CHEESESLAVE

I seriously feel like I am dying. HOLY MOLEY do I feel bad!

I started taking iodine drops yesterday. Not a lot. Yesterday I took about 5 grams and this morning I took about 10 grams.

The Japanese traditionally consume about 13 grams of iodine per day. They eat a lot of fish, seaweed, and fish broth.

They also have the lowest incidence of breast cancer in the world. Japan has one of the lowest worldwide rates of every type of cancer with the exception of stomach cancer. Source

Can iodine deficiency cause cancer? Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? If iodine is responsible for chleating the body of toxins and heavy metals, and you don’t have enough iodine to do the job, then where do those carcinogens go? The do not get excreted and they get stored in your body.

Our RDA recommends only 150 micrograms — about 10 times less. As a result, most Americans are iodine deficient. The iodine docs — Brownstein, Abraham, Flechas, et al — say that it’s somewhere between 80-95% of the population.

I believe it. What with all the soy in the food supply (soybean oil in most of the cooking oils, soy lecithin in most packaged foods, soy in all the baby formula, and soy in most of our dairy and meats — due to the fact that soy is being fed to all the cows and chickens and pigs). Soy is a goitrogen and it blocks iodine absorption.

In addition to soy, there is something called bromide. Bromide is also a goitrogen.

They used to add iodine to the bread but now they are adding bromide. Many breads, bread and cereal products, and packaged foods contain bromide. Even soda pop has bromide. Mountain Dew contains brominated vegetable oil. Yuck!

Oh, and pesticides. Pesticides also have bromide.

Anyhow, one of the consequences of an iodine deficiency is the inability to chelate toxins and heavy metals from your body. I guess your body needs iodine to detoxify.

Iodine… detoxifies the body by removing mercury, fluorides, chlorides, and bromides. Source

When you start taking iodine, it’s normal to go through a detox. The iodine goes to work getting all that bad stuff out of your body. Fluoride, mercury, bromide, etc.

I have many of the symptoms of bromide poisoning:

eye lid twitching
tingling in hands or feet
leg and hip ache (feels like arthritis)
metallic taste
sinus ache
runny nose (I have post nasal drip)
headache
lethargy, fatigue
body odor or bad breath (bromos is Greek for stench)
irritability
increased salivation
kidney pain
anxiety and/or depression

Some of these symptoms I have had for a while — about a month or two now. The kidney pain, anxiety attacks, eye twitching, irritability, leg and hip ache, fatigue, and tingling in my hands and fingers.

Oh! And you know another thing that is caused by iodine deficiency? Hyper-pigmentation — or melasma. This explains why I started getting these brown spots on my face a few years ago.

It also explains why I have impaired immunity — why I get sick so easily and can’t recover very fast. Heavy metal toxicity does that to you.

The symptoms come on fast and furious when you start detoxing. Dr. Flechas says that it is common to have the symptoms for about 2 weeks when you first start on the iodine.

There are a few ways to help your body detox faster:

Sweating - Very hot salt baths or clay baths — as hot as you can stand it so you sweat
Salt Loading - Take 1/2 tsp of sea salt in a small amount of water, followed immediately by 12-16 oz of pure water
Juicing - Drinking lots of freshly juiced vegetables including cilantro, parsley, carrots, etc.
Coffee Enema - Yes, you read that right. I guess this helps the liver produce more bile. If it works, why not?

I just took a very hot bath with 1 cup of raw apple cider vinegar and 3 cups of kosher salt. I am now wrapped in towels and lying under four blankets — sweating like crazy. The taste in my mouth is horrible — metallic and really foul. That’s the heavy metals, I guess.

In a minute I’m going to get up and juice up some carrots, celery and parsley. And take vitamin C (acerola powder — it’s a food-based form of vitamin C). I’m going to do the salt loading again, too.

And I think I will pick up an enema bag on the way to the airport to pick up Seth. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
This is not easy but I am just so grateful to be getting rid of all these toxins in my body. How ridiculous is it that we live in a world where we are poisoned by our own food supply?

My hair is starting to really look good. Even Seth says so. The grease is pretty much gone. And it feels very soft — like a child’s hair.

I still have to “wash” every day because it gets greasy — but I’m going to try to start doing it every other day.

I’m still rinsing with distilled water with a little apple cider vinegar — that is what seems to be working. I “wash” with Terressentials clay wash which is basically bentonite clay, aloe vera juice and some herbs.

The other thing I’ve been doing is spritzing my wet hair with a little food grade hydrogen peroxide or H202 diluted with distilled water to 3%. I can’t believe how much lighter my hair looks after only a few days. I think I’m going to dilute the H202 some more with chamomile tea so it will lighten my hair a little more slowly. Otherwise I’m afraid I’ll end up looking like Jean Harlow.

I did notice a tiny bit of dandruff which I have heard happens to people who are no-pooing. They say on LJ No Poo to use a 50-50 white vinegar rinse before you “wash”. So I’ll try that. If that doesn’t work, they also suggest a brown sugar scrub every week or so.

PS: Seth still thinks it’s crazy that I haven’t washed my hair in 44 days. Although he said that Copernicus and Galileo were crazy too — compared to the standards of their time. However, he said that he is not comparing no poo to Copernicus.

OK it’s been 5 weeks now and my hair looks like shit.

Seriously. It’s really really really greasy. I look like frickin’ Ethan Hawke.

Hahahahaha!

Yuck. I am beginning to really feel like a hippie.

Seth keeps asking me when am I gonna wash it. I had a dream the other night that I wasn’t paying attention and accidentally washed it with some chemical-laden endocrine-disrupting mainstream shampoo.

Of course they (”They”, i.e. The Live Journal No Poo Community) say that if you use commercial SHAM-POO (lie + caca), you will have to start all over and go through the detox period all over again.

I don’t want to go back to square one!

When I complained about my grease to our sweet nanny, Alla, she said, “Well, as long as it’s healthy, it doesn’t matter.” Don’t you just love her?

I know there is supposed to be a detox period. I know, I know — I KNOW!

But for THIRTY SIX DAYS!?!

ARGGGGGHHHH — WHEN WILL IT END??!!!!??!!!

PS: Using cornstarch to combat the greasies does not work. It makes you feel like you are wearing a powdered wig, a la Louis XV.

PS2: I just read some more on the Live Journal No Poo community. They say (1) the detox period can and often does last for 2 months and (2) a vinegar rinse is very helpful in reducing grease.

Only you can’t use too much vinegar. Just a tsp or so to a cup of water. I have been using 50/50 — and not all the time. Lots of times I’m just too lazy to bring the vinegar into the shower with me.

They also say white vinegar works better for some people. Apple cider vinegar (which I have been using) can make your hair look greasier.

So… white vinegar rinse, only a tiny bit.

I’ll try it. And I’ll try to be patient for 3, maybe 4 more weeks.

My hair still looks great. No greasies whatsoever. Soft, shiny, luscious.

I washed again yesterday with the Terressentials hair wash. This time I washed it twice, the second time leaving it on for an hour. Then I rinsed with diluted apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

I thought no poo was no washing. It’s not no washing. It’s NO SHAMPOO. Using clay and aloe vera is fine. It doesn’t hurt your hair. Natural acids like ACV and lemon juice also don’t hurt your hair. Contrary to what a lot of stylists say. I read so many warnings of the dangers of lemon juice from stylists online.

Of course, they don’t want you putting lemon juice on your hair at home. Then you wouldn’t need to go to them.

It’s interesting because the people on the No Poo communities online are all about going longer between washings. On the Terressentials website, they say you should wash with the clay every day multiple times for a week.

The No Poo people believe that the longer you go between washings, the more your hair will detox and it will get back to its natural state in time. It seems to me that it is not about WAITING and slowly detoxing but rather it is about getting the gunk out.

So washing repeatedly with clay speeds the process and helps your hair return to normal. This way you don’t have to go through the greasy phase (which can last weeks or months!).

I’m going this morning to get my hair trimmed. Not a lot — just a tiny bit. I want to get some of those damaged ends off.

I’m really excited about my hair.

I used my new Terressentials clay hair wash today. It’s made of all natural, edible, organic ingredients including aloe vera, bentonite clay, and essential oils.

I followed their instructions and washed my hair three times. The third time, I left the clay on, wrapped up in a towel, for over an hour, then I rinsed it out. After I rinsed (very thoroughly — it’s clay after all), I did a final rinse with diluted apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

Terressentials and all the no poo people online say that when you stop using detergent- and polymer- (plastic-) based shampoos, you will go through a “detox” period that will last anywhere from a few days to a few months.

They say it’s because commercial shampoos (SHAM + POO = LIE + CACA) are full of detergents that strip your hair. When your hair is stripped of its natural oils, it produces excess oil. Which means you gotta wash it more often. Which makes you use more shampoo. Which strips your hair more and makes it produce more oil. You can see where this is going.

Commercial shampoos also deposit polymers on your hair. I don’t know what polymers are exactly but I know they are plastic.

I also know this can’t be a good thing. These polymers and other gunky stuff are there to make your damaged hair look better. In other words, this shambolic shampoo is designed to damage your hair and then disguise the damage.

Nice, eh?

When you detox off shampoo, you are sloughing all this plastic and other toxic chemicals out of your hair. Which makes it look greasy — all that gunk being excreted.

The good news is, once you get past that, you have your original hair again. The hair you had as a little kid. Shiny, soft, strong and healthy — not damaged and broken.

Anyway, everyone says the detox period typically lasts for weeks or months and you have to walk around with super-greasy hair. As committed as I was to going no poo, I was not looking forward to that part.

So I figured I’d wait to go no poo until after the holidays. I didn’t really want to spend Christmas with a greasy head. I could just imagine all the photos of me looking like a dirty hippie.

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago, I switched over to a shampoo I found at Whole Foods — Hugo Botanicals. I figured it wouldn’t be as bad as regular shampoo. I think I was correct in that assumption.

However, it does still have a lot of nasty chemicals in it. But not as many as the others, which is why I think my hair started detoxing. For the past few weeks since I started using this stuff, my hair has gotten oilier and oilier. And I’ve been washing it every single day!

So I think I’ve been detoxing for a few weeks now. Or at least I haven’t been putting as many bad chemicals on my hair and I haven’t been stripping it with as many detergents — so it has been getting oily.

So I decided today, since I’m experiencing the worst of both worlds — greasy hair detox plus still using bad chemicals — I would go ahead and start the no poo regime today.

So today is my first official day of no poo.

I have to tell you the Terressentials hair wash is AMAZING. My hair is so clean and shiny and gorgeous. I’ve never ever seen it this way. And it smells so good.

This is only the beginning. I have looked at the photos on the no poo communities online. Their hair is amazing. And they don’t wash it. At least not with shampoo (they use water, baking soda, sea salt, and clay, and rinse with vinegar or lemon).

I thought “no poo” meant going without washing but it doesn’t. It just means not using the shambolic stuff. However, I think if you don’t use shampoo and use clay or baking soda or what-have-you instead, in time you will not need to wash as often. Maybe once or twice a week instead of every day.

I know my hair is going to get more beautiful. I still have some nasty old highlights that will be cut off eventually. And the longer my hair goes without all these chemicals and plastics, the nicer it is going to get.

I’m really happy and excited! I can’t wait to wash my hair again tomorrow.