An overlooked component of a smoother detox is the ileocecal valve.
It is an intestinal sphincter muscle that allows digested material to move from the small intestine into the large intestine by opening and closing, like a door, between the two organs.
Not only does the door quickly open for small intestinal waste to stream into the large intestine, but it also stays shut tight so that the large intestinal contents do not reverse course and spill back into the small intestine.
Because the body gets most of its nutrients from digestion in the small intestine, the contents that travel onward thru the ileocecal valve to the large intestine are toxic, bacterial waste.
But like all plumbing gadgets, this biological trap door can get stuck either wide open or sealed shut. This causes toxins to back up into the small intestine, inducing a horde of toxicity related symptoms, illnesses, and infections.
It’s a relatively common occurrence with chronic illness, and one wonders which came first? The chronic issue or the sticky valve? Problems with the ileocecal valve can present as bloating, abdominal pain (which in our case could be valve spasm), joint pain, circulation problems, muscular aches and pains, pinched nerves, or even whole body arthritis. And here’s an even bigger laundry list:
- Sudden, stabbing, sharp low back or leg pain
- Sharp, pinpoint headaches, especially on the left side, at the base of the skull
- Dull headaches, which often linger for hours in the frontal area
- Migraine headaches are frequently of ileocecal origin as a system-wide response to toxicity.
- Chronic sinus infection, dripping sinuses, especially when not during allergy season
- Allergies, the type often wrongly attributed to dust, cat hair, and mites
- Dark circles under the eyes, puffy cheeks
- “Loose bowels” not quite diarrhea, but looser than should be
- Any of the “colon syndromes” such as Crohn’s Disease, spastic colon, irritable bowel, Celiac Disease
- Burning leg pain (that feels like a nerve) into the front of the left thigh
- “Asthma-like” symptoms
- General non-specific lower GI discomfort
- Symptoms often attributed to a psychological cause by practitioners unfamiliar with the ileo cecal valve.
If you’re doing the heavy work of detox then you have probably experienced some of those bullet points. Next time the suffering comes on, think about the ileocecal valve.
If the valve doesn’t work right, the large intestine contents back up into the small intestine which is mindlessly busy absorbing nutrients, although now, with backed up material, those aren’t nutrients it’s absorbing, but toxic poison. And that is what can cause the problems listed above.
The good news is that you can heal this with diet and massage. The diet part is related to food allergens or intolerances. I f you already have allergens nailed down, then the issue is most likely related to fibrous foods – either getting too many or getting too little.
The first time we had a sticky valve, it was because of cod liver oil; somehow, it was making the ileocecal valve sticky. We treated simply by removing the CLO and doing frequent ileocecal valve massage. Massage alleviated pain and retrained the valve to work properly which was crucial for detox because healthy operating valves ensure the proper removal of toxins.
However, a year later, our sticky valve has returned! Due to heavy diet control, I have a very short list of possible culprits which I will eliminate and observe. Most likely it is from too much organic popcorn and/or too many of those organic pumpkin seeds fresh from my garden.
Massage has immediately made the problem better. I personally do a massage exactly in the middle of a diagonal between the belly button and hip bone on the lower right quadrant of the abdomen. You can feel little round hard areas that need to be massaged out, they feel like little snap peas. Sometimes you can hear squishy, oozing sounds. Once I have massaged the area, I gently pull up diagonally and towards the left shoulder and hold for a bit. Afterward, I also press the pressure point just below the right shoulder to reset the valve.
There are many written works and videos about ileocecal massage online, but be sure to ask your functional doctor/chiro to identify if this is an issue for you and how to do the massages correctly. Click here for a video we made ourselves.
There are other valves that can pose problems such as the pyloric valve between the stomach and the intestine, and the (acting as) valves of Houston between the descending colon into the rectum. Once you learn how to properly massage and open the valves, you can also gently and slowly push the contents along the digestive path. Your doctor can teach you which valves are affected, how and when to massage them, and if you need to apply pressure to sweep the contents along the tract. I massage before meals or whenever I observe the first signs of pain to help retrain the valves to do their jobs correctly. You may also need to add calcium and magnesium supplements.
It’s not a big deal to have your functional doctor or chiropractor teach you how to do this, so ask! These kinds of doctors are well aware that a sticky ileocecal valve can be a roadblock to successful detox or be a key to underlying physiological complaints. Either way, fixing it will help you both achieve your health goals.
The Detox Depot 