Detox Kits

Herb-based Detox Kits have become a common product in health food stores, and most are produced by well-known and thoroughly reputable companies. 

The Trouble with Detox Kits

The difficulty, from our perspective, is that many detox kits use "cathartic" herbs, i.e. laxatives, that can cause a person to be running frequently to the bathroom, therefore making them inappropriate for persons who work outside their home, unless you plan to spend your vacation at home -- taking cathartic herbs . 

If you use a Detox Kit, Watch Your Symptoms

The herbal combinations used can cause symptoms you may not recognize as directly related to taking the herbs, and consequently you may not know how to handle them.  For example, when I tried one popular kit, I became so incredibly blue, moody and weepy, that I really wasn't myself.  Frankly, I was ready to throw myself in front of a bus!  I recognize now that I was processing out an excess of stored hormones, precipitating something like the worst incidence of PMS I ever had.  But while I was taking the herbs, the "emotions" (actually hormonal reactions) felt completely real.  Because of this and other reactions that other people we know have experienced, we regard the effects of the kits as rather hard to control.  Much depends on the levels and types of toxins you have stored, and your individual reactions to specific herbs.  (Maybe I was taking too many of the capsules.  But the point is still that I was not able to anticipate the reactions I had to the herbs in the kit.)

If You Have a Bad Reaction

A person unaccustomed to herbal reactions won't know in advance what the effects of the individual herbs are likely to be.  Our concern is that if a detox reaction experienced by a person who is new to detox is severe on any level, it can create a bad association in the user's mind with the whole process of detoxification.  A person may think that all detoxification processes are going to produce the same kind of reaction, which isn't true. If you do use a kit, monitor and chart your symptoms. If you have a "bad reaction" of any kind, or if your symptoms become uncomfortable, stop the program.

Know What You Need

Our website is dedicated to providing enough insight into detoxification processes so that you can design a program that better anticipates the reactions that could occur.  Basically, you can then choose detox steps based on how you feel you can handle the potential difficult reactions.  To learn more about this see Who Should Detox, Who Should Not Detox, and our Master Chart of Detox Methods.  For a broad overview of many detox options and approaches, read Gentle Detoxing, Moderate Detoxing, and Aggressive Detoxing.

All this being said, herbal detox kits do facilitate cleansing of the blood and the bowels, and can be successfully used as part of an annual or semi-annual cleansing if the "trotting" part doesn't interfere too much with your activities -- at least until you figure out how many capsules you should take!


Related:

Tailoring your own program
There's room for lots of personalization in the areas of diet and exercise.