Gallstone Nature Cure
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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle." What is a Gallbladder? One dictionary describes it thus: anat. A small, pear-shaped muscular pouch situated beneath the liver in man and serving as a reservoir for bile conducted through the gall duct. A Medical Dictionary sta Hopefully, you are still intact with all the parts your Creator included under standard equipment, and you don’t have a scar marking where it was. It is an essential organ for optimum health - if we didn’t require one, we wouldn’t have one. The function is partially defined in the above description. Our liver continuously excretes bile a.k.a. gall, and the gallbladder is the storage tank where it is concentrated, which enhances its effectiveness as a digestive aid. Concentrated bile is far more effective than bile secreted direct from the liver. Allow me to present a brief refresher on our digestive system. Raw, hopefully well-chewed foods arrive in our stomach for rotting & ripening, as described in Chinese physiology. A healthy stomach will convert our food into a liquid-like chyme (kīm) in about 45 minutes, aligning it for exit order of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. A time frame of 1 - 4 hours is more likely given our common practice of over-taxing the process with multiple food combinations. This chyme is pushed into our small intestine by stomach contraction. Then the process of sorting the pure (nutrients) from the impure (waste) is activated by a multitude of enzymes primarily produced by the pancreas and the liver. These enzymes are supplied to the upper portion of our small intestine (the duodenum) via the Common Bile Duct. The presence of fats in the chyme triggers the production of a Duodenal Hormone called cholecystokinin (CCK). CCK stimulates the gallbladder to contract, releasing stored bile into the duodenum via the Common Bile Duct where it emulsifies the fat in the chyme, preparing it for absorption or elimination. These contractions can also trigger a gallstone attack. Whew! Glad to see that you’re still with me. Physiology is so much more than a five-syllable word and it is difficult to simplify such a complex system in relatively plain language. What’s the matter with fat? Fat is an essential nutrient for our good health. We need a layer to insulate our body and preserve body heat, support and protect vital organs, and fats act as carriers for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin D makes calcium available in our body tissues and fats are also important for the conversion of carotenes into vitamin A. The problem is when we get too much of a good thing or the wrong type of fat. Fats derive their taste from "fatty acids", and the two basic types are saturated and unsaturated, the latter type consisting of the three "essential" fatty acids: linoleic, arachidonic and linolenic. An excellent source of additional information is Fats That Heal Fats That Kill by Udo Erasmus, circa 1988 (third printing). How does it affect my health? To best answer this question, I will combine Western and Eastern concepts. Our Gallbladder and Liver are interdependent and interactive. The basic function of the gallbladder is to receive bile from the liver, utilizing Liver-Qi to secrete it from storage on demand. The bile aids digestion and we are healthy. In dis-ease, when our Liver-Qi is stagnant and the smooth flow of bile is interrupted we can experience many disharmonies. The resultant digestive upset may be something as simple as nausea and belching, or a myriad of symptoms may occur. The interruption in Qi flow may cause us to become indecisive, experience one-sided temporal or parietal headaches, pain in the Anterior Deltoid (shoulder) and/or the Popliteus (back of knee) muscles peaking at midnight, and we may experience a loss of flexibility in our sinews. Our skin may have a slight jaundiced (yellowish) appearance. Our sleep may be interrupted, waking between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., with difficulty falling asleep again. The Spiritual Axis in chapter 43 says, "When the Gall Bladder is deficient one dreams of fights, trials and suicide." Bile consists of cholesterol, bile salts, lecithin and other substances. If the cholesterol crystallizes as the result of a fat allergy and combines with bile and inorganic calcium*, a calculus is formed which is commonly known as a gallstone. They can range in size from a large grain of sand to the size of a golf ball. The majority of our population has gallstones in their gallbladder as a byproduct of our lifestyle. As long as they stay put, they are not a problem. When something like a fatty meal triggers a higher than normal flow of bile, and one of these ragged little critters decides to go along for the ride, it can get our attention. If it is able to pass through the common bile duct, we may only experience a sudden sharp pain, and then nothing - at least until the next time we ingest a Rueben sandwich or other fried food! If you awake about 2:00 a.m. with excruciating pain in upper right quadrant of your abdomen possibly referring into your back, accompanied by fever, nausea and vomiting, you are probably experiencing a gall stone attack (biliary colic) and will require immediate medical attention. A gallstone that becomes lodged in the common bile duct can result in Pancreatitis if the enzymes produced by the Pancreas are blocked from entering the duodenum. Surgical intervention may be necessary. The highest risk group, known in medical circles as the Four F’s, is the Fair, Fat, Forty and Female category. Multiple pregnancies increase the risk factor. Cholecystitis is an inflammation of the gallbladder or bile duct from the abrasive action of the gallstones rubbing against tissue and represents a serious medical condition. See your doctor immediately. You may have eaten your way into the abyss where remedial surgery is your only choice. Prevention and/or a gallbladder cleanse are no longer viable options, and you may come home with a microsurgery scar marking the spot where your gallbladder used to be. How can I cleanse it? There are several natural methods available to us to regain and maintain a squeaky-clean gallbladder. The first step is to make lifestyle changes that will discourage the formation of stones. To prevent gallstones, eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet that is vegetarian or close to it. Prior to reducing your fats, read about good fats and bad fats and make sure that your low-fat choices will provide you with the essential fatty acids. Fried and fatty foods are the most common cause of biliousness, and can be eliminated. All starch, bread and grain products are high in *inorganic calcium (see action above) and would be a good thing to eliminate or eat in moderation. If you know that you are free from a citrus allergy, the juice of an unsweetened lemon in a glass of hot water, taken several times a day for 3 to 4 weeks has helped dissolve gallstones. Other juices that complement the hot lemon are carrot, beet & cucumber; carrot & spinach; carrot, celery & parsley; and carrot, beet & coconut. In my last article titled Liver Quiver, I mentioned a list of nutrients under Remedial action and several of them are applicable. In addition, Alfalfa tablets taken as tea can cleanse and nourish the liver and gallbladder. Fresh, organic Apple Juice can soothe an attack and consumed on a regular basis, will usually slowly dis-solve the stones. Barberry Root Bark is helpful but contraindicated with pregnancy. The Coffee Retention Enemas stimulate bile flow and may assist in flushing any deposits out of the liver. Taken in therapeutic doses, Lecithin, a proven fat emulsifier, will help dissolve cholesterol-based stones. In Europe, Peppermint Oil capsules are used to cleanse the gallbladder. Turmeric (Curcuma longa), because of its active ingredient curcumin, has been proven to reduce gallstones. A remedy for the tenacious! If you want to clear your gallstones by bedtime tomorrow night, buy a pint of purest, cold-pressed Extra Virgin olive oil and eight or nine lemons. Bottled, pure juice will work, but fresh is preferred. About 45 minutes prior to starting the oil & lemon juice, lay on your right side, with a hot water bottle or hot pack placed over your liver area. Start the procedure at about 7:00 p.m., and you must be sure not to eat anything solid after the midday meal on the chosen day, but you can have normal drinks during the interim. Start with four tablespoons of the olive oil and immediately follow them down with one tablespoon of neat, unsweetened lemon juice. After fifteen minutes, repeat this pair of doses in exactly the same way ... and continue at fifteen minute intervals until all of the oil has been taken, then finish off the treatment by drinking any remaining lemon juice. It is important that all of the oil should be taken at those fixed intervals and all on the same evening. In an occasional case the patient will throw up some of the oil during or after the treatment, and this in spite of the fact that the acid juice "lays" the oil and takes away the possibility of nausea developing during the treatment. Any oil that is thrown up is merely excess quantity which is not required by that particular person’s system for achieving full results - i.e.: the system will either retain and use all the oil, or else it will use all that it requires and reject the balance. Note carefully: Even if you vomit any of the oil during the treatment you must still carry on taking the oil without interfering with the fifteen minute intervals between doses. If you fail to observe this instruction, it is possible that you may leave stones in transit and these could give bilary colic after a few days, when they begin to move without the soothing, softening action of the oil. No such after-affect has ever come to my knowledge when the full pint of oil has been taken. What do the stones look like? During the twenty-four to forty-eight hours after taking this treatment you should pass all bowel movements into a receptacle and run tap water strongly on the excrement with a view to washing out the stones from it. Most of the stones will sink; some of them may float. When passed per rectum, these stones will be found to be softened to the stage of rubberiness. They may vary from the size of a golf ball to that of a pea or split pea. In nearly all cases the stones are bilverdin ones - that is to say, they are made of solidified green bile and they are blue-green in appearance. I have only two cases on my files where bilrubin stones were passed. These are stones of solidified red bile pigment, and the patients brought along the stones to me to satisfy my own curiosity. The stones were like strawberries and just as easy to squash between the finger and thumb. Mixed with those red stones were others consisting of both green and red bile, the result being stones the normal color of gall. The above procedure, basically verbatim, is taken from the Nature Cure book HERBAL CURES OF DUODENAL ULCER AND GALLSTONES by Frank Roberts circa 1975. I have been recommending this program to my patients for many years and it has never failed. Results have been confirmed by ultrasound and several surgeries have been avoided. It has been modified slightly from Mr. Roberts’s original technique to improve the effectiveness and reduce any risk of discomfort. I also combine the technique with an acupuncture session, using points that relax our bile duct and encourage the flow of bile. This treatment is usually scheduled within forty-eight hours of using the oil and lemon. I then have patients follow up with pure apple juice and mono (single) food meals to soothe any internal inflammation that may have occurred from the discharge of the stones. Why is surgery so popular? We are a society of convenience. Many of us would rather give away the odd part of our temple than be pro active about our health. Gallbladder surgery is a multi-billion dollar industry and a relatively safe procedure to perform. New techniques are being developed which include the use of ultrasound to pulverize the stones and an experimental oral medication CDCA that is used to dissolve the stones. In some cases a stone lodged in the common bile duct can be removed by the use of an Endoscope inserted into the mouth and threaded down the plumbing tube, through the stomach, into the duodenum and then the bile duct. Doesn’t that sound like a party you would like to miss? For more information on this procedure, contact Dr. Hardman ©2003-2005 Dr. William Hardman, Dr.TCM |
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tes it is the pear shaped reservoir for bile beneath the liver.