The liver gets its own category on this blog because it's so dang important. I read somewhere once that if you were drowning, your liver would be the last organ to go. Your brain would shut down first. Not a pleasant thought, I know, but it underscores the liver's importance to that carbon-oxygen engine we so loosely call our body.
Today I found out from my favorite chiro, homeopathic practitioner and master herbalist (all the same wonderful person) in Orange County, CA that the gallbladder can sometimes get a conditoin where it "spazzes" out. This can mimick what could also be thought to be stones. This spazzed out condition is apparenly called "gallbladder insufficiency" and is not the emergency that a blocked gallbladder could be. It is basically a condition where the gallbladder isn't doing a very good job of squeezing out the bile necessary to break down fats in our diet.
This was welcome news to me because I have done many liver gallstone flushes over the last couple-three years and have come to the point where very few stones now come out--yet my symptoms (pressure near the liver, indigestion and pain between the shoulder blades) would seem to indicate I may still have some stones.
Her recommendation to me was to get my hands on a Standard Process product called AF Betafood and take 2-3 tablets 2-3x per day, which I have been doing for the last 24 hours. It seems to be helping: today I woke up with the usual symptoms, but at about 25% their usual strength. She also recommended the liver flush for those who haven't cleansed out all the stones in the gallbladder and liver (yes, you can have them in both places--they aren't just lodged in the gallbladder--read up on that link for more).
Let's Play Twister
Just to confuse things further for you, my dear reader, there is another factor which I feel I should include here: I started practicing Ashtanga Yoga about 8 months ago. It has been transformational for my body (note: I don't engage in the mystic mind stuff as that I find to be ineffective relative to other mental programs which work very well for me--so I'm only doing the physical poses and with excellent results too long to list here) and I love it. In fact, it does so much for me that I always find a way to work it back into my life even when excuses to not exercise are most readily available.
The reason I'm colocating this topic with the gallstone posting has to do with a concept know to chirorpractors as "reflex subluxations". In laymans terms, this is where an organ has some non-optimum situation and, via the nervous system, is causing the spine to go out of alignment in a specific area. Fix the organ and the spine will go back into place and stay in. (Ask any applied kinesiology chiro about this and he'll explain how it all works.)
Well, for those of you out there who care (and I realize it's probably a short list), what can apparently also occur is an area of the spine that has been in poor repair can do a kind of reverse reflex subluxation going back the other way. In other words, in my case, my upper back has been like a rock for years and years. Chiros have had to practically climb tall ladders and WWF me a la The Rock to get it to make the slightest little movement, if any at all.
You see, the upper back, between the shoulder blades, is where one can often feel pain if the gallbladder and/or liver are malfunctioning, whether due to stones or what have you. This is very well known in naturopathic circles.
Follow me on this if you can: what may be happening is, now that I am working this area out during my yoga sessions (and believe me I am--it's a real love/hate thing at the moment), it's stirring up all sorts of junk as what was near concrete is becoming more pliable again, releasing toxins and just generally acting up. Because this area of my back is connected to the gallbladder and liver, it could have an adverse effect on them, rendering them less able to perform temporarily while I get through this phase of my yoga.
So this could all be really good news. It could mean I'm busting up a real rough spot in my body that has been gumming things up. It's getting a little worse before it gets better, but there's light in the tunnel. Who knows, maybe I'm blowing the whole tunnel sky high.
While this is difficult to prove as the actual cause (and as such may be driving adherents to the cult of medicine crazy with it's lack of apparent scienctific thinking), but it makes sense to me and gives me something I can work with and keep my eye on while I'm getting through all this stuff. If things don't continue to improve, I'd obviously seek more guidance from additional professionals, maybe even get a CAT scan or whatever would be recommended at that point.
But I'm greatly relieved to have some information that at least puts me a bit more in control of my own body and gives me something I can do to be responsible for my own health.
And to that end, I offer it here in my blog in the hopes that it might help someone else.
Official Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. No one can be as responsible for your own physical and/or mental condition like you can so please don't foist that off on anyone else, especially me. Do your own research, think for yourself and when in doubt, seek the help of a professioanl you feel you can trust.
As for me, my yoga mat is calling!
