Content

Detoxing in a nutshell - start here!

Deep dive - the science behind detoxification

1. Planet Earth was created perfect. And so were we.
2. Imagine what your home would be like if you didn't clean it for weeks ...
3. Perfect preventation makes perfect practice
4. Here's the cycle
5. Doing it naturally
6. What exactly is a detox?
7. Detoxing deconstructed
8. Stage 1 - The Digestive System, the first line of defence
9. The downside: toxins, triggers, and turmoil
10. A quick 'blockage' heads-up
11. Stage 2 – The two major Detoxification Organs - Liver & Kidneys
12. The Liver - the workhorse of digestion and detoxification
13. The Kidneys - the body’s environmentally friendly recycling system
14. Stage 3 – The Circulatory Systems: Blood & Lymphatics
15. The Blood - literally the life force of the body
16. The Lymphatics - the body's critical drainage-canal system
17. Detoxing is a marathon, not a sprint
18. Is it time for a detoxification software update?
19. Finally, don't knock sweating ...
20. To conclude
21. Contraindications - the Herxheimer Reaction
    

"The body's genetic detoxification software was designed to handle naturally-occurring toxins, not the 85,000+ industrial chemicals present in our environment today. Poor diet, pollution, medications, stress, trauma, infections, chemtrails and electromagnetic radiation all contribute to the toxin build up
which cause damage to the body's cells."

Dr Mark Hyman, founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center

Detox in a nutshell – start here

Key detoxing takeaways

• Modern life loads horses with more 'stuff' than their natural clean-up system can comfortably handle (feed chemistry, sprays, moulds, meds, stress, and so on...).
• The body already has a clean-up crew - gut → liver & kidneys → lymph/blood → exits (bowel, urine, skin, breath).
• If the exits aren’t open, waste queues up and the horse can feel worse. Start with the gut and its main exit route, then move downstream - following the flow of elimination, moving step by step through each organ and pathway in the order each one relies on previously.
• Gentle, consistent support works best - think steady housekeeping, not a crash clear-out.

Root cause?

Too much in, not enough out. When the gut is unsettled (acidosis/dysbiosis/leaky gut), it loads the liver, kidneys, and lymph. The result is a backlog that the body keeps trying to shuffle — round and round.

Does this sound like your horse?

• Dull or itchy coat; seasonal flare-ups (hives, rubs, sweet-itchy tendencies)
• Puffy legs or “fills”, sluggish after stabling; “muddy” energy
• Sour tummy signs: gassy, bloated, loose or compacted manure, on-off appetite
• Tension, fussiness, “on edge” under saddle; poor settle after work
• Foot sensitivity around grass change or feed changes
• Haylage sensitivity, or on/off after antibiotics/meds
• Hard to hold condition despite “enough” feed

How to support your horse

Open the exits

• Consistent hydration (sea salt in the feed bowl); daily movement (helps lymph).
• Ditch high-processed bulk filler feeds, and feed only simple, species-appropriate, meadow grass forage fibre feeds, i.e. a meadow cob or pellet; keep sugar/starch sensible; ditch all unnecessary extras.
  
  

Stage-by-stage clean-up - 1-month OptimaCARE detox programme

• Stage 1 (10 days) – Gut first: calm the microbiome and keep the bowel moving. (10-days SiboCARE)
• 1 day off
• Stage 2 (10 days) – Liver & kidneys: support biotransformation and safe hand-off to the exits. (10-days LKLCARE)
• 1 day off
• Stage 3 (10 days) – Circulation & lymph: keep the “drainage network” flowing. (10-days bespoke blend)
• Then 1 week off to let the system settle and for you to assess.

Daily habits that help

• Movement (walk hacks, hand-graze, regular turnout)
• Sweat naturally via work appropriate for the horse
• Simple feed; regular dental checks; steady routine; calm yard vibes

🚩 Detox red flags & next steps

• Do not start a detox during onset laminitis.
• Pause and get advice if there’s acute colic, fever, sudden neuro signs, or dramatic behaviour change.
• Sweating oddities (far too much/too little) or persistent oedema: consider kidneys; slow down and reassess.
• Herxheimer (“feels worse before better”): lower the dose, increase hydration + salt, add gentle movement; short pause if needed. A magnesium wash can help settle tight muscles.

Bottom line

Follow the sequence: gut (to unblock the main exit route)→ liver/kidneys → lymph/blood. Keep it gentle, sequential, and consistent. The aim is a steady, well-run housekeeping system - not a quick fix.

Next step?

Explore our OptimaCARE detox programme for a simple, structured way to help bring your horse back into balance, or our OptimaPLUS programme if a deeper alleviate/detox/fortify programme is need.

Deep dive: the science behind detoxing

Planet Earth was created perfect. And so were we.

Then came all the things we created in the name of progress and a bright future, which turned out to to be not so good. Things like carcinogen-filled foods, dangerous air pollution levels, radiation-emitting technology, chemically soaked farmlands... the list goes on.

The leading health experts all agree - fact: we’ve poisoned Eden.

An organism, i.e. us, our horses, our dogs/cats etc., were perfectly designed to handle a normal amount of natural toxins, but the massive amount of man-made toxins we’re exposed to today in our modern world is far too much for our bodies to manage. According to the Environmental Working Group, there are nearly 85,000 man-made chemicals currently approved by the Big-Wigs for use in our western world, and this number is rapidly increasing.

These days it's no secret that toxins accumulate in the body and are the cause of various health problems; certainly in recent years we've learned a great deal about how they affect the body, where they originate, and how to improve the body's ability to detoxify. Even at low levels, toxic exposures contribute to the development of a variety of chronic health conditions, with fatigue, endocrine disruption, and chronic degenerative diseases being three commonly recognised areas where toxins build up throughout the body and the disease process begins.

In our modern world, we're all exposed to a far more complex array of toxic compounds in our air, water, and food than ever before, so understanding toxicity and taking practical steps to improve biotransformation and elimination are essential and critical parts of any integrative approach to health and well-being.

You've probably heard of carcinogens - toxins that have been confirmed to cause cancer. However, all toxins will contribute to a toxic body, whether we like it or not. For our horses, fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides and pesticides are just a drop in their world’s toxic soup, and they're very relevant to why our horses' health becomes compromised, because they - like us - swim in it every day.

That said - there is good news - there’s a simple way to fight back. There's an amazing little-known, built-in, all-natural mechanism that’s hidden in each and every body - a very sophisticated, natural detoxing system that directly protects the body against toxins. Meet the liver, kidneys and lymph nodes, or as I call them, the '3-Amigos'. All we have to do is activate it 😉.

Imagine your home if you didn't clean it for weeks ...

If mine's anything to go by with dogs, cats (and their feathered or furry gifts), free-range chooks who wander indoors whenever they feel like it, plus the yard detritus that dumps itself everytime we open the front door, it doesn't bear thinking about what state my house would get into if I didn't get the Dyson out - even then I find it hard enough to keep on top off.

It's the same for our bodies - whether human or horse, but thanks to the 3-Amigos it's like having our own internal Dyson installed. The 3-Amigos - the liver, kidneys and lymph nodes - are the body's three amazing filtration organs which together make up the natural detox system. Without us even knowing, they're beavering away behind the scenes like Santa's elves, doing the body's natural clean-up, filtering out all the bad stuff then sending it off and out forever through the body's elimination routes - the bowel, skin, breath, and bladder.

Brilliant, you'd think. Now to the real world and that dark cloud of toxicity out there, waiting to hit us and our horses like a wrecking ball. Undesirable toxic waste usually gets into our horses via feed and forage, i.e. those chemical sprays - pesticides, herbicides, fungicides - in hay and grass if it's sprayed or near to sprayed fields. Then there's the rest - excess sugars and starch, lactic-acid in the intestines, moulds, water contamination, and let's not forget veterinary meds. Excessive training also brings its own toxicity, especially lactic acid, that needs to be eliminated.

Then there's a ton of other environmental waste that gets into us whether we like it or not. We have GMO waste, industrial waste, plus phone-mast radiation and more; our rivers are sick, our trees are dying, our air's filled with chemtrails and pollution, and don't even get me started on the plastic garbage trail in our oceans.

It’s estimated that there are literally hundreds of thousands of chemicals in the environment alone, never mind the approved ones. Not to put too fine a word on it, collectively they all build up in the body and silently start to cause potentially threatening issues, because the 3-Amigos really struggle to cope with the overwhelming load anymore.

3. Perfect preventation makes perfect practice

Ever been behind a door trying to get out and the exit's blocked? A perfect analogy for why a cleanse is so important; toxins need to get out of the body's exit routes, but if the exits are blocked, they'll stay put and wreak havoc.

In a healthy body, the natural process of detoxification runs smoothly. However, when the body's in-built detoxification system becomes overwhelmed, the body compensates for as long as it's able, until it can't anymore. Hence why supporting the body's detoxification system is a vital component of full-body health.

Dis-ease - meaning that the body is ill-at-ease - and illness simply can't exist inside a clean, nourished, nutrient-rich body, so it makes perfect sense to practice perfect prevention. Performing a regular internal clean-up, aka a 'detox', ideally in late autumn and early spring, is a pivotal part of the process in overcoming chronic dis-ease, because toxins can shut down a body quicker than a quick thing.

We’re bombarded with toxic materials from every front, and once in the body – and be assured they’re going to come in – they're stored in the tissues and cells, right down at molecular level throughout the body, and they'll affect every one of the body’s systems, including the ones that life depends on - immune, digestive, nervous and circulatory systems.

Here's the cycle

As toxins start to build up in the body, they begin to tax the immune cells. Gut health starts to erode, becoming permeated - leaky gut, allowing the toxins to leak through the gut wall and into the bloodstream, causing the immune system to become locked in overdrive as it tries to fight the toxic overload gatecrashing the body.

The bloodstream is now loaded with free radicals (toxic mutant cells) which means...

• The lymphatic system - the body's waste drainage system - becomes blocked and sluggish
• The liver and kidneys are desperately working overtime trying to process the sheer volume of toxicity from the lymph and blood
• The exit routes become clogged from the toxin excretion queues, forcing much of the toxic load back into the body to be reabsorbed all over again, instead of shifted out and gone forever.

Even if we’re feeding the right feeds, maintaining good movement and managing stressors, toxic sludge in the body will still be doing its best to sabotage our best intentions to keep our horses healthy. And this goes for us humans too.

Simply put, the body doesn’t function well when it’s loaded with toxins.

• First up, cue inflammation - an inflamed leaky gut and worn-out immunity leads to a compromised metabolism, bringing on allergies, lumpy skin, laminitis, puffy-leg oedema, lethargy, ulcers and so on. All leading the way to chronic dis-ease.
• Now we have pain in the picture, which leads to misery, anxiety, loss of appetite, loss of weight/condition, and eventual meltdown.

Detoxification is the first step to get health back on track and reinstate homeostasis, to help our horse function happily again.

4. Doing it naturally

Did you know that for millions of years, plants have protected themselves against their own invaders? Mould, bugs, environment and weather issues, harmful microbes - no problem! Plants have their own inbuilt defence system of powerful phytochemicals, and even better... being a herbivore, our horses have evolved by grazing on those same plants and grasses.

Utilising those same natural phytochemicals means they can also reap the same benefits for their own optimal immunity protection - see our Blog The incredible world of Phytonutrients.

This is where our C.A.R.E. programme comes in, and specifically our OptimaCARE three-stage, full-body clean-up programme for our horses, designed to:

• Cleanse and eliminate gut irritants and toxins, and the vital organ immune system.
  
• Activate healthy digestion and the integrity of the intestinal gut lining.
  
• Restore the detoxification function.
  
• Enhance immunity, energy, strength and vitality.

How herbalists view it

Before we get onto the actual clean-up side of things, let’s look at how herbalists view it all, and how it might differ from a more conventional western pharma approach.

In the first place, if we think of herbs as gourmet, selected, specific, concentrated, healing foods, it’s a much better way of understanding what we’re doing here compared to a drug delivery system. Agreed, for the best part of the last 100-years most drugs were made from plants anyway, but todays' drugs have moved on - they're one specific compound, sometimes the same as what was in the plant, but without the added synergy and buffering chemicals that a plant has, which means potential side-effects.

Today's drugs take that one specific compound and chemically mimic it, so straight away it's synthetic, and modified, and it can overwhelm the body’s systems because, basically, that's what it's designed to do, to 'block' a symptom. Conventional medicine has been focused on trying to shut down or stop or interfere or block some process in the body, using a huge range of pharmaceutical, made-in-a-lab, synthetic chemical medication.

That said, it usually does what it does very well, especially in accident and emergency medicine - thank all the gods for morphine, so say all my previously broken bones. But as we know, while powerful, they're synthetic; they can cause side effects, and they leave toxic residue behind. And unless we're talking a serious accident or emergency, when it comes to a detox the body is better able to use medicinal plants in a more gentle way, because their natural chemicals spread across many metabolic pathways. The body recognises them, knows what to do with them, and uses them where they’re needed without risking side effects.

5. What exactly is a detox?

All of us have heard the 'detox' word over the last decade or so; in some circles it’s become quite a fad approach to health.;in others it's considered ridiculous and pointless. But as happens with new fads, there can be a lot of misinformation out there that could, at the very least, stall the detox journey if the wrong advice is followed. So let’s ask the question ... what actually is a detox?

We already know the body has its own natural, inbuilt clean-up mechanisms, and while the critics will say that the body naturally detoxes every day (which is absolutely true), so therefore we don't need to 'do' a detox, what we’re looking to do is assist that process, especially considering the extra environmental toxic burden, as well as what's in the food that our horses are eating.

Agreed, generally the main filtration organs function very well on their own. Thing is, when the body gets sick the question should be, "What might have happened to overwhelm them?" Modern day living in our modern world of today.

The body’s eliminative systems, i.e. the liver, kidneys, large intestine - don't function as well as they could with our modern environment and modern food systems, so it makes sense to assist the natural process and 'detoxify', in order to remove the waste material from the cells. But - unless it's done right, that toxic waste won't get out.

We know what the signs are when the body needs a clean-up. However, before we focus on the filtration organs, we need to focus on those output channels first and get them 'open' and functioning properly, otherwise nothing will get excreted and it'll all end up as a wasted effort. If the toxic waste can't get out, it's reabsorbed and recirculated back into the body, causing a state of 're-toxification', as in an overload reaction because the body isn't able to eliminate the toxins quickly enough.

Most people do it backwards, going in hard with no exit routes open for the waste to get out. This is where herbalism comes in - and it can make a huge, wonderful, positive difference.

So how do we do it?

6. Detoxing deconstructed

The body uses five of its systems to naturally detoxify itself and keep everything clean:

• The Gastrointestinal Tract removes the solid waste.
  
• The Liver, the most complex and hard-working decontaminating organ, metabolises - aka transforms - literally everything the body ingests into an excretable state, whether through breath, food, water or skin absorption.
• Water-soluble toxins → to the kidneys for elimination
• Fat-soluble toxins → to the large intestine for elimination
  
• The Kidneys remove water-soluble toxins.
  
• The Skin, the body's largest purification organ, has it's own miracle exit route - 'sweat' via the sweat glands.
• The Lungs via the breath.

Now to the four primary exit-routes that keep all the cogs turning:

• First and foremost, and upon which all the others depend - the Mother of all Organs, aka the Bowel region (large intestine, cecum, colon, rectum and anus) - eliminates solid faecal waste matter and fat-soluble toxins sent across from the liver.
  
• The Urinary Tract - eliminates water-soluble toxins via the urine.
  
• Skin/Sweat glands - integumentary toxins (dead epidermal cells) and some excess minerals.
  
• The Lungs - carbonic gas and pleghm.

Now to what's really important - In order to get each exit clear and working properly, an effective clean-up must be done in the correct sequence.

• Everything starts with the gut - the main player, as this is where 70-80% of the immune system is created via nutrition, and is directly connected to the main exit route - the bowel region - so we start here first. If you clean up the liver before opening up the gut's exit route, all you'll do is create a toxin blockage, so we always start with a gut regeneration programme (10-days on our SiboCARE blend - Stage-1 of our OptimaCARE detox programme).
• After cleaning up the gut and the bowel region, the next stage is to clean up the liver, kidneys, and lymphatics (10-days on our LKLCARE blend - Stage-2 of the OptimaCARE programme). The liver is the primary decontaminating workhorse, which breaks down every item that's ingested into the body to molecular size - think of the liver as the Royal Mail’s main sorting office.
• Once a substance has been biotransformed, the liver releases it back into the bloodstream. Water-soluble compounds are delivered to the kidneys, which not only regulate the body’s overall balance but also carry the heavy workload of excreting all water-soluble waste.
• The kidneys filter the biotransformed molecules, reabsorbing those that are useful to the body and excreting the rest as waste. To carry this waste, they draw water to produce urine, which then moves on to the bladder for elimination.
• Finally, the circulatory systems — blood and lymph. The lymphatics act like a drainage network, carrying waste from the brain, skin, and lungs into lymph fluid. This fluid flows through the lymph nodes, where billions of lymphocytes wait in ambush — the body’s immune army, ready to wipe out bacteria, viruses, and any invading pathogens.

Whatever remains after lymph node filtering is emptied into the bloodstream. The blood then passes through the liver for a quick clean-up before setting off again on its circular journey - delivering nutrients on the outbound run and collecting fresh waste on the way back.

So, to restore health and immunity, we have to work downstream — following the flow of elimination, starting with the gut and its main exit route, then moving step by step through each organ and pathway in the order each one relies on the last.

True healing starts downstream: begin with the gut, and every other system can follow its natural path back to balance.

7. Stage 1 - the digestive system, the first line of defence

This is the first place to start; it's where the whole process of digestion occurs - where the nutrients are assimilated and absorbed into the bloodstream, before heading off to the liver for biotransforming, and where the main waste-disposal chute resides.

The whole bowel region could be thought of as the Long Road Home. It's a much bigger picture, though - let's not forget that digestion starts from the minute our horse puts food in its mouth. Chewing releases saliva which mixes with the chewed food and forms a bolus, which travels down the oesophagus and into the stomach (foregut).

Certain digestive enzymes begin both protein and starch pre-digestion; the stomach muscle wall begins churning (a bit like a washing machine), breaking down and liquifying the bolus before it's 'disinfected' by the stomach acid and turned into a soupy mix called chyme, so it can pass easily into the small intestine (SI).

Now we get to where the real business starts to happen - the SI is where true digestion starts to take place. Other digestive enzymes now step into the mix, busily breaking down the starches and fats, and it's also where the nutrients get assimilated - minerals, vitamins, amino acids, essential fatty acids (the omegas) - ready for absorption through the gut wall into the bloodstream.

Finally, what's left - as in the plant fibre, arrives at the large intestine, generally known as the hindgut region, which is a huge fermentation vat where billions of friendly fibre-digesting bacteria reside in readiness to ferment the fibre and create the horse's 'energy'.

The final stage is in the small colon, where the remaining waste material is formed into faecal balls, which head off into the rectum for evacuation through the anus (of course, this is all covered in full in our Gut System section).

Job done. Smiley face. But only in the perfect world ...

The downside: toxins, triggers, and turmoil

Enter toxins, and Boom! Cue almighty digestive havoc - the acidosis–dysbiosis–leaky gut cascade - that fragile microbial balance in the gut microbiome is thrown off, and hostile, pro-inflammatory bugs take over. These gut-damaging bugs overwhelm and kill off the beneficial microbes - the ones that handle the vital nutrient absorption and fibre fermentation. Without them, The food can’t be processed, the fuel can’t flow, and the whole system starts to fail.

The result? A mess of undigested, toxic, compacted matter being pushed into the intestines.

(Just for fun, if your horse is on haylage, they’ll also be ingesting pro-inflammatory lactic-acid bacteria. These microbes literally ‘burp’ out lactic acid as waste, creating gas and bloat where it doesn’t belong. The gut blows up like a balloon, stretching and tearing the fragile intestinal wall membrane. Cue leaky gut — putrid, half-digested toxins seep into the bloodstream and wreak autoimmune havoc.)

This compacted waste takes much longer to travel through the intestines - the intestines are designed to absorb, so the longer this undigested solid waste sits in the intestines, the more it’s going to ferment and rot even further, continuing to impact upon itself, until eventually the digestive system grinds to a murky standstill.

A quick 'blockage' heads-up

There are three areas in the large intestine that are ripe for obstruction:

• For the cecum content to pass into the colon, it must travel through the cecocolic orifice which is just 3-4cm wide.
• Then, as the left ventral colon reaches the pelvic area, it narrows at the pelvic flexure, another common place for blockage to occur.
• Finally, because of the narrowing of the transverse colon, this is another prime blockage spot.

Just a bit scary. (And another scary fact - if we took the bowel contents and injected them directly into the bloodstream it would be instantly lethal.)

So there we have it. The root of where it all goes wrong. Of course, the nutrients in feed play a huge part as well. I know I say this a lot in this website, but in theory, "A healthy body will have a strong immune system, created by a healthy gut, and won’t get sick. If the body’s sick, the immune system is sick."

The only lasting path to health is through a strong microbiome - it directs the immune system, and nutrition gives that system the firepower to keep the body well. But nutrition only works if it’s properly digested, absorbed, and delivered where it’s needed — and only a healthy gut can do that. And the gut can only stay healthy if the three amigos - the body’s major filtration organs - are working in sync downstream, like perfectly oiled cogs in the same wheel.

8. Stage 2 – the two major detoxification organs - liver & kidneys

* See our Liver & Kidneys page for more info

Now we get to the two main filtration organs, the liver and kidneys. They need to work in harmony, each playing their essential part like an instrument in an orchestra. Both have to be firing on all cylinders to process, then sort, the bad stuff from the good, before shifting the waste onwards for elimination. The two circulatory systems, blood and lymphatics, rely entirely on these two organs for their own cleansing.

When there's digestive disruption, i.e. inflammation and toxin build-up in the GI tract, the movement of biotransformed molecules between the liver and the kidneys becomes overburdened, so once the gut and colon are cleaned up, a liver/kidney cleanse is the next stage to help restore the natural GI:liver:kidneys pathway.

The liver - the workhorse of digestion and detoxification

While the hindgut is the largest digestive organ in the body, the liver is the largest digestive gland, and it’s the absolute workhorse of the immune system.

Liver cleansing alone can boost liver production and efficiency by up to 15%, and is one of the most effective ways of boosting the body's own natural detoxing mechanism. When the liver is under too much stress it struggles to process toxins, so they keep on circulating around the body creating inflammatory havoc.

The liver is also responsible for performing a number of essential decontaminating functions, including purifying the blood - the condition of the blood throughout the whole body is mostly reliant on the health of the liver. The liver needs to actively clean the blood during each and every circulatory cycle, in order to support nearly every system within the body.

It has so many other jobs as well, from aiding hormone production, to releasing glucose into the bloodstream to provide steady energy, and - because the horse doesn't have a gall bladder, it's also responsible for releasing a steady, constant trickle of bile - the master fat-digester - into the small intestine. You can see why poor liver function can create so many problems.

The kidneys - the body’s environmentally friendly recycling system

It could be said that the kidneys’ tasks are even more exhaustive than the liver, because while the kidneys are also responsible for the massive task of regulating just about every physiological state in the body, all primary excretion of water-soluble toxins and waste is done through the kidneys via the urine.

9. Stage 3 – the circulatory systems: blood & lymphatics

There are two circulatory systems in the body; the blood, and its lesser-known cousin, the lymphatic system. The main difference between the two are that the lymphatics lack a pump; whereas blood has the heart, there's no pump to push the lymph fluid through its system, so lymph relies entirely on the activation of the entire skeletal musculature via movement. Hence why a long-term stabled horse is at risk from developing lymphangitis.

Blood - literally the life force of the body

Blood has to maintain a healthy flow round the body, depositing nutrients where needed on the outbound journey, then picking up lymphatic waste on the inbound, before heading back to the liver for another clean up before starting its journey round the body all over again.

It supplies essential substances and nutrients such as glucose, ketones, oxygen and hormones to the body's cells, while also removing the body’s own dead cells that are dying off all the time. If the blood cells aren't cleaned up and become overburdened with junk, the killer army of white cells - the infection-busters known as lymphocytes - become depleted, which risks the body becoming susceptible to toxic influx, leading to dis-ease and illness.

The lymphatics - the body's critical drainage-canal system

The lymphatics are the brain, skin and lungs' clean-up crew; these vital organs rely entirely upon the lymphatic system to drain congestion and remove waste, including infection, via the lymph fluid, which then filters everything through the lymph nodes.

Lymph is like butter; the warmer it gets, the softer and more fluid it gets - the colder it gets, the harder it gets. Move, get a bit warm and it’ll keep moving and cleaning faster and more efficiently. Long-term standing still (i.e. a stabled horse), and it slows down and solidifies, aka what we know as puffy leg syndrome.

Another important fact: swollen, hard lymph nodes are not automatically a reason to call the vet! It usually means they’re doing their job - just like when we feel our throat glands swell at the start of a cold.

This is the body working as it should. The lymph nodes swell as they trap bacteria and viruses, then trigger their stored lymphocytes - the infection-busters - to destroy them. Once the invaders are dead, the waste filters back into the lymph, gets dumped into the bloodstream, and the cycle begins again, ready to clear more junk.

10. Detoxing is a marathon, not a sprint

Detoxing the system in sequence, from the inside out, helps reboot the immune system to restore homeostasis to the body. More energy, more stamina, better digestion, better cellular balance. However, it won't happen overnight.

In the perfect world, a clean-up works best when it’s done regularly, gently, and even better, daily - we do this with a selection of gentle, yet effective, proprietary nutrient-rich, tonic herbs. Depending on the toxin overload, a deep clean can typically take anywhere from 1-12 months, sometimes longer, which is why once the system is cleaned up, a daily tonic will continue to support the whole body on an ongoing basis as a preventative. Think of it as us taking a multivit every day.

The body also needs to have natural breaks for the body to naturally strengthen by itself – my method of choice with my horses is 1-day per week (Sunday, so I can have a bit of a lie-in), but some prefer to do 1-week out of 5 - whatever works best for you.

Is it time for a detoxification software update?

If you think your horse could do with a whole-body reset, our OptimaCARE programme offers a 1-month, 3-stage cleanse that works in sequence from the gut downwards. Fed in powder form for swift digestive efficacy, each stage runs for 10 days with a 1-day break in between:

• Stage 1 supports the gut system.
• Stage 2 tones the liver and kidneys.
• Stage 3 focuses on the circulatory systems.

Each stage is separately wrapped for ease of use. Together, the three formulas work synergistically to restore balance across metabolism, immunity, and the detox/elimination pathways.

Once the course is complete, allow a week off for the body to realign, strengthen, and function on its own - this also gives you the chance to assess how your horse is doing. By this point, your horse should have a restored 'inner engine': a balanced digestive system able to digest, ferment, and extract nutrients efficiently, leaving the body ready to deal with any issues without struggling through an overburdened system.

11. Finally, don't knock sweating ...

Human health studies show that sweating is an effective means of detoxification. Most notably the BUS study (blood, urine and sweat), a benchmark study published in 2012, showed that sweat was extremely effective at mobilising and eliminating toxins such as BPA and phthalates. Genuis, S.J., Birkholz, D., Rodushkin, I. et al. Blood, Urine, and Sweat (BUS) Study: Monitoring and Elimination of Bioaccumulated Toxic Elements. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 61, 344–357 (2011).

The study also showed that heavy metals were detected in sweat and exceeded all other elimination routes (faeces and urine) with markedly higher levels of aluminum (3.75x), cadmium (25x), cobalt (7x), and lead (17x). This shows that sweating is an effective means to clear out heavy metals from the body.

Anything that causes the body to sweat is beneficial. Endurance exercise is best because the body tends to sweat more than resistance exercise, which serves its own benefits like building lean muscle mass and strengthening bones. For us humans, if cardio isn’t your thing, there are other ways to perspire, like saunas, steam rooms, hot baths, or other activities that help elevate body temperature.

NB. Unnatural sweating, i.e. unnaturally too much or too little, as well as hyperventilation during unnaturally insufficient sweating, could indicate kidney issues. Any owner knows the normal sweating behaviour of their horse so if this seems out of kilter, this may be an indication of kidney dysfunction.

Sweating can occur on one or other of the shoulders as well, usually something to do with the meridian function, so acupuncture/shiatsu may be useful here.

12. To Conclude

That's it - we're pretty much done! Meanwhile, here are some other factors that might be useful to keep the toxic burden down:

• "Let food be thy medicine." (Hippocrates) Reduce toxic load via natural, species-appropriate, nutrient-rich food to nourish the body, not shiny feed-bag brands containing poor quality, pro-inflammatory, inappropriate junk ingredients.

• Balance energy I know this sounds a bit hippy-wafty but it's really important. Keep energy flowing properly with quality rest and sleep - this is where the immune system reboots each day, and when cells repair damage and restore tissue, as well as being when the body tops up its levels of lymphocytes, the valuable killer-army, infection-busting, white blood cells.

• Reduce stressors Get some happy time in and stressors out.

• "Look well to the spine for the cause of dis-ease." (Hippocrates again) The how, when, and why of the immune system's natural response is controlled by the nervous system, and it's the spine that protects and surrounds the spinal cord, through which the brain communicates with the body. The spine is designed to have a very specific structure, and any deviation directly interferes with the nervous system’s ability to adapt - and respond to, stress.
  
  Everything we do impacts the nervous system so we need to look after it. Nerve impingement creates tension, which creates an adrenalin-fuelled survival fight/flight state, and trust me when I say when we wear out the adrenal glands during permanently switched-on fight/flight, we hit chronic stress and exhaustion, which isn't pretty. See our Stress page for the full story.

• Teeth Teeth have a huge impact on health - numerous locations in the jaw are directly connected to the body’s organs. Each tooth socket has a ligament which holds the tooth in place; following any dental work, if toxins remain in the mouth (which in our horses's case is rarely cleaned properly afterwards), this can lead to infection which affects the tooth socket, the ligament and the jawbone.

13. Contraindications - the Herxheimer Reaction

Warning - Do not detox horses during onset laminitis due to the risk of re-toxification

Meet the Herxheimer Reaction, commonly referred to as ‘feeling worse before feeling better’. This can mean a rare, but occasional, short-term (as in a couple of days) detox reaction in the body, aka 're-toxification'.

Herxing, as it's commonly referred to, was first observed in syphilis patients by dermatologists Adolf Jarisch and Karl Herxheimer in the late 1800s/early 1900s, who during 'treatment' noticed that sufferers often got worse before they got better. The phenomenon was dubbed the Jarisch-Herxheimer Reaction, and has since been shortened to Herxheimer Reaction or simply, herxing.

The classic explanation of a Herxheimer Reaction is that when certain bacteria are killed off, say, by an antibiotic, parts of dead bacteria called endotoxins are shed. These endotoxins then circulate throughout the body and cause a fairly intense, but short-lived inflammatory reaction, which temporarily makes the war against the toxins that’s already going on inside the body feel a whole lot worse.

Simply put, it’s an overload reaction - it’s basically an immune system reaction where, as the body detoxifies, an overload of toxins overburden the blood supply while stuck in the queue waiting to be eliminated.

In general, Herx reactions are more common and more intense with conventional antibiotic use than with use of herbs. With herbs, the bacterial die‐off is more gradual and the immune response is less intense. That said, while there’s no clinical research on the prevalence of herxing in horses, it's not uncommon to witness general ill-at-ease, anything from joint/muscle pain, itching/scratching, sweating and gut imbalances amongst others. In humans, chronic headaches are a common sign.

The good news? This is a perfectly normal - and even healthy - reaction, indicating that the parasites, fungals, viruses, bacteria and other impurities are being effectively killed off. Although it may appear that the detox isn’t working, a noticeable Herxheimer reaction is a sign that a healthy, positive detox is taking place. Worsening presentations don't indicate failure of the detox - just the opposite.

Your horse is herxing – now what?

It’s one of life’s cruel chronic illness jokes: your horse’s detox is going great and you’re feeling optimistic about finally getting them better. Then without any warning, their symptoms take a turn for the worse. Once you've determined it's a Herx reaction, you’re probably wondering how long this is going to last?
 
There’s no simple answer – it’s usually just a few days, but try to keep up with the therapy at a dose your horse can handle. If you feel you need to, lower it - you can always increase once your horse is over the Herx hump. Worst case? Stop the detox for a few days.
 
In the meantime, here are a few ways to ease the discomfort:

 

1. Continue therapy at tolerable doses. Adjust as needed and gradually increase as symptoms improve.
2. Hydration is crucial for detoxification as it aid lymph flow, promoting waste removal - make sure your horse is getting salt in their feedbowl.
3. Address cellular stress factors – give your horse a magnesium wash. Dissolve a mug of Epsom Salts and a few drops of Lavender essential oil in a bucket of water. This not only helps with removing toxins from the body but also helps soothe tight muscles.
4. Alleviate the discomfort with anti-inflammatory therapies.

We’ve only had one client years ago who reported concernable agitated behaviour from her usually very calm, sweet, elderly chap, who turned into a fire-breathing dragon during his detox. He was half way through Stage 2 (liver/kidneys) and no doubt experiencing a tough time, but understandably his owner decided to pull the plug as she was really worried at the 360-degree character change, plus any potential injury risk.

Other than this one instance, we’ve not had any client report any significant side effects in 10-years or so - only beneficial improvement at the end of the programme. See the testimonials on the product page.

Meanwhile, click on the SHOP link below to see our completely natural, herbal Detoxification product range.