Steaky and kidney pie.

This is a guest blog post by Danny Proudfoot, a UK member of the Herbwifery Forum. He wrote this story for the UK blog party on bitters. Please make sure you read the comments as well as the posting.

There is some disagreement over the order of kidney cleanses and liver cleanses, like which should go first, I guess it depends which formula you do, but as long as you do them sometime, that’s cool. Bowel and parasite cleansing 100pct must come first though, so that toxins can be quickly removed and not redistributed.

I had recently cleaned the digestive tract and got rid of some of the parasites that been driving me mad. Now that my detox pathways had been freed up a little…. I was free to try another kidney cleanse. I used the Andreas Moritz kidney cleanse formula, from Presentmoment.com, which I can highly recommend. This is collection of herbs which you make into a tea and drink over the course of the day, everyday for 30 days. Tastes very bitter to some people. Not to me though….tastes nice……which is another example of my taste buds telling me what I should and should not be eating & drinking. My mum did the same kidney cleanse and complained bitterly (ha!) that the taste was super nasty, very bitter indeed. I was like, what…tastes nice! My taste buds like these herbs….which means my body wants/needs them. I have since learnt to trust my senses, if I crave something, I have it, but I use my new found knowledge to satisfy the crave with the right kinda food. I use my head and don’t eat junk.

I was getting up in the night 2-3 times for a pee, so this was good reason to do did a kidney cleanse. Also, apparently, lower back problems can be caused by kidney troubles? Or so I read anyway. I had the mother of all back problems so worth trying this again. Tiny crystals accumulate inside the kidneys and the tubes that go to the bladder and when fluid goes through the tubes this causes lower back pain….apparently. Its all weird stuff this eh! Kidneys and lower back problems….never in a million years would I think that might be a cause of my back pain.

If the Liver is congested, which I knew mine was, this leads to sand, grease and stones accumulating in the kidney and/or urinary bladder. The kidneys are delicate, blood-filtering organs that congest easily due to dehydration, poor diet, weak digestion, stress and wild crazy partying late into the night! Most of the kidneys stones are too small to be detected using modern x-rays and whatnot. The herbs dissolve any accumulated gunk. Andreas Moritz kidney herbs are: Marjoram, Cat’s Claw, Comfrey root, Fennel seeds, Chicory herb, Uva Ursi, Hydrangea root, Gravel root, Marshmallow root, golden herb. Soak 2 table spoons of this herb mixture overnight, bring to the boil in the morning and sip 6-8 times throughout the day, always 1 hour away from food. Simple.

As a general rule, if you have a reaction to a herb, that means its working. That means there are toxins in there somewhere and that herb/formula got a bit out. Toxins always hurt coming out, which is why it’s important to try and control the flow of toxins coming out…too many and life gets difficult again.

The first day I started the kidney cleanse I had a blinding headache, ditto day two. As a rule I only get headaches when I detox…so I know when I cleanse and I get a headache that toxins are coming out Big-Time-Charlie and that the herbs are working. A good signal to know that….that’s a Top-Tip! Luckily this is a herbal tea so I just reduced the amount of tea I drank each day until I had no headache and then gradually increased the dose over the 30 days.

After a couple more days my ankles suddenly inflated like I was wearing 8 pears of socks, they where stiff, swollen and hurt. What the funk is going on here?
Well, it turns out that the kidneys control the fluid in the body, blood pressure, produces urine and regulates lots of bits and bobs in there in relation to fluids. This swelling of the ankles is called Oedema and old ladies get it because their kidneys are full of crystals and don’t work very well anymore. It was most starling to have this happen and I did think hard about stopping the herbs because it was fairly unpleasant….but…this is yet another signal that I was right to try a kidney cleanse in the first place…. that the herbs where working ….. that there were toxins(crystals) in there that needed dissolving…..so I stuck it out. Oedema lasted about 10 days.

Had I NOT known what was going on, I would have 100pct stopped the cleanse and discarded it as “does not suit me.”

Had a doctor given me these herbs and had I blindly taken them and had these strange symptoms I would have bitterly complained to the Doctor, told him he was a fool for giving me stuff that introduced new nasty symptoms. Probably would have reported him or something. Funny old world eh! But no doctor gave them to me, I was responsible for my health now, there was no one to blame but myself anymore. Which is why I read and researched so much, so I could make educated choices about my health. Now that I did understand, I embraced the hassles as proof that I was on the right track and hoped that by coping with the side effects, that in the end, I would be better off than when I started.

Over the 30 days on the cleanse, I had a multitude of spots and pimples, some heartburn. Strange rashes on my ankles, arms, torso, very smelly urine and again pretty off-world BM’s. Again all these are signals of detoxing happening, especially the dark smelly urine. Life was tricky and unpleasant….but my life was already tricky and unpleasant…so it was no change from normal …but I had the knowledge, or hope, that by the end I would be better.

Oh I almost forgot….The chief reason for doing this kidney cleanse in the first place was because of my long term major lower back problems…..and for the duration of the 30 days my lower back hurt like hell, some days worse than others, but everyday was full of back pain…punch in the kidneys dull throb pain, right inside un-itchable kinda pain….which again was no real change from normal….but it was defo worse. Maybe I’m over-blowing the hassles to you….it was manageable ok….tricky, painful, annoying….but manageable…. for the last 5 years every day I had been managing things, I was a pro at managing pain…………so this was yet more pain to manage.

So, all in all another pretty eventful cleanse. Obviously my kidneys where congested with something and I probably needed to do more, because the hassles continued for the full duration of 30 days. After the cleanse had finished the extra symptoms disappeared and fantastically my lower back was better. Hooray!!! Not cured. Not great….but better…quite a lot better too…..maybe 30pct better than it was before….and when you have been told, “tough luck”, “it’s the dust mites” and “learn to live with the pain for the rest of my life”…….that 30pct betterness, that 30 days of unpleasantness…..all that hassle was massively worth it….I was overjoyed-happy….jumping around the room happy…..shouting from the top of the roof happy.

Stupid doctors……telling me rubbish that I would never get better again, never be able to pick up and lift up me own kids again……yeah yeah yeah…..i know I have an “issue” with doctors…..but screw ‘em! They got it wrong. I was getting better.

Danny Proudfoot