Epsom salts? yes or no?

[AmyRose]

I have heard snippets of info about the internal cleansing powers of epsom salts.

Went googling but all I could find, seemed to indicate that epsom salt internal cleanses are for the liver.

Which I don't quite understand. I mean, salt kills yeast, so it DOES seem like if you could take a lot of salt it would help the candida.

Does anyone know more about this, or know where I can find out?

Thanks in advance,
AmyRose

[Jeanne Sch]

I've never heard of it myself but here are some leads on the internet.

At google, I plugged in Epsom salts and candida as my search.

I got this one as a start:
http://www.curezone.com/forums/m.asp?f=73&i=338

http://www.modernherbalist.com/liver.html

They are calling it the Hulda Clarke Flush. However, I would NOT suggest doing this with grapefruit juice or any sweet juice if you have candida as grapefruit and orange juice are some of the WORSE things you can ingest when you have candida (sweet plus the acids which do double time for your gut yeast).

Personally, I've never even heard of this and don't know how salt would kill yeast (does anyone else know about this?)
I would be concerned about my natural potassium reserves which are already depleted from yeast, being so low that you could suddenly have a cardiac arrest (just a thought).

[Jeanne Sch]

Hi Amy:
I did some research today and although no one on candida forums gave me an answer I can tell you what I read about.

I did not read anywhere that they were specifically linking candida with INGESTING epsom salts. I did find out that a lot of candida people soak in it in a bath to help get the *toxins* out of their system. Many seem to believe that this helps when you are having a *die-off* episode and eases the discomfort. I think most were saying you had to use at least a cup, 8 oz., of epsom salt to have a good effect.

Everything I found on ingesting the epsoms was about gall stones (ouchy).

Sorry I couldn't help further on this :)

I did read why L-glutamine helps fight fungus though - the acid in it breaks down the nuclei of the fungus and it quickly dies thereafter. It is best to take it on an empty stomach.

[ahhaba]

The following may be more to do with salt altho not re Epsom Salts:

http://www.curezone.com/foods/saltcure.asp

http://www.curezone.com/foods/watercure.asp

I recently bought some unrefined ocean salt (grey hued) and it has a totally different taste, its a delight to use in cooking especially avocado and tomato salad, sliced and drizzled over with olive oil and fresh mint or basil leaves, course salt and cracked pepper. It was truly delicious.

Hope the URLs are abit more specific. I did the spit test today and find I'm in remission so I'm pretty pleased.

[doreen T]

hi there,

Unrefined sea salt is wonderful :) It has less sodium than table salt (or refined sea salt for that matter) and traces of vital minerals.

Epsom salts are granules of magnesium sulfate ... usually used as a bath soak, although they're safe to consume in very small amounts as a laxative. Magnesium is soothing to sore aching muscles .. and a small amount does get absorbed through the skin when you bathe in epsom salts.

I'd be really cautious about following any advice by Hulda Clarke. I know she's often quoted and referred to at various alternative health sites, but most of her "cures" are phony, and some are downright dangerous. Her gallbladder flush is an example of one that is useless at best and potentially lethal at worst ... If you actually do have gallstones, consuming a large amount of fat (like a whole cup of olive oil) could trigger their release into the bile duct, resulting in perforation and a life-threatening condition. DON'T DO IT. Clarke has had legal action against her several times for her bogus claims and for doing harm. You might want to check out the information at quackwatch.com (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/clark.html).

re - l-glutamine ... I wasn't aware of its ability to kill fungus, but I do know that glutamine is very important for the health and integrity of the intestinal tract and the bowel walls. Glutamine can help speed healing when there's inflammation, and in Protein Power LifePlan, the Eades recommend using l-glutamine (plus other supplements) to heal a Leaky Gut. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book (maybe your library has a copy to borrow?) .. chapter 6 "Leaky Gut - Diet and the Autoimmune Response" has some good advice.

You will also find reliable, well-researched information about Candida at Kent Rieske's website .. Bowel Diseases and Candida - News You Can Use (http://www.biblelife.org/bowel.htm). Kent is a member here.


hth,

Doreen

[ahhaba]

Hey Doreen, for all that info :)

I'm in abit of a quandary - the net is abit like the bible....if you find one story, you can bet you'll find its opposite somewhere else ;) and I'm still pretty new to the net, LC (ish), the bible etc...I'm also very impressionable :) and would really appreciate a straight forward answer from someone whose forum I respect : what's your take on UNrefined salt
in conjunction with those of us suffering from oedema (swollen feet, fingers)? Should we take it or leave it alone? Is Lite Salt better for us???

I ask because I love this (new to me) salt but I worry, because.........as someone in the bible said, that's our lot in life, for us women!

Sorry, God only knows where this bible fixation has come from. I wonder if it means s/thing???

A

[Jeanne Sch]

Hey Ahhaba:
That's cool that there is a difference with the spit test - I had wondered if you could *prove* it by seeing some results. I thought it had some merit because almost every morning I wake up with the white tongue and *odd* taste in my mouth (especially when I am fighting it and there is *die off* reaction).
Thanks for the heads up - I will keep that in mind as I travel through the world of hormone shots for In-Vitro Fertilization Pregnancy (my last shot chance before I lose the insurance in October). :yay:

[ahhaba]

Aww good luck and ALL THE BEST for then. I'm childless at 45 so I get how you might be feeling s/times.

I was real please w/the test result. Had a suspicion as I lost 5lbs on my 1st wk back on LC, alot for me to lose.

How are your weight losses going?

Oh, can't the taste be ketosis? Not enuff water? Apparently I heard s/where that if the ketostix come out purple it means you ain't drink enuff!!!

Spme ppl just have white tongues, some real red, some yellowish, broken, unbroken yudda yudda. Maybe it does;nt mean that much? Maybe it does? Theres an alternative therapy that "reads" tongues, can tell whats wrong with us from the look of the tongue, so mebbe you're on to s/thing there.

Good luck

xx

[Jeanne Sch]

I've lost 13 lbs on Atkins so far - I'm in my 6th week of it. This is rather slow weight loss for me but it often is when I have a pretty bad candida infection (when I don't, weight just swooshes off me).

Tongues:
I have had the tongue white and the taste before doing Atkins so I happen to know first hand (second and third hand too ;) ) what that yuckiness is. I drink about 1+ gallons of filtered water a day - have been for several years now, so there is no lack there :)

I will be taking my Diflucan script twice a week for the next month to try to clear things up before the hormone shots, so I may experience some fast weight loss in there too (I can dream can't I?)

[flacorps]

Reviving an old thread here with my recent personal positive experience with epsom salts, even though it's a bit off the candida topic.

I've been on Lescol XL (80 mg fluvastatin sodium) about a year to control high cholesterol. I'm not all that great about taking it, sometimes my compliance gets spotty for a couple of days or even a week or two at a time. At some point during the last year, I started asking my wife to be careful how she placed her arm across me, so that weight was either on the bottom of the ribcage or the top of the pelvis ... the abdomen (especially the upper abdomen) was uncomfortably off limits. I also didn't have my usual enthusiasm for exercise (but she's been pregnant since August, and cutting back too, and we usually exercised together).

I lunched on Sunday a couple of weeks ago at a downtown festival-type mall ... unfortunately, this one is now linked by streetcar to the other festival mall where the cruise ships dock. Seems every time we eat there lately, somebody comes down with diarrhea. This time it turned out to be me.

Monday morning, I wake up with a feeling like a fist is pressing just below my sternum. A short time later I'm suffering diarrhea. I take Kaopectate (bismuth subsalicylate, like Pepto Bismol ... the formula changed a few years back [away from kaolin and pectin] for anyone who doesn't know) about 12 hours later when it doesn't let up. Over the next 24 hours, I wind up running a temperature as high as 102.5. Stools were black from the Kaopectate (an expected side effect), and there's also a lot of strange gritty material that sinks (maybe 2000 particles). Later research indicates those may have been one of the two types of gallstones, not stuff that was created by the Kaopectate. I haven't read anything about bismuth subsalicylate that indicates you should expect gritty stools.

There was never any vomiting, although there were a few moments of mild nausea. My appetite went to zero during this time.

As I'm feeling better, getting my appetite back and the diarrhea is abating, I begin getting sharp, jolting pains from one side of my diaphragm to the other (the pain is below the ribcage, above the rest of the abdomen, and a bit more on the right than on the left). A few stools are as pale as (or even paler than) a beige lightswitch or wall socket (to mention something just about everyone would be familiar with). Online research associates them with alcoholism, hepatitis or a blocked bile duct (as in, gallstone lodged in it). The latter seems the most likely culprit since I drink very little and I'm not jaundiced--and fasting can supposedly bring on a gallstone attack, and I definitely fasted. The pain stops and digestion gets back to normal. Around this time, John Ashcroft goes in for gallbladder/pancreas problems, and the news mentions that it starts like stomach flu. Things are starting to add up in my mind.

I did research on the 'net and ran across various things that led me to believe that being on a statin can cause stones to form in your gallbladder, and that the epsom salt flush I read about years ago in Maureen Salaman's "Foods That Heal" is more widely recommended and practiced than I thought.

Last Sunday, I tried an abbreviated version of it, since I still couldn't let my wife put her arm across me and I figured I might still have some gallstones. I took a tbsp of epsom salts in water at about 8pm along with a small can of grapefruit juice. I took another dose a couple of hours later, and 1/2 cup of olive oil, and another small can of grapefruit juice. Diarrhea hit shortly after that, but I did get to bed a bit later.

In the morning, I did one more dose of the epsom salts. At that point, along with the diarrhea were a few (not 2000 by any means, more like a couple dozen) yellow-green floating stones of the type described elsewhere on the net. Just larger than sesame seeds. Later, there's just more diarrhea. Gradually, things get back to normal, digestion-wise.

The kicker is that now my wife can put her arm across me any way she likes, and she says she no longer feels swelling on my right side, under the ribcage. I don't feel any pressure there anymore either ... it kind of snuck up on me over time, but I can definitely notice its sudden absence.

I'm not saying this is safe for anyone else to try, but epsom salts are labeled as a "saline laxative" and this regimen is within normal dosages. Be forewarned the taste is terrible (which is what I think the grapefruit juice is really all about). Drinking straight olive oil isn't that much of a problem either. It just goes right down. I didn't bother mixing it with the grapefruit juice.

I don't know if the first problem was a gallstone attack or a case of salmonella or norwalk. I don't know whether the epsom salts treatment actually did anything like what it claims it does (some on the net suggest that nothing is coming out of the gallbladder, all the treatment does is saponify [turn into soap] its main ingredients, and creates the little floating stones). I do know that by using the epsom salts I got some relief beyond just getting over whatever the attack was.

YMMV