How Castor Oil Packs Support Drainage Pathways While Detoxing
How Castor Oil Packs Support Drainage Pathways While Detoxing
Guest Blog By: Dr. Stacy Baker ND
Medically reviewd by: Victoria Williams R.H.N.
Est reading time: 8 minutes
Discover how Castor Oil Packs may help support your liver, kidneys and other detox organs as they naturally cleanse your body of toxins.
Why you still need to detox even though you have detox organs
Yes! You still have to detox even though you have a liver and kidneys!
Why?
Well, keep reading because I’m going to share with you the top ways to support detoxification with Castor Oil Packs.
Why is detoxing so important?
Every day we need to try to avoid these exposures, and clear any toxins that we’ve already absorbed by supporting our body’s natural detoxification and drainage pathways.
To give you a better idea of what we’re up against with environmental toxins, Krista Shennum wrote in an article for Human Rights Watch that states,
“Since 1950, chemical production has increased fiftyfold, and it is projected to triple from 2010 to 2050. Of the 350,000 chemicals in use, only a small number have been fully assessed for safety1.”
Unfortunately, these toxins can accumulate in your body and stress out your liver...but more on that later!
Who has the most exposure to toxins?
Because of things like beauty and skin care products, which are typically loaded with chemical toxins as well as heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and carcinogens, women have the most exposure to toxins.
In fact, it is estimated that the average woman is exposed to over 168 toxins before she even walks out the door every day (as reported by the EWG)2. As you can see, the relationship between over-toxicity and the incidence of hormonal imbalance that women are experiencing at an increasing rate is no coincidence.
So if women are over-exposed, babies have the risk of over-exposure as well.
An article from the World Wildlife Fund states that,
“In a study for the Environment Working Group in the United States, two major laboratories tested the cord of 10 newborn babies for 413 chemicals. They found that the blood in the babies’ cords contained an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants.”
It goes on to say,
“As cord blood reflects what is being carried through the placenta, this shows that man-made chemicals that have entered the women’s bodies are being passed directly to the unborn baby” . . . “Altogether 287 chemicals were detected in umbilical cord blood, including 209 of which had never been detected before in cord blood. One hundred and eighty of these are carcinogenic, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests3.”
And in this article, Sophie Uliano writes that,
“Among the chemicals found, there were eight perfluorochemicals used as stain and oil repellents in fast food packaging, clothes and textiles — including the Teflon chemical PFOA, recently characterized as a likely human carcinogen by the EPA’s Science Advisory Board — dozens of widely used brominated flame retardants and their toxic by-products; and numerous pesticides4.”
So clearly, we are living in the most toxic environment that man has ever been exposed to. So, with that being said, our body’s detoxification systems have never before had this much burden.
What happens when your body carries such a high toxic load?
Well, we are seeing an ever-expanding epidemic of health concerns including gallbladder dysfunction (which is generally a side effect of liver stagnation), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is also a sign of liver burden, and lastly, blood sugar dysregulation or metabolic syndrome.
All these issues point to a weak and overburdened liver and drainage dysfunction.
With all things considered, we should all incorporate detoxification as a daily practice in order to support our bodies in this toxic world we’re living in.
How do we support detoxification?
Well, detoxification is more involved than the juice cleanses you see on social media!
Supporting your body’s natural detoxification processes has to be your priority before you jump into any sort of detox.
Why?
Because if your drainage pathways are clogged and not cleansing properly, you are simply recycling toxins and putting more and more of a burden on your liver.
Forgetting to support your natural detox and drainage pathways is very common and can cause you to feel worse when you do start a detox program. In fact, this worsening of symptoms during a cleanse even has a name.
We call it a “herxheimer reaction”. Basically, it is caused by your body releasing more toxins into the bloodstream than it has the ability to clear at that time.
So how do you avoid these uncomfortable symptoms?
Good question!
Actually, avoiding detox symptoms is something I help my patients discover on a daily basis. This is also why working with a professional is ideal if you want to detox properly. Truly, you can avoid a lot of unpleasantries if you know what to look for with drainage burden and other biofeedback markers.
The one thing you can do today, though, is support your drainage pathways.
The systems I am going to focus on here (and the ones I find to be the most problematic) are the liver/biliary tree and lastly the colon pathways.
My top 3 tips for avoiding dreaded detox symptoms
Support your liver
One great way to help support your liver detoxification is by wearing a Castor Oil Pack on your liver. My favorite is Queen of the Thrones® Castor Oil Packs.
To support your liver, you also want to stop or at least limit your exposure to toxins.
Look for toxic products in your home, your food, and your environment, and minimize them as much as possible! On top of that, supporting glutathione can be extremely helpful in doing this.
My two favorite ways to support glutathione are Castor Oil Packs5 and coffee enemas. Coffee enemas are more of an “advanced practice” in my opinion, so I always start my patients with Castor Oil Packs first.
Support your bile
Did you know that inadequate bile production is the MAIN cause for gallbladder dysfunction?
Whether it’s liver stagnation or sluggish bile, both can be prevented and treated.
My favorite way to support the bile is by adding bile salts to a patient’s protocol. This may help support more fluidity of the bile and help the liver at the same time.
Your liver and gallbladder work synergistically, so if there is dysfunction in one, there is generally dysfunction in the other. (Always speak to your practitioner before adding in any supplementation!)
Support your colon
Your bowels have to keep moving!
If your colon pathway is clogged and your bowels are not moving, you are becoming more and more toxic because these poisons are not being moved out of your system5.
This is extremely common in a lot of patients that I work with and leads to more liver burden, cholesterol, hormone imbalance, and NAFLD.
So, it is extremely important to make sure you are supporting the colon pathway.
We can bring back the Castor Oil Pack for this because it may help support bowel movement regularity 6, 7. Also looking into deficiencies like magnesium and Vitamin C can be extremely helpful. (I have yet to have a patient who isn’t magnesium deficient!)
Always begin with drainage
By supporting these drainage pathways, your body will be better able to detox naturally. Most of the time, your body systems just need a little bit of support.
I always start my patients here, and sometimes, supporting drainage alone may be all that they need to start feeling better!
The 5 Keys for Supporting Drainage
- Liver Support
- Focus on fiber in diet as well as hydration
- Support deficiencies
- Make sure bowels are moving
- Stop your toxin bucket from overfilling!
These are things that anyone can start doing and incorporating daily.
Something as simple as wearing a Queen of the Thrones® Castor Oil Pack in the evening and being cognizant of your water and fiber intake are practices that seem so simple, may end up doing the most.
The healing truly begins when we support the body’s natural detoxification systems.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Stacy is a Traditional Naturopath who specializes in Functional Medicine. After suffering from chronic illness for most of her own life, she finally found relief in using a holistic approach to regain her health and correct her imbalances.
Discovering Functional Medicine has been life-changing and she has set forth to help as many people as possible regain their health and with that, their quality of life.
Dr. Stacy has been in the health and wellness sphere for close to 15 years, she holds several Functional Medicine Certifications, a Master’s in Holistic Nutrition, and is constantly finding new ways to learn and grow more so that she can continue to support not only her own health but the health of her patients in her practice, Vibe Wellness.
Are you a practitioner, health coach or wellness influencer? If you’re interested in recommending our easy-to-use tools and practically applying them in your health and wellness professional practice, in clinic, or online with the people you serve, you can join now!
Click here for references
- https://articlefeed.org/new-study-underscores-dangerous-levels-of-chemical-pollution/
- https://www.ewg.org/research/exposing-cosmetics-cover
- https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?22112/Unborn-babies-pumped-full-of-hazardous-man-made-chemicals
- https://sophieuliano.com/protecting-yourself-from-toxic-chemicals-in-your-house/
- Holm T, Brøgger-Jensen MR, Johnson L, Kessel L.Glutathione preservation during storage of rat lenses in optisol-GS and castor oil. PLoS One. 2013 Nov 19;8(11):e79620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079620. eCollection 2013. PMID: 24260265 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24260265
- Arslan GG, Eşer I. An examination of the effect of castor oil packs on constipation in the elderly. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2011 Feb;17(1):58-62. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.04.004. Epub 2010 May 18. PMID: 21168117 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21168117
- Sorin Tunaru,a Till F. Althoff,a Rolf M. Nüsing,b Martin Diener,c and Stefan Offermannsa,d,1 Castor oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jun 5; 109(23): 9179–9184. Published online 2012 May 21. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1201627109 PMID: 22615395 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22615395
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Victoria Williams R.H.N.
