aqua detox, friend or foe?

One of the re-occuring advices I have been receiving is to clear my liver and kidneys of the harmful chemo-therapy drugs. Chemo drugs deposit in the kidneys and can cause further cancers later in life. I try to drink lots of water, and juice 3 times a week. At times I can feel the congestion in my kidneys and it is always something that gets mentioned when I have 'alternative' therapies.

One that I recently started is called 'Aqua Detox'. It involves placing you feet in a bowl of water (foot spa style), which contains an electrical unit, which is attached to a control box. Saline is placed in the water and a (very) small electrical charge is passed through the water. This then draws toxins out through the thousands of pores in the feet. The results are dramatic with the water turning brown, almost black by the end of the half hour treatment. There was also a lot of fatty, frothy scum on the surface of the water. It was a nice treatment and my feet felt great. Note also that section of your feet a linked to every organ in your body, reflexology style.

This was last Monday. Here I am at 4am on a Wednesday morning unable to sleep because of 'burning' in my kidneys. It's a feeling I know well from when I was having chemo. My presumtion is that, having had the treatment, the toxins have been dislodged and are causing some irritation. This doesn't particularly worry me as it makes complete sense, and many detox therapies that I have had and read about speak of returning symptoms as the toxins move around the body on their way out. Think of it like a jar of water with sediment in the bottom. If you shake it up the sediment will mix with the water and turn it cloudy. The same is happening in my body, and as it begins to settle again it is finding new places to deposit itself. Hence detox requires a regular, prolonged program.

The company that produces the machine is Aqua Detox.

I have done a search on Google and it has brought up some interesting comments regarding this treatment. There seems to be a lot of disagreement over whether the treatment actually does anything or whether it is just another scam. Mainly it speaks about the fact that the browning of the water is due to the iron element in the water rusting. I can see that, when I started my treatment I saw brown coming from the element. In fact I can understand all the arguments against, as there often are with 'alternative' procedures, especially from the conventional medicine world (the same one that gives doctors an optional 1 hour session on nutrition and its role in health? - excuse my cinisism). The fact is, brown water from iron or my feet, that it has stirred something up in my kidneys. I am looking forward to my course of treatments and the health benefits it will bring. I will continue to report my findings.