Toxins In Hidden Places

September 27th is my official Lyme birthday, marking three years since I began my toxin removal journey. It began in 2004, with me getting rid of white wine and Cheerios for dinner, then progressed to taking chlorella and performing other toxin removal protocol. The journey has continued on to this day, as I continue to find new reasons and new ways to eliminate toxins from my life.

After three years of diligent dedication to garbage removal, you'd think I know how to live in an environment free of toxins.
But I don't, and the problem has been that I haven't taken certain chemical and biological toxins seriously, because they don't seem to present an obvious threat to my body. After all, they don't give me symptoms. So why should I care?

Lately, I've realized that my immune system has been weakened by quiet poisons that don't seem like a big deal but which have hindered my healing. Such as the mold that's found on nuts and bread packaged in plastic. You don't think nuts have mold? Think again. Most of them do. So I've started browning them in the oven before I munch. A pain in the tush? Yup. But it's better than that mold being in my body.

Then there's the dairy. For three years, I've eaten organic cow's milk yogurt, having tested okay to this product by several muscle-test practitioners. What I didn't know is that while yogurt doesn't cause me symptoms, it is yet a food my body would rather do without, and whatever isn't beneficial to the cells, must be processed as a toxin. The immune system expends energy to get rid of stuff it doesn't need, and in having to divert energy to the waste management process, fewer resources are left to fight infections.
Ingesting borderline harmful, or even neutral products, counts.

And forget the little cheats...even one bite of a food that the body perceives as an allergen can cause a major inflammatory response, and that response may not manifest as symptoms. It's kind of like carpet-bombing in a war; there's only one little bad guy but when the commanders are alerted to its presence, all the troops are sent out. The inflammatory response not only blinds the immune system to the presence of pathogens, but weakens the body in a multitude of other ways, as well. I once heard a statistic that one teaspoon of cane sugar weakens the immune system for six hours. Yikes. So I've stopped the cheats (for now, anyway).

My next "little" big deal has been to rid my home of toxins found in household products. I switched out my personal care items long ago; trading synthetic and harmful L'Oreal, Colgate and the like, for Aubrey Organics and Nature's Gate. I also no longer use commercial laundry soap or cleaning products, preferring Seventh Generation to Tide and Ajax, but the problem has been in sharing a household with folks who still use these things. Guess what. I've had to humbly ask them to get the stuff (particularly cleaning products) out of the house. Merely not using it myself hasn't been good enough.

Finally, I've had to ask friends and family not to wear fragrances around me. That's been hard. Healthy folks don't understand why it's such a big deal. Heck, it's taken me a few years to get it, and I'm a compulsive researcher on the subject. Those who think I've taken a plunge into a ravine of insanity also don't have a plethora of infections to battle. Yet, the products that are difficult for the chronically ill to tolerate are likewise harmful to those who are "healthy." The only difference is, their immune systems can put up with a bit more.

Some of the changes I've made to my lifestyle will be permanent; knowing what I know about the harmful, cell-destroying stuff that goes into non-organic food, cleaning and personal care products, just to name a few, means that I won't ever go back to using the stuff. On the other hand, some of the other changes--such as the elimination of dairy and grains from my diet, I will hopefully re-establish once I have attained a higher level of health.

It feels extreme. It requires Wonderwoman discipline to stay away from so many toxins. But my body needs as much help as it can get right now. Until I'm pushing eighty percent in my symptom reduction, I'll have to pay attention to the lurking and hidden toxins. You may want to consider doing the same, at least temporarily. Remember, just because somebody successfully marketed a product doesn't mean it's good for you. Just because everybody eats pizza and wears perfumed lotion doesn't mean that God intended us for to consume and use such things.