San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
It starts in the temples. A line of pressure snakes around my head like a vice grip. There it stays for days, weeks, even months at a time.
Ever since I smoked poisoned pot almost two years ago, I’ve been suffering from demonic headaches. I still haven’t been able to figure out the cause, but I’ve fought them with everything from over-the-counter painkillers to exorcism. Of all the treatments I’ve tried, the most effective has been detoxification.
The body is designed to clean itself, but alternative-health experts say that our bodies can always use extra help—especially if we smoke, drink and/or eat lots of processed foods. To help clean all that gunk out of your system, health stores and websites offer methods ranging from the mundane to the bizarre: You can boost your liver’s health with over-the-counter capsules of milk thistle, a powerful antioxidant, or clean it out with a black-coffee enema.
“There’s a lot of different cleanses and a lot of different goals for them,” says Tara Coleman, a clinical nutritionist with an office in Bankers Hill. “Some are digestive cleanses. Some are blood-sugar cleanses, so they’re going to help stabilize your blood sugar. Some are more like a detox or like a fast. … And so it’s important to figure out what you want out of it before you start it.”
When I first started getting my headaches in New York City, where I used to live, my acupuncturist recommended a dual-cleanse attack to clean out my liver, a vital organ charged with detoxifying our system. Using the DrNatura Colonix kit, I spent two months taking a daily regimen of fiber shakes and capsules packed with herbs. By flushing out the metabolic waste stuck in the nooks and crannies of my intestines, I could better absorb vitamins, probiotics and other nutrients. Finally, I did a disgusting but effective gallbladder flush developed by the late Dr. Hulda Clark, a controversial naturopath, in which I voided green stones of bile that were clogging my bile ducts.
The attack worked: The claw on my head gradually died down to an occasional twitch of the eye. I was fine until last fall, when I foolishly smoked weed again. Huge mistake. The headaches returned, hitting me in brutal two- to three-week stretches.
So, I turned to the Standard Process Purification Program, a comprehensive three-week regimen in which I drank two daily shakes fortified with fiber and herbs that provide essential amino acids, antioxidants and whey proteins. I followed a strict diet: No dairy, no refined sugar and no gluten, a limited amount of fish or chicken, but tons of vegetables.
Not only did I eventually lose the headaches, but I could power up a 15-percent grade hill on a bike with a smile on my face. But after I finished, a weekend of celebratory splurging turned into a month-long bender. And the headaches came back.
“Having a really thought-out plan of attack of how you’re going to live your life post-cleanse, I think, is way more important than the three to 10 days that you actually cleansed for,” Coleman says. “If you do an extreme cleanse and you’re feeling great, and then all of a sudden you binge on Doritos and burgers right afterwards, one, you’re going to be really sick. But, two, it’s going to hurt you. You’re not going to feel well and you’re going to lose a lot of the benefit of the actual cleanse.”
Winter is a bad time to detoxify, acupuncturists and nutritionists say, because our bodies naturally want to bulk up for the cold. But two weeks ago, I went ahead and tried out the Master Cleanse, an extreme detox program created in 1941 that has enjoyed popularity in recent years, thanks to Beyoncé, an avowed Master Cleanser.
For 10 days (the recommended run, though you can go shorter or longer), you ingest nothing but a mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. The idea is to give your digestive system a rest as the lemons work their magic, boosting your immune system, flushing out toxins and shaving off pounds.
“In my mind, I’m thinking of lemons as an organic Drano or an organic Roto-Rooter,” says Joe Guarino, a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist who teaches at the School of Massage and Healing Arts. “Lemons tend to adjust the PH balance of the blood; PH balance is very critical. Lemon also tends to thin out the mucous secretions, and lemon has a nice effect of being able to go in and thin out the lymphatic fluids.”
But subsisting on lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper is tough. I quit after three days. I had tons of work to do, and I eventually succumbed to my gnawing, aching hunger.
The fact is, most people don’t need to complete a marathon cleanse to be healthy. Exercising regularly and eating lots of vegetables goes a long way toward keeping the body gunk-free, nutritionists and physical trainers say.
As for my crippling headaches, I think it’s about time I get a CAT scan.
Write to peterh@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
