Category: Kidneys

Posted in Biofeedback, detox, Kidneys

Kidneys and Biofeedback

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

As promised (albeit 4 posts ago) I am writing about our experience with kidney stones. This has been an issue we’ve dealt with for a very long time, years in fact, but I didn’t realize the extent of the problem. This happens when working with the non-verbal so I commiserate with you if that is your situation also.

The first thing I did was purchase a book called, The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush by Dr. Andreas Moritz. (I’ll circle back to kidneys and biofeedback in a bit.)

Although he is deceased, he left behind a trove of relevant, natural health know-how. This book deep dives into a cool thirty years of experience with thousands of gallbladders successfully treated. He shares crucial facts needed before and during detox. And for heavens sake, do not get your gallbladder removed before reading this book. If you already have had it removed this book will help you deal with the problems that were never solved by succumbing to that $8billion/year cash cow industry.

Some gallbladder cleanses require an extensive amount of work beforehand to make sure the cleanse is successful. Did you know the most important step is working on the kidneys first.

And an oxalate surprise ==> If you’re dealing with oxalate problems now, there’s a good chance you already have kidney stones. They may be small and not causing problem yet, or they are and you don’t know it because of non-verbalness or a high pain tolerance. These stones need to be cleared out before doing a gallbladder cleanse. An easy protocol is in Dr. Moritz’s book.

Symptoms of kidney stones that we had were jumping, screaming, leg hitting and pain in hips and back, difficulty peeing, scanty urine, urine that does not stay in a steady stream or drips in drops. If you still have one in diapers or pull ups, pay attention to hitting the flanks, legs, back, or slamming down on the floor or standing in odd positions to urinate. These could possibly mean kidney/urinary problems and the pain can be excruciating. Sandy stools, of course, would indicate oxalates.

Thankfully Dr. Andreas Moritz has a protocol for the kidney stones. And we used it. But I have more help.

Biofeedback.

Just what is Biofeedback? Simply stated, it is information you get directly from your body by asking it.

Biofeedback may provide a much bigger, overall picture of the situation. Biofeedback can deliver energy frequencies, instantaneously, Over time, biofeedback can retrain the mind and body to gain control over some physiological abilities.

In our case, biofeedback helped to move kidney stones out of the body. Stress causing inflammation and infection in the ureters, bladder, and urethra were reduced.

We had plenty of medical tests on hand revealing infection and oxalate problems, so the Biofeedback scans simply proved what we had already found via lab testing. At the same time, the tests revealed that the biofeedback information was correct. However, biofeedback was the only tool that identified the problem and began correcting it. Because of the information I received from the scan, I could add other things to help such as an oxalate free diet, adding calcium to bind the oxalate, adding minerals to help bind oxalate, increasing water intake, and I added chanca piedra as well. But remember, I am dealing with a non-verbal person here, so you can imagine how wonderful it is to get so much information via the scan. And, to see it confirmed by laboratory testing is an enormous confidence booster.

After we started treating the issue with Biofeedback, the most horrible behaviors like the out- of-nowhere jumping and screaming with pain and hitting the back and flanks has finally STOPPED. That means we can be in public again.

Inflammation and irritation has come way down and she has also been able to pinpoint the exact organ supports needed to reduce the inflammation and infection that can happen while those pokey, pointy stones and oxalates come down. The miraculous result is getting stones out slowly and comfortably in a non-invasive way.

While I can only talk about the things Biofeedback has done for us such as clearing emotions out of organs, reducing and eliminating inflammation, moving kidney stones out of the system, healing leaky gut in record speed (upcoming post), opening the channels of elimination, opening up methylation pathways, and obvious cognitive gains using various brain therapies; I really don’t think there’s any level of stress surrounding wellness that Biofeedback cannot help.

If you’re interested in a non-invasive, safe way to reduce the stress surrounding a multitude of issues including auto-immunity, kidney stones, etc, go to New Leaf Holistic and book an appointment to see how I can help you turn over that New Leaf.

Posted in ASD, Biofeedback, Kidneys, Liver, PANS

Hellward Plunge

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

I have been an absentee blogger for months as all of my time and energy has been poured into doctoring one of ours back to health, again.

I still can’t believe he could tank so low after we had recovered so high. This upheaval was unbearable after achieving a doable level of life.

In addition to improved physical health, we had gained a degree of emotional healing as the final visuals of property damage were getting sorted alongside the heavy emotions surrounding the PANDAS/PANS trauma we’d lived for so many years.

We had healing. I was happy. I was helping others along the same treacherous path.

And out of nowhere, we were rudely side-swiped with organ problems. Gall bladder and liver were the issue at first; kidneys and bladder were to follow. The organs were clogged, full of stones, and basically a rat’s nest of dysfunction and intolerable pain on top of the leaky gut, full blown eczema, and parasite problems that were already obvious.

In the very moment when our doctor was identifying the problems of our backslide, I instantly dissolved into a puddle of anxiety and grief. I felt alone and medically deserted, once again. A migraine overtook me so bad that I was not cohesive, and I could no longer speak. I was in shock. An appointment for my son suddenly became mine. The doctor gave me some pressure points to compress and after about twenty minutes, my head pain along with the panic drained like rushing water from my brain. I cried, uncontrollably, for two hours while my shivering body craved sunlight so desperately that, like a cat, I followed the sun around the windows of our home to stay in it’s beams.

Once the migraine pain was gone and my emotions settled, I immediately braced myself to carefully prod along, one step at a time, to solve these gargantuan organ problems. My resolve became stronger than ever.

I’m happy and proud to say that five months later this roller coaster ride of medical complications has taken me on a journey, once again, that may provide insight for others.

I’m going to be writing about how we are solving our gall bladder, liver, and urinary tract problems including liver and kidney stones which I hope others find helpful and mind blowing. These posts will be soon to follow as I’m still gathering my overwhelming thoughts and every day of success is another brick of proof. I will include resources and supplements we used.

I want to address what caused the downward plunge so others can maybe avoid the same pitfalls. Why did we go down so hard and so dramatically after gaining so much ground? What happened? After all, we spent years and thousands of dollars on healing. Was it a complete waste?

The answers here are many, so I’m just going to list them.

First, detoxing too fast with organs that are weak is a no-no. How fast is too fast? That’s individual. For one of my family members even slow is too fast. He needs ultra-micro slow. In my opinion, needing to add bile salts is a red flag that you are moving too fast. Some may indeed just need the support. However, if auto-immunity is why you’re detoxing (PANDAS, PANS, ASD included), I’d proceed with caution.

Second, binders. We used doctor prescribed binders that you can get from Microbe Formulas. We’ve successfully used them all, but one particular binder that binds viruses, radiation, and chemicals has a formula that has recently changed. We were using the old formula and people were complaining about urinary problems like we were….a year ago. They have since changed the formula, so hopefully others do not have issue like we did., but to say that I’m upset about using a binder that was causing urinary problems is an understatement, because this is what started clogging the whole system. When using binders it is very important to drink a ton of water. Microbe Formulas recommends three times the amount of water normally consumed.

Third. Without our permission or knowledge, our electric company trespassed onto our property and installed a smart meter which I have vehemently refused for years because of the sensitivity my family has to EMF, WiFi, and radiation. This installation aligns perfectly with our decline in health.

In conclusion, this is just an update to where I’ve been and a short list of stumbling blocks. My next posts are going to outline the amazing journey we have been on recovering from some major organ disorders.

I will give you a little hint and mention that we have been using Biofeedback the last four months with incredible results. A trusted bestie in the trenches recommended it to me. I will write more specifically about how we have eczema all clear (again), leaky gut healed, ulcers healing, liver and kidney stones on their way out and so much more from just four short months of biofeedback.

I’ll be back soon to write about healing the gall bladder and liver. See you then!

Posted in Homeopathics, Kidneys, New Leaf Holistic

Kidneys Beyond Oxalates

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

I’m writing from my experience with kidney problems even though I certainly am not an expert. I want to share our struggles and solutions as a spring board for those seeking ideas. We have addressed all of our issues with a doctor but I have found that I’ve been able to greatly contribute to our healing simply by researching, implementing diet changes, and adding supplements that were okayed by him as well.

Our first red flag for kidney problems became obvious years ago from an Organic Acids Test, commonly referred to as an OATs test or an OAT. Information gleaned from the test includes: intestinal microbial overgrowth (yeast, fungal, bacterial); metabolic markers such as: oxalate, glycoltyic cycle, Krebs cycle, neurotransmitter, detox, and folate. The test rates ketones and fatty acid oxidation, important nutritional markers, amino acid and bone metabolites, and measures creatinine. Results come back with a complimentary interpretation by Great Plains Laboratory; however, you will definitely want a functional doctor to interpret the results. Functional doctors operate in reference ranges that detect problems long before a conventional doctor which means easy fixes are still within reach. Several OATs might need to be performed to get a good picture of the processes happening inside. None-the-less, even one OAT is still a comprehensive diagnostic tool that a doctor can use alongside other tests and observations to piece together an otherwise complicated health puzzle to make good judgement calls.

We always learned many things from our OAT tests, but the issue I want to focus on is the kidneys. A marker for kidney problems is the Oxalic acid (oxalate) marker from the test. Ours was typically high unless a low/no oxalate diet was implemented. And with regular OAT testing, we could see the positive results of using a low/no ox diet – that marker would reduce in number. I wrote about Oxalates in a post here if interested.

Despite a low ox diet we recently have another kidney issue which is inflammation. It is not in both kidneys, just the right one. It seems to not be viral or bacterial but irritated. I am assuming minerals may be irritating it but I do not know why the right one is irritated while the left one is fine. Either way, I have applied some suggestions from our doctor as well as from my own research and the relief is obvious and remarkable so far.

Zero Water Filter – Filtering out TDS (total dissolved solids) using a water filter removes a big source of potential kidney problems. The Zero Water system is the only counter/pitcher filter that also filters out glyphosate. This filter is affordable (unless your TDS value is incredibly high, then you might want to look into a whole house system.) Since the kidneys filter out minerals (TDS) in their filters (called glomeruli) they can get coated in material and not filter very well (kind of like all filters – they get dirty.) It is important that our water sources be free of Total Dissolved Solids (and glyphosate.)

Reducing Potassium – This means cutting out or reducing portions of salt, bananas, nuts, seeds, white rice, red meat and other foods that are high in potassium. I completely cut them out because the whole kidney thing is making me nervous and I wanted pain relief. Now.

Cranberry Juice – I added cranberry juice as a medicine, so we are taking 1/4 cup several times/day. Cranberry juice can kill viral and bacterial infections that may be present and reduce inflammation. It is also one of the few berries that are low oxalate. Some urinary problems are worsened by cranberry, so you want to play close attention to any adverse side effects.

Watermelon – A large watermelon per day is helping us flush the system and it also has healing qualities specific for the kidneys.

Huang Bai Tea – This kind of tea is phellodendron (not to be confused with the plant with a close but different spelling) which contains berberine, known to be good for the kidneys.

Recovery – A supplement obtained through our doctor.

Narayani Kidney 4C – This is a homeopathic you would need to obtain from a homeopath when it is clear you have a need for it. If you need a homeopathic intake you can contact me at New Leaf Holistic.

Berberine Vulgaris 200C – Also another homeopathic that is very specific in it’s symptoms but useful for kidney pain and healing.

Chamomilla 200C – This is a homeopathic for pain relief which is often for right sided ailments. But you want to have a homeopath do a actual intake for your chronic case. If you are looking for one, you can contact me at New Leaf Holistic.

Calcium – for absorption of oxalates so they can be removed from the body in other ways besides the urinary tract, which is painful given the pointy, burr-like formation of oxalates. I have actually found that Oat Milk provides a good deal of calcium with little/no oxalates. You could also take a Calcium chew, for example, however, the body prefers food for it’s vitamins and minerals.

I was only thinking about oxalates for kidney problems, but in our case, I see potassium may be an issue too. I wanted to write about that in case there were others who may have missed this important part of the puzzle, like I did. Healthy kidneys will help us detox better so we can manage auto-immune disease and kidney pain will flat out bring a person to their knees; no one can function like that. We are doing really well so far and the pain is noticeably reduced already.

Posted in detox, Diet, Food, Kidneys

Oxalates

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

For an issue found underlying in so many auto-immune and chronic problems, there is precious little knowledge of oxalates. A Pub Med article about reducing oxalates ultimately concludes that what is known is nearly negated by what isn’t.

Oxalic acid is a dianion with 2 carbon and 4 oxygen molecules expressed like this C2O4-2. Because of the negative charge, it will attract positively charged ions in the body such as calcium, potassium, and sodium forming oxalic salts.

Potassium oxalate and sodium oxalate are soluble in the blood, but calcium oxalate is not. Being insoluble, calcium oxalate can get taken up in the bloodstream and deposited all over the body into organs, even the thyroid and eyes, causing cell death, inflammation and pain in muscles, joints, and urinary tract. Crystallized calcium oxalates are hard, pointy, razor sharp, and visible like sand in feces. They are the precursors to kidney stones.

If you are dealing with auto-immune conditions like leaky gut, autism, IBS, or Crohns you are more likely to suffer from oxalates because the body is simply not able to effectively get rid of these toxins. In fact, it really isn’t known which came first, the chronic condition or the oxalate problem. That is to say, some believe the oxalates are the cause of the problem.

So far, the best way to prevent calcium oxalate crystals is to avoid high oxalate foods like nuts, chocolate, buckwheat, bran cereals and whole-wheat products, beans, green leafy vegetables, many kinds of berries and citrus peels. We should instead focus on low-oxalate foods like bananas, melons, cherries, lean meats, corn-based cereals (non-GMO), cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, kohlrabi, mushrooms and citrus juices. This is not going to thrill those who believe in the keto-diet because many of the foods on the latest fad list are high oxalate foods. Same story for those who are juicing to ‘detox’ – many of those detoxifiers are chalk full of oxalates.

An organized chart of low, medium, and high oxalate foods can be found here, but I definitely recommend comparing several sources because of conflicting information and new research being published. For example, kale is high in oxalate, but recently it was found that dinosaur kale is not near as high. Potatoes are high; however, red potatoes are much lower. Harvard found Brussels sprouts to be low in oxalate while many other sources say they are medium or high. Some say you can cook or boil oxalates out, but highly regarded sources say that is not true. So, be sure to research several resources and keep a food journal.

Something I found so intriguing from the Pub Med article referenced in my first paragraph is that an undamaged gut biome naturally contains Oxalobacter formigenes, a good bacteria that both decreases oxalate absorption and promotes intestinal oxalate secretion. In a gut biome that is destroyed, as with leaky gut, autism, IBS, food allergies, etc – this bacteria isn’t found. Surprise, surprise, surprise; another massive train wreck fail from the overuse of antibiotics, GMO foods, and glyphosate literally scorching our guts and ruining our immunity. Unfortunately, the production of the natural probiotic is taking the pharma route, so who knows when it will be available, how much it will cost, or if it will be effective in properly reseeding the gut.

We have battled oxalates for a very long time and we have the most success by indeed, following a low ox diet and we do experience pain if that diet is altered. I have found that filtered water, lemons, baking soda, and calcium and magnesium supplement (without D3) with meals have helped to keep oxalate issues at bay. While it seems the calcium would be counterproductive, it’s not. It helps to bind the oxalates and move them out. For us, supplemental vitamin C increases the oxalate problems, so we get that from food sources only, and supplement with a different anti-oxidant, Alpha Lipoic Acid, instead.

A great source for all kinds of oxalate and kidney research is Pub Med. Other very helpful websites I have found are these:

Posted in detox, Kidneys, Liver

Liver and Kidneys

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

These organs hold the keys to a successful detox yet they are often overlooked. We have been through some pretty hairy kidney and liver issues and even though we have not needed dialysis, I don’t think we were far from that stage. Now that we have a better grip on the kidneys and liver, I will share what we did to achieve it.

The short version of how the kidneys work is that blood flows into the kidney via the large renal artery, divides into smaller vessels, and travels to a huge network of millions of nephrons. Each nephron houses a filtering unit called a glomerulus, which traps the bad stuff, plus a tubule which works twofold sending the good stuff back into the blood via the renal vein and dispatching the bad away as urine. Kidney filters are the same as all filters, they can get clogged causing toxicity, stones, organ failure, and pre-mature death. The agony of a dysfunctional kidney will bring a grown man to his knees, instantly.

The liver is not exactly a filter because it doesn’t filter toxins from the blood. Instead, it makes toxins less toxic and easier to excrete by first oxidizing the molecules, then conjugating those molecules to make them less metabolically active and more water-soluble, and finally, exporting the conjugate into the bile and into the intestines. From there, it either leaves in the feces, or is reabsorbed into the bloodstream and exits the body through the urine so that toxins leave the body. They don’t stay in the liver, like in the filters of the kidneys. Nevertheless, the liver is complex, playing a huge role in all metabolic processes of fats, sugars, and proteins, blood-clotting and detox.

We’ve had kidney issues present as irritated kidneys, excruciating oxalates, painful ureters, and urinary discomfort as well as liver dysfunction as determined by a weakened immune system, very low energy levels, digestive problems, pain by the lower right rib cage, mood swings, difficulty concentrating and poor memory, yellowing of the eyes, severe eczema, and gall bladder pain.

Any amount of detox, even natural detox, in this state without proper healing first plus proper support was detrimental to us and it will be for most. A good practitioner will understand the importance that the gut, kidneys, liver, and gallbladder all play in detox and make sure they are healing, healed, and supported. You can’t just go after parasites or pathogens without these checks in place. I know it sounds obvious reading it here on this blog, but daily, in the real world, I see people treating PANDAS, PANS, and Lyme without any consideration of these things! They don’t connect antibiotic use to detox. I see this mistake mostly with allopathy, but I have personally experienced this in homeopathy as well.

First, we desperately needed gut healing. For us, that took a few months to get to a place where I could finally add previous food allergens back in. Our doctor used products from Apex Energetics called Repair Vite, which achieved some basic gut healing. Because leaky gut renders us allergic to everything and prevents the proper absorption of vital nutrition, the gut must absolutely be healed. Supplemental vitamins are okay, even necessary, but the number one source of nutrition the body craves is that from food. Organic meats, veggies, fruits, and filtered water offer healing and support to those organs so that you can detox.

Foods such as cabbage, cauliflower, asparagus, cucumber, grapes, apples and watermelons are good for the kidneys. Berries are good too, but if you are a stone former, they are often high in oxalates, which we steer away from. Drinking plenty of filtered water is important to keep the kidney filters clean and many say that distilled water will literally remove build-up on all those glomoruluses. Be sure to supplement with plenty of minerals because distilled water will absorb those too.

In addition to an organic, clean diet, we used a variety of supports like Castor Oil Liver Packs, which we used daily at first, then gradually reduced; essential oils from Vibrant Blue Oils, Cell Core Biosciences Kidney and Liver Detox which contains milk thistle for the liver and all the top herbs to clean those filters in our kidneys, N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine to help an overburdened liver, and reflexology was incredibly helpful because I could massage tender organs like the kidneys, bladder, ureters, liver, and gall bladder via the feet. I also used a handful of homeopathics for support: cheliodonium, berberis vulgaris, and china for liver, kidneys, and gall bladder. There are others available, but those were specific for us.

Most importantly, we had a doctor very skilled with detox to help us. He was able to orchestrate the killers, the binders, the healers, and the supporters using kinesiology enabling us to regain health while detoxing. At every appointment he would check the organs and make sure they were truly healing and well supported. We are still a work in progress, but over the last 18 months we are overcoming leaky gut, allergies, eczema, parasite and pathogen infections, PANS, PANDAS, severe ASD, Lyme and co-infections.