What is Die-Off?

In one of my last posts, I mentioned that I was dealing with Die-Off. The question is though, what is die-off? Di-Off, also known as the Herxheimer reaction or Herxing, is when lots of bad bacteria and such suddenly dies all at once. Sounds straight forward, right? For me more recently it was caused by taking a supplement for that very purpose: to kill off the bad bacteria. In the long run, this is a good thing, but while those bad things die it can feel downright miserable. Symptoms can increase, old ones can resurface, or new ones can raise their head against you. You have to get worse to get better. Clearly, bad things dying is a good thing, but why is it miserable at first? For me, the bad things were dying so fast that my body could not keep up with detoxing it, as hard as I tried. And while I tried to detox them as much as possible to get them out of my system, they would make me feel awful until then. Which bring us to the rest of this post…

7 Ways to Detox:

1. Detox Bath – This is very helpful, maybe one of the ways I can most feel a difference (though I still recommend all of the rest of these.) For more information look at my post here.
2. Exercise/Sweating – Getting the blood flowing and things moving is a great way to start working those dead bad bacteria out. Sweating is especially an excellent way to detox (though maybe take a shower to wash it off afterward). I know this can be maybe the hardest thing on this list since you likely have joint pain, or low energy, or feel like you have the flu, but do what you can. Even if it’s a slow stroll in the sun.
3. Chlorella – Chlorella is a supplement taken orally that binds to the bad toxins and helps get them out. For more information on it, see my post here.
4. Charcoal – This is similar to chlorella in how it gets the toxins out, except that it works best on other types of toxins that than the chlorella. I take it every morning (because you have to wait such specific times in between food to take it) as a powder in water.
   

   Prescribed for Life Coal-Conut

   

   Boo! Lol. This is my tongue, black from the morning’s charcoal. 😉

5. EMF Mat – I plan to elaborate more on this in a future post, but it is great for taking away all the inescapable things that you body has to deal with from electronics and other things around us.
6. Detox Tea/ Lots of fluids – If you’re like me, your mom has been telling you to drink water for almost everything since you were little. But it really is important in detoxing! You really want to drink lots of fluids. One way to do this that is even better than plain water is to drink plain detox tea (which actually doesn’t taste all that bad.. in fact, I enjoy it! Especially iced.).
   

   Be Well Teas Get Clean

7. Sludge – At least, that’s my nickname for it. It’s actually called Psyllium Husk, which you mix into water. Again, it also gets things moving through your system and out.
   

   Organic India Organic Whole Husk Psyllium

Four more tips about Die-Off:

1. Get into a routine – Trying to balance all these different ways of detoxing isn’t going to be easy. Getting into a routine to make sure that each of them happens, properly spaced out from each other and food, can really help. It also makes it easier to remember to do if you’re struggling with brain fog. And if you set yourself a certain time to do it, it also ensures that you will actually crawl out of bed and not realize at the end of the day that ‘I’ll do it later’, became, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow… or the next day…”. 😉
2. Shower and wash your towel/sheets often – One of the ways you will be detoxing is through your skin, which will rub off of you onto those things around you… especially the sheets on your bed if you are spending a lot of time there.
3. Probiotics – One way to fight the toxins is to make sure you’re taking probiotics, and replacing the bad bacteria with good bacteria.
4. Let your body catch up – As I said before, what caused my latest die-off was taking a certain supplement (Berberine). It was killing the bad bacteria of yeast/Candida. Taking a break from it and letting your body catch up with the detoxing, though, may be beneficial. 🙂