So I completed the liver/gallbladder flush a couple of weeks ago. Can I just say M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E??? Good heavens, it was a disaster!! For those of you asking about my results, I needed to distance myself from the trauma of the experience before I could write reasonably about it. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. But just a little.
Now, let me be clear. I still stand behind my two posts (here and here) on the benefits of juice fasting. I found the six day apple juice fast rewarding, though I don’t think I’ll do apple juice fasts again because the sugar is just too much. I worried the whole time about my poor pancreas (I’m hypoglycemic). I definitely plan on juice fasting in the future, but I will use low-sugar green vegetable juices like this one.
What traumatized me was not the fast but the liver/gallbladder flush that followed. To see the protocol I observed, the one recommended by my doctor, go here. Along with some prep work, it requires drinking four ounces of cold-pressed, extra virgin, organic olive oil followed by a small glass of fresh grapefruit juice immediately before lying down for bed. I expected to experience some “mild to moderate nausea,” as the protocol warns is possible, but I felt fine when I went to sleep. Wonderful!
Unfortunately, the nausea hit me at 3:30 a.m. I woke up feeling so awful, I temporarily wanted to die.
Anytime, Lord, I thought. Take me now!
No, really, RIGHT NOW!
It’s okay, I pleaded, My husband’s still young and attractive. We don’t have any children. He wouldn’t have any problems finding another wife.
Please????
The nausea persisted for hours, so I didn’t get any more sleep. That means, of course, that the above dialogues with God continued for hours too. At 5:00 a.m., I vomited several times. Vomiting is never fun, but can I just say that regurgitating olive oil is particularly repulsive? I then felt absolutely miserable for hours afterwards. Furthermore, I never experienced any, ahem, results from taking the Epsom salts (laxative), and I never had the bile-green, ahem, evacuation that is supposed to follow this protocol. Talk about frustrating!!
I was incensed the next day. Absolutely livid. I’m okay with misery if I get results, but seeing no results at all? So disappointing! I called my pro-liver flush friend and complained (nicely, of course). She said it was the protocol I followed. Her doctor recommends a slightly different one. I said that unless I was on death’s door, I wouldn’t be doing any liver flush again. Maybe I’ll change my mind someday, but this is how I feel right now.
I do think it’s important to mention that my husband didn’t have any of these problems. Everything went fine for him. He even had those little green “stones” the next day. (I think that, for most people, the “stones” are not gall stones at all but that the flush still really helps people. For more on this, go here. Some people do pass real stones, as evidenced by their pre- and post-flush x-rays, but not everyone. I think the question of whether or not they’re actual gall stones is a peripheral issue.)
So maybe it’s just me. Perhaps this is not the appropriate cleanse for my body. I’m tempted to say I’m sorry I did it. If I had written this post last week, I would have said that. Now, I’m glad that I at least gave it a try. I like to work with my healthcare professionals in a highly cooperative way for a specified period of time. I do exactly what they say for a while, and then I evaluate what parts of their approach work for me and what parts don’t. I think the liver flush part of this doctor’s approach doesn’t work for me. Fortunately, this MD/ND has helped me in other ways.
That’s my story. I know this flush has helped thousands of other people. My case is probably highly unusual. I realize that. I have lots of unusual reactions to drugs, foods, exercise, herbs, and other health-related things. If there’s a 5% chance of something happening, I seem almost always to be in that 5%. So make your own decision about doing a liver flush, always keeping your doctor’s recommendations and your knowledge of your own body in mind.
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