If you’ve ever wondered why some detox regimens can make you feel worse before you feel better, we have a crucial insight for you: drainage always comes before detoxification. Here, we will guide you through the body’s drainage funnel, revealing the essential sequence in which your body eliminates toxins.
Drainage Always Comes Before Detoxification
We get a lot of questions about how to successfully detox or cleanse, especially from harmful biotoxins, chemicals, heavy metals, and parasites. Many people don’t know how important drainage is and often find out the hard way when they start a new cleanse or detox regiment and end up feeling way worse than when they started. Detoxing as fast as possible is not the right approach. It is important to support the body’s pathways for toxin elimination first, otherwise known as opening drainage. This prevents a lot of uncomfortable symptoms and leads to more effective removal of toxins from the body.
Stagnation Leads to Illness
A simple way to understand the importance of drainage is to picture a neighborhood where every homeowner took their garbage out to be collected except the trash man never came to take any of it away. It would start to pile up and create a toxic waste problem within the neighborhood. This same thing happens in the body if you start to detox but there is nowhere for those toxins to leave the body, they start to accumulate. This increases symptoms, leads to weight gain and sensitivities, and makes toxicity worse. Another analogy we use for clogged drainage during a detox is a shaken snow globe, where the toxins stay within the body, reabsorb into the bloodstream, travel to other organs, and overwhelm you. This leads to serious damage, sensitivities, reactions, and complex illnesses like MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome).
The Body’s Drainage Funnel
To get the most effective detox, it is important to start by making sure drainage pathways are flowing before starting the detox. On the next page is a picture of the drainage funnel, which is the order the body moves fluids to remove toxins. Cellular waste products flow into organs and tissues, then to the lymphatic system, then the liver and bile ducts, and ultimately out of the body through the colon. There are other ways to excrete toxins, such as sweating and through urine, but the focus of this writing is on the main drainage
pathways in the funnel.
The Colon:
The large intestine is at the bottom of the drainage funnel. If you are not pooping enough, you will become constipated and everything upstream in the funnel will become backed up too. This means that you are unable to remove waste and toxins efficiently and the rest of the funnel upstream will become stagnant. It is important to excrete formed bowel movements at least 2-3 times per day before starting a detox regimen. A backed-up colon is like a garbage that is never emptied, or a bathtub that never drains despite you bathing in it all the time. Toxins and waste pile up. A stagnant colon also leads to hormonal and cholesterol imbalances.
Liver and Bile Ducts:
Next in the drainage funnel are the liver and bile ducts. Continuing the analogy, this would make it the reservoir that collects wastewater from the neighborhood, where it separates water and wastes so the water can be cleaned and sent back to the homes for reuse, and wastes can be taken away by the garbage truck. The liver is responsible for filtering toxins from the blood and processes them for elimination by depositing them into the bile. Bile is released through bile ducts into the small intestine during digestion, where some is eliminated through stool, lowering the level of toxins in the body. Sometimes the bile ducts get blocked, inflamed, damaged, or narrowed which leads to toxins becoming stagnate and to accumulate in the liver, which can cause liver damage. Stagnancy of bile is one of the major contributors of chronic illness and is caused most often by bacteria, viruses, medications, excess estrogen, parasites, and chemical toxins. If bile isn’t flowing, toxic bile acids are released into other organs like kidneys, lungs, and skin. This is often the root of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Histamine Intolerance. Low thyroid hormones can also impact the flow of toxins and bile acids and can increase risk of gallstones. Supporting the liver and bile ducts makes for a smoother detoxing experience.
Lymphatic System:
Next step in the drainage funnel is the lymphatic system, which is a network of vessels, glands, and nodes that works alongside your circulatory system to fight infection and drain and into the bloodstream to be purified by the liver and spleen. Before it returns fluid to the blood, lymph nodes filter out bacteria, toxins, and viruses so that immune cells can deal with them. The primary role of the lymphatic system is to cleanse the body of external sources of toxins and intracellular waste and damaged proteins. Lymph can become sluggish and result in tissue swelling, fluid buildup & retention, cellulite, lowered immunity, respiratory problems, sinus infections, swollen glands, rashes, colds, and infections.
Organs and Tissues:
Above the lymphatic system in the drainage funnel are the organs and tissues. You might not realize that the brain doesn’t have a true lymphatic system, but instead has something called the glymphatic system. This system functions mostly during sleep to clear cellular wastes and fluids, but also distribute glucose, lipids, and amino acids. The glymphatic system delivers waste to the lymphatic system for removal from the body. Signs that your brain isn’t draining well include brain fog, headaches, and memory issues.
Cells:
At the very top of the drainage funnel are cells. Using the analogy of the neighborhood, the cells are the homes that create waste to be eliminated. Common sources of toxins and cellular waste products include air pollution, heavy metals, mold, and pesticides on foods. These toxins are a leading cause of mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to fatigue and reduced ability to detox. Making sure the mitochondria are functioning well reduces the risk of disease and gives you the energy you need to detox and eliminate toxins throughout the entire drainage funnel.
Nurturing Drainage Can Reverse Stagnation
You should not focus on detoxification of things like mold, heavy metals, and Lyme until drainage is flowing well throughout the entire funnel. It would be like setting the garbage out several days before the trash man comes to collect it in the middle of summer. It would sit, stagnate, and stink up the neighborhood. People who are constipated, with a clogged liver, and sluggish lymph cannot detox well and feel awful as a result. Stagnation within the funnel leads to dysfunction and disease, but the good news is that getting everything flowing again can reverse these uncomfortable symptoms. It often takes multiple strategies to get the entire drainage funnel to flow.
