Urinary Tract – The Detox Depot

Oxalates and salicylates are two problems we have had to deal with over the years and I want to share some important breakthroughs. I recently connected some useful dots by reading other authors including a post by Dr. Moore and a lecture by Barbara O’Neill who is a practitioner in Australia. She wasn’t even addressing this topic, but her information helped me have that light bulb moment about oxalates and salicyclates. I’ll link to resources below.

No doubt, you already know what oxalates and/or salicyclates are, OR you are plenty aware of the pain, irritation, inflammation, and dis-ease you are experiencing and may not realize ox and/or sals could be the underlying causes. OR further, you know about them but simply cannot stop the pain. Hopefully my post here will help you solve it.

Oxalates

In my previous post, we had made such a remarkable improvement in the area of kidney stones and oxalates, then we backslid. What the heck happened?!

To figure it out took more time than I care to take when pain is involved, so I’ll hit the main points. But, the answer is simply this:

I mistakenly cut back on calcium-magnesium supplement and minerals
we had an increase of salicylate consumption
I mistakenly decreased an inflammation remedy

To give an aerial overview, I also realized that we (the population) are suffering from oxalate production and stones because we are lacking calcium and minerals.

It’s the calcium and minerals that bind the oxalates and move them out of the body, painlessly, through the colon. Re-read that.

Without calcium and enough minerals, oxalates move painfully through the urinary tract instead. Re-read that.

Without calcium and minerals, those sandy, sharp, pokey deposits scrape and tear the tender tissue of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, urethra, and the prostrate causing inflammation, prostatitis, and can lead to infection.

The biggest factors here? Dairy free diets and mineral depleted soil.

Milk consumption was an easy way to get that calcium, but most of my readers are dairy free.

So, do we go back to eating dairy? Well, for us the answer is no because dairy is inflaming, addictive like an opioid, and (for us) an allergen. Others may choose to get back on it using raw dairy.

Of course we can get our calcium from leafy green vegetables, right?

Or can we?

The first problem is that green leafies, like spinach, are chock-full of oxalates which circles us back to the problem. Some believe you can boil the oxalates out, drain the water, then be left with at least some of the nutrition of green leafies. For some that will work, but I can’t get enough of the oxalates out; we’re still too sensitive to them.

In addition, I realized that American soil is so depleted of minerals that we simply cannot get enough calcium from our food, unless we grow it ourselves. And, I know, I know…buy organic, right? While organic does have less glyphosate (or none, hopefully) than regular foods, still, how do we truly know how much mineral is there?

If we’re suffering from oxalate issues that’s a clue that the minerals are not there, right?

It’s a rat race that I don’t have time or patience for when excruciating pain is involved.

As noted above, oxalates, left unbound by calcium and minerals, exit the body via the urinary route which equals PAIN while mineral-bound oxalates exit the body via the colon which is PAINLESS.

If leaky gut is involved (which is more common than the average person realizes) painful oxalate stones can course all through the blood stream getting into tissue, organs, muscles, bones, and joints. Fibromyalgia anyone? In addition, the body will pull calcium from bones in an attempt to bind oxalates.

Simply stated, calcium or a calcium supplement will bind those oxalates and get them out of the system via the colon. It will even get out old crystals lurking around and it will prevent new crystals from forming.

Be sure to have a low ox diet too. This is paramount alongside getting extra calcium and minerals.

I’ll summarize solutions further below after going over Salicylates.

Salicylates

Salicylates are natural chemicals found in plants that protect them from being eaten by insects and from plant diseases and normally are in such small amounts that people are unaffected. Some people are highly sensitive to salicylates and they can cause the same type of symptoms as oxalates like kidney stones and an irritated urinary system, but also tinnitus, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, depression, panic attacks, headaches, rashes, etc.

If you’re lucky enough to only be affected by just one or the other, you can piecemeal together some pretty decent foods to eat, but if one is affected by both (as we are), it’s quite a balancing act to get a diet right. I have a link to my favorite food guide below which not only helps you to figure out which foods to eat/avoid with respect to both oxalate and salicylate, but it can also help you determine if you are dealing with an oxalate problem, a salicylate problem, or both.

Solutions that Work

Add a Calc-Mag supplement at a ratio of 2:1 to mop up existing oxalates and to prevent new ones from forming. Mine has a D3 supplement in it, but I think if you can find it without D3, that is desirable.
I am using 2500-3000mg/daily of a Calc-Mag supplement. I think this high dose will be temporary, to get rid of a high amount of bound up oxalate, then we will drop down to a more normal dose (as per muscle testing).
Take throughout the day, but also with meals to help mop up incoming oxalates.
Alongside the supplement, implement a low/no oxalate menu. It is positively effective to reduce oxalates consumed. Some find they need to slowly reduce oxalates to avoid an oxalate dump.
Use a quality mineral supplement. My favorite is from Microbe Formulas called Bio active Carbon Minerals. I have also used Restore minerals as well. They have a new website though in case you didn’t know. A link is here.
Use Calcium Citrate supplement to mop up salicylates.
For a violent reaction to salicylates, (red ears, stomach pain, major downgrade in behavior, itchy skin) ==> I use a mixture of 1 1/2 tsp of Epsom salt in 4oz of filtered water and drink it. It’s a fast way to get magnesium to the body which seems to put that fire out quickly.
Add a natural anti-inflammatory. For us, we use turmeric/curcumin at about 700mg three times a day. There are many others such as herbal Bidens or CBD oil, but we actually don’t muscle test well for either of those.
Think about the total intake of salicylates. Turmeric is high in salicylate, you might note, but we are able to handle the supplement as long as we keep other ingestion of salicylates via food at zero or at a minimum.
To reduce salicylates some foods don’t need to eliminated, simply peeled. Such as red potatoes (lower in ox, peel to get rid of salicylates), and apples (peel to get rid of salicylates). Even peaches…you may be able to handle the inside of a peach, just not the peel. Often (not always), the salicylates are on the outside of the food.
In the Resources below I have links to a great food chart PDF, videos, and other website suggestions.