpose.)

For patients who are quite unwell, we recommend initial testing to determine which protocols their bodies will tolerate. For patients in better health, we may move directly to stronger herbs or nutrients to enhance organ-specific detox.

We may advise supporting some of these detox processes with intravenous nutrients, for example with the Meyers cocktail, or with glutathione, amino acids, and other directed therapies.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and the journey will be very different from one person to another. We encourage you to get started, and see how much better you feel as your body frees itself of toxins that may be interfering with your quality of life in body, mind, and emotions.

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Find out more about Dr. Connie’s work HERE.