Posted 7/12/2016 5:37 PM (GMT 0)
Did I hear someone say PURE CHOLESTYRAMINE????
I love this stuff. Here is my message about how great this stuff is.
Chlorella and other chelators are best for heavy metals (but be VERY VERY careful using chelators if your levels are high).
Bentonite clay and activated charcoal are also very good if you just need a "regular" OTC binder to help support detox and antimicrobial treatment.
But the cholestyramine is likely the most effective binder for gut/brain toxins and neurotoxins...
Cholestyramine is generally known as a bile sequestrant—it prevents bile from being produced and increases the removal of bile acids from the body (this is the binding function we’re interested in) and it is also known to lower cholesterol.
I learned that it is a very strong binder and used for mold detoxing and so I knew it would be a step up from the other binders I was using. I started it up again but this time with the PURE form, which I think was also more helpful for me. I also started at very, very small doses but was able to work up to a normal dose fairly easily.
The benefits I have realized are in summary (because I am still discovering new benefits):
A whole other "level" of detoxing, particularly when I chase the coolest. w/ a bentonite clay--always at night after my meals/last supps/last abx dose and then I wait for a couple hrs, take my probiotics and head to bed to "heal".
- Once I started the cholest. at high doses I had a downtick of symptoms, less GI cramping/distended belly/inflammation/diarrhea/constipation.
- I became super regular (like small BMs a couple hrs after each meal kind of regular... I've never experienced that in my life. I think keeping things moving can solve a lot of problems, since the longer fecal matter remains in our intestines, the more toxins are leached from them and the longer leaky gut has an opportunity to let toxins enter the bloodstream, etc...
- The BMs were also well-formed and "normal" - I had no idea they could be like that. LOL TMI, I know - sorry.
- And no longer had a lot of odor (although odor is not a bad thing--just that I was going so regularly that things were really moving, which is also much a critical way to detox.)
- I'm also a believer in the gut-brain connection and have experienced fewer psycho-neuro herxing that skyrocketed as I started treating bart again, and the cholest. has helped me hold on to what little sanity I have left. I think this can be the binding action --or can be due from simply keeping things moving.
- I also experimented to see if the cholest. could be effective with clearing yeast/fungal overgrowth and/or keep it in balance. I was Y/FO-free when I started it, then I went off all antifungals a couple wks later. So far, so good--which is incredible, for me. I don't think it it has any anti fungal properties but I think it can keep anything new growing from settling in the gut maybe because it quickly removes it before it can get established.
- I've had an uptick in energy, which could be due to a couple of things but noticed it around the time I started the cholest.
- I have also started sleeping better and more soundly since starting the high doses of cholest. I dare say I might have even had a couple of dreams--I stopped dreaming when lyme & co entered my life.
It has NOT helped bring back my appetite yet---nothing has been touched that but it has helped in every other aspect of GI suffering.
Other info:
If you can't get your hands on the PURE cholestyramine I would skip it altogether and stick with the OTC binders. The lesser cholestyramine products like Welchol or Questran are manufactured versions of the raw cholestyramine and contain unnecessary and sometimes obstructive fillers and sugars or sugar substitutes and very little quantity of the cholestyramine, in fact, you probably have to take so much of the manufactured version to get the full benefit you’re getting too much of the fillers and sugars and might as well use the other OTC binders.
PURE cholestyramine is just that—the raw ingredient and nothing else (although you can also get it with stevia for improved taste). It can be expensive (appx $180 for 60-day supply - obtained via Rx through a compounding pharmacist--let me know if you need contact info). But I would go w/out other components of my protocol before I'd stop the cholest. Not everyone has GI issues like I do, so that is certainly a personal things.
I started very slow but worked up to my optimal dose of 6 grams at night.
-p