Using Binders to Remove Toxins

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. The podcast, whatever you want to call it, we are talking today about binders. Had a lovely person write into the podcast about wanting to know about binders and binders are things that you can use to get toxins out of the body. Out of your body, out of your dog's body. We can totally look at that, right? And Katie, Coach, if you're listening, this one's for you. Katie writes in. Hi, Rita, can you talk a bit more about binders like Zeolite, which ones to use when dosages, etc. Also, are there any special things we need to take into account when using them? I have heard not to use certain binders with metal spoons, bowls, etc. Katie, that is an excellent question. So that's what we're gonna deal with. First, I do wanna thank my sponsor, realmushrooms.com the people at Real Mushrooms are awesome. They're always trying to improve their research, they're always trying to improve their products. They work very closely with their growers and I love their products. I've been using their products for so long. I use a lot of different mushroom products, but for mushroom powders, hot water extracted, pow, use realmushrooms.com and I sell them at my store. I drink Real Mushrooms, Tremella, chaga and turkey tail many, many mornings. And I love it because together it makes, you know, the closest thing I get can get to hot chocolate. Chocolate and I don't get along all that well. So, yeah, I love their product and I trust their product. And they just acquired Lee Carroll, who is a God. He's a phenomenal herbalist and just a mushroom expert. He's been studying mushrooms for so long, he teaches mushroom knowledge and education and now he's on staff at Real Mushrooms. So just congratulations to the people over at Real Mushrooms for that hire. Love having him as a resource. I took one of his beta courses. For his current mushroom course, I took his beta course and before it came out and it was mind boggling. Mind boggling. So, yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you to Real Mushrooms for helping us keep this podcast alive. And we are going to talk about binders. So a binder, right, is a way to get the toxins out of your dog's body and it Helps reduce toxins. And remember, toxins can affect nutrient absorption. They can affect, they have, you know, heavy metals can be a toxin. Different environmental considerations like glyphosate can be a toxin. And you have something called a toxic load. You and your dog. And you don't want your toxic load to get too high. A lot of people talk about the bucket. You know, when your bucket is full, you know, well, when it's approaching full, you're developing disease, and when it's full, you have. You have disease.

Okay.

And things that contribute to your dog's toxic load are things like stress. That for me, it's like almost number one. Nasty diet. It happens. Poor treats, antibiotics, steroids, pharmaceuticals, NSAIDs, you know, those types of things. Sometimes your dog needs a pharmaceutical, so you need to be mindful that you're working with the body to support the use of that pharmaceutical. Environmental toxins, we all know those. Those are rampant. Low stomach acid that allows pathogens to flow into the body where they wouldn't normally if stomach acid is strong. So dogs on, like protein pump inhibitors or antacids are definitely at a more risk for a higher toxic load. Food sensitivities, the consistent immune response is going to bring up the toxic load. And then there's also, like, epigenetic factors where you, you have genes that turn on for one reason or another. Usually poor food or medicine turns those things on. Stress. And the liver doesn't detox as well.

Okay.

There's lots and lots of things. Vaccines, flea and tick meds.

Okay.

For our dogs and cats, diesel fuel. Living by a busy street. You know that things are going to be more toxic living there than, say, in the middle of the woods. And then you have things like mycotoxins and mold. So you want the body to be able to deal with those and get that stuff out of the system.

Okay.

Get it out of the system. And another thing is like anesthesia and different things like that. I mean, I could go on for a really, really long time. Water, you know, make sure you're filtering your water. Don't use bottled water with your dog or yourself. You know, if you're out driving down the road and you're parched, yeah, you might have to use a bottle of water, but don't use it consistently. It has lots of plasticizers, microplastics, bpa, bha. Nasty stuff. It's not regulated. In fact, municipal water is better than lots of bottled water because it's more regulated. But definitely get a water filtration system. And then we have Air quality, food quality, not using organic produce or not using organic meats. Then we have cleaning products. I mean, I could go on literally for days.

Okay.

So we want our bodies to be able to drain, that is removing toxins, drainage. So what do we do? You know, what do we need to consider? We need to consider the lungs, the skin, the gut, the liver, right? We need to consider the elimination organs. Listen to my podcast on the lymphatic system. That's really important. We have to consider the kidneys, again, the lungs, the colon, the skin, the elimination organs, okay? And we have to look at water soluble toxins and fat soluble toxins. So those are things that we need to do because fat soluble toxins, they like to be in our fat cells, in your dog's, fat cells, in the bone marrow, in the liver, in the brain. Remember, the brain is a fatty organ. And then water soluble toxins like to hang out in the blood, in the tissues where the cells are, where they're getting fed. Muscles, joints. And so when toxins are high, we get symptoms, okay? We get little red flags. Your dog can get rashes, they can get arthritis and joint pain, autoimmune disease. They can be overweight or underweight. They can have some neurological issues. Stress, anxiety, inflammation, hormone imbalances, constipation, diarrhea, alternating constipation with diarrhea. These are all things that are saying, hey, there's something going on. There's something going on in here. Someone help me. So binders are a good way. You know, Dr. Odette Souter put out a meme a few weeks back. I had to send her a personal message because she's awesome. And I told her, you know, love what you're putting out about detoxification. You know, everyone's like, detox, detox, detox, detox, detox, detox, detox, detox, detox. Okay, stop it, Rita. But you need to prepare the body for detoxification. You need to make sure that lymphatic system is moving and grooving. You need to make sure that you have fresh air and exercise. You need to make sure that the toxins are getting out of the body or they'll just start recirculating and building. You'll get dampness and lipomas, and we don't want that, okay? So be careful with all your detox detox. And if you are detoxing, we need to make sure that we're binding those toxins and we're giving the body what it needs to get them out. That's One of the reasons why I love phytoembryonic therapy, but that's another conversation. So binders are things that, again, bind to toxins. They either trap them in them or they have this thing called a negative charge, like bentonite clay. And toxins have a positive charge, and so that helps remove them through the colon mostly.

Okay.

And definitely they do a few things. So they assist the body, okay. At bringing down toxic load, I. E. Binders. Right. And your body does have some mechanism to remove toxins on its own, but a lot of times through stagnation, that's slowing things down or toxin exposure, things get too high. And binders can help remove those toxins, they can help get biofilm out of the gut, they can help prevent toxins from building up, and they can also help move things through the digestive system. So I think that going through binders for you will help this. Okay, let's just go over. I'm gonna go over the binders, but let's just go over kind of where in the body they are and kind of what they do a little more. So let's look at the main detoxifier in the body, which is the liver.

Okay?

Your liver is, is a detoxifying organ. It's a binding organ. It makes toxins less toxic, and it helps excrete them through the colon and the kidneys, and it creates bile with the gallbladder, which definitely helps your dog break things down fat wise for digestion and then absorption, assimilation. Remember, it's all about elimination and assimilation. So binders help the liver not be so stressed. They help all of the elimination organs not be so stressed, and they also help prevent that inflammatory response, and they help dogs not be so uncomfortable if their parents are giving them too much detoxification all at once or. Or just from detoxification in general. And I think that one needs to know that a lot of toxins are fat soluble. So again, this is a need to use the lymph system as an exit pathway, as a transportation system. But the lymph system needs to be moving and in good order. So, again, listen to my lymph podcast episode and get more information on that. I think that binders are a really good way to deal with the lymph system and the fat soluble toxins.

Okay.

And they interact with bile in the intestine, and they also help the gut lining not absorb toxins. Okay. So they're taking some of the pressure off our and your dog's gut. Right. So binders, again, they attach themselves or they attract through negative ions. And usually you'd think, well, toxins are negative ions. No, toxins are positive ions. Negative ions are binders. Okay, so we do you. I mean, pooping is a really good way to remove toxins.

Okay.

We have to be pooping. So if your dog is chronically constipated, you need to deal with the constipation before you start detoxing your dog.

Okay.

We want to definitely do that or in conjunction with making sure that your dog has what it needs to go to the bathroom before you start trapping toxins in their body. Okay. So the first binder that I want to deal with is beninite clay. So Ben and I. Clay is a wonderful binder that uses negative ions. Clay water is great for giving to your dog. It helps bind mycotoxins, pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate, heavy metals, because mennonite clay, really, it interacts with your dog's environment and especially the gut environment. And it is also good for aflatoxin.

Okay.

And aflatoxin. If you're giving your dogs peanut butter, which you shouldn't, I would definitely use clay water. Like, maybe before they go to bed, give them a little bit of clay water to help get that aflatoxin out of the body. And you can use beninite clay to. I mean, all you do is you mix it with, mix it with water and make sure that you use a, like a ceramic or a glass container or wood. And don't use metal with beninite clay. It doesn't like it. It messes with it with the ions. Okay, so use a wooden spoon. If you don't have a wooden spoon, you could use a plastic spoon. I'm not a fan, but you could. But I would use a wooden spoon and just mix some clay up into like a paste, put it in a glass of water, let it sit overnight, put a top on it, let it sit overnight. And in the morning, you can use that clay water as a binder for your pup. And there's a lovely article I wrote for Dogs Naturally magazine on using clay. I also have it on my blog@canineherbalist.com the next one is diatomaceous earth. Now, I'm not a huge fan of diatomaceous earth for dogs. A lot of people use it. I'm just not a huge fan. But if you're gonna use it, make sure that you use food grade diatomaceous earth.

Okay.

And get one that's made for dogs. So it will give you the proper, the proper amounts to use for diatomaceous earth.

Okay.

Diatomaceous earth is made with diatoms. They're little fossils. And they help the body get rid of parasites. They help. Well, I mean, it's a natural insecticide. It definitely can help detoxify the body.

Okay.

Again, I'm not a huge fan, so I can't really speak to it. One of the binders out there is activated charcoal, and activated charcoal is a powder. It's black. It's a great toxin binder. It's been used for a long time. It goes through the gastrointestinal tract, and toxins get caught in the pores of the charcoal.

Okay.

And they definitely go through the bowels and get removed in the poop. So if you're giving your dogs activated charcoal, remember, you're gonna get black stools. It's not gonna be from an upper GI Bleed. It's gonna be from the black in the charcoal. Now, what is activated charcoal good for? So it's good for binding with pesticides, herbicides, different mycotoxins drugs, but it's not that great at heavy metals.

Okay.

It's not that great at heavy metals. And it does help with food sensitivities. It helps with things that your dog gets into. Different types of toxins. It can help remove them from the body. It can also help in an emergency situation. Right. And it can bind to nutrients. So don't give your dog activated charcoal every day, just during detoxification and when it's intentional.

Okay.

It definitely is kind of a thing that could cause constipation or nausea in some dogs. So you want to be careful of that. It can help improve skin because it's gonna take that load off the liver while you're doing detoxification protocols. All right. And the dosage for activated charcoal is 3 to 5 grams for every 10 pounds. I would use 5 grams if your dog was having an emergency, and 3 grams if you're just doing 10 detoxification. Now, I'm going to share you a little tiny story about Benite clay and activated charcoal. So I was at a friend's house once, and she gave me something to sleep. And I was having a really rotten day, and I just wanted to go to sleep, and I was pretty desperate. This was a while back. But she gave me this. I don't know, like a half of a pill of. I can't remember what it was exactly what the name of it was. It was something to help calm you down. And against my better judgment, I took it. And within, I would say, 15 minutes, I started Feeling so weird and awful. I started sweating. It was having the opposite effect. I felt like I was having some type of panic attack. It was just beyond thunderdome. It was terrible. And so I called her into the bedroom, and I said, oh, my God, this pill is horrible. What is the, like, the half life of this pill? How long is it gonna have an effect? And she looks it up and it's 12 hours. And I was like, no, there's no way I can feel like this for 12 hours. No way. So I said, do you have any beninite, clay, or charcoal in the house? And she's like, I don't know. And I said, think, think. And I was hysterical. And she's like, oh, my God, I have a clay mask. And sure enough, it was a mix of benonite, clay, and charcoal in a, like, a little powdered, fancy little bottle. So I took that entire bottle, mixed it with a, like, I don't Even know, maybe 36, 40 ounces of water, and chugged it. And within 20 minutes, my symptoms were gone, never to return. And it was such a kind of a horrible experience. I fell fast asleep within just a few minutes. So, yeah, it took me, like, 15 minutes to fall asleep after that, and I slept through the night. But it was not a pleasant experience. But it did show me definitely how quickly bentonite, clay, and charcoal can work for a bad pharmaceutical experience. So I just wanted to share that with you. A little anecdotal offerings back on the binder train. Another one is chlorella. I use chlorella whenever I think I have gotten glutened. It works really well for that. I'm gluten free. I have gluten intolerance, and chlorella is my friend. I also used chlorella to help heal my diverticula, which I had diverticulosis for a while. And I know people say that you can't heal it up, but I healed my diverticula completely with chlorella, marshmallow root, slippery elm, and a few other herbs over a period of years. And worked like a charm. Worked like a charm. So chlorella is a good detoxifier, and it is good at heavy metals.

Okay.

Chlorella is good at getting mercury out of the body. And definitely for, like, people who have titanium implants. I have titanium implants. I have it all over my face. I had upper and lower jaw surgery. I've had a lot go on in the first half of my life, upper and lower jaw surgery. So my face is basically held together by titanium implants. I've got titanium screws, but which, you know, another form of titanium implants is tooth implants. But we don't need to worry about that too much with dogs. But those also, you know, are not the greatest for your body. The one thing about chlorella that you need to be concerned with is sourcing. So it needs to be clean, it needs to be cracked wall. And it's not something that you want to use long, long term, I definitely would go through periods of using chlorella, but long, long term, you want to make sure that the supplier of chlorella tests for what's called microcysteines, some chlorella is contaminated with that. And so you wanna make sure that your sourcing knows about microcysteines and is testing for them. But I do use chlorella with dogs. I try to use the best sources I can. And you know, it's good to understand where your supplements are coming from, right? You want to make sure that you have good sourcing. Just don't, you know, haul off and trust people. Ask questions, send emails. If companies won't ask answer your questions, then that is probably a good sign that you should not use their supplements. Chlorella is high in zinc and antioxidants and different vitamins and minerals. And it does support the immune system, it does support energy, cellular energy definitely has amino acids in it and it helps brain health, it helps eliminate toxins. I like to use chlorella with other binders. So I don't find it has like the best binding capabilities compared to other ones. So I use it. I use chlorella in conjunction with zeolite. Zeolites are from like volcanic material and they definitely are things that bind very well. I like to use a liquid zeolite. I sell it in my store and I use like a microtized, like nano liquid zeolite. I've had really good results with that. Zeolites can be, you know, have a really strong negative charge. So you want to start out really slow.

Okay.

With zeolites. Very, very slow. And I mean, I guess going up in dosage for zeolites, I would, I probably would stay the course for a good week at one dosage and then go up again the next week by a drop and see how your dog does with it.

Okay.

Zeolites are anti inflammatory, they're definitely an antioxidant and good at detoxifying the body. They're good at getting rid of heavy metals, so they can help cholerella work with that. They are good at Pesticides and herbicides and at anesthesia, they support the immune immune system in your dog and they can help balance inflammatory responses. So they're not just a binder, but they are very, very good, good toxin binder.

Okay.

Very, very good toxic binder and another like binder, not necessarily a really powerful binder, but can be used on a daily basis safely. And it, in my opinion, it's good at binding glyphosate, which we all need. And that is fulvic acid, which is called a bioactive carbon acid.

Okay?

Fulvic acid, which contains some humic acid, is full of minerals and it's an antioxidant and it's what's called an elemental. So it gives us bioavailable trace minerals, which is good. And we definitely need these things to have healthy kidney function and to again bind toxins. Fulvic acid helps with a little toxin called benzoprene. And that is from things like when you cook meat too much or people smoke around you or you're eating any or being exposed to petroleum products. And definitely from pesticides and herbicides and different household chemicals that you may not know are toxic. Fulvic acid is wonderful for that. And fulvic acid, like iron biome, is one that I carry in my store. I also use a one called Age immune, which is for humans, but I use it for myself and my dogs. You want to go slow and work your way way up, just like with zeolite. Cause you just don't know how quickly these things are going to help remove toxins and move them through the bowels and the kidneys. And you want to ramp up slowly. You can always go up, but you can't go down on dosage when your dog is having a reaction or detoxing too quickly. The one good thing about fulvic acid is that it's very safe long term.

Okay?

Very safe long term. One thing I forgot to say when I was talking about beninite clay, couple caveats. So I did mention the wooden spoon and glass container, but I also want to mention use filtered or spring water with the beninite clay. And don't feed your dog for at least two hours after using the clay, okay? That's why I like to use it at night. Don't give any medications within two hours of using the clay. It not a good use, not a good, not a good deal. And don't use clay long term.

Okay?

We don't want to use clay long term. It's not for like to use it for a really really long time. And again, when you're using it internally, it's good for parasites, it's good for worming, it's good for digestive issues and detoxification and binding. It's good for after surgery. It helps remove radiation from the body, but you don't need that much. So I want to give you an idea of kind of how to use it. Again, you can look up my Healing Clay for Dogs article on Dogs Naturally magazine, but you want to use, like, you can use a teaspoon or a tablespoon of bentonite clay, and you're going to use about 4 ounces of water. If you're using a teaspoon, you could use, like, 2 ounces of water. And you're gonna, like, get a little plastic syringe, and you're gonna mix that clay with the water. You're gonna let that stand overnight. You're gonna give your dog a syringe of the water that evening or the next morning.

Okay.

It'll last for a couple of days. Keep it covered.

Okay.

And again, if you give it in the morning, wait two hours to feed breakfast or. Or any supplements or pharmaceuticals.

Okay.

So. And I would probably do that for about 10 days or while you are detoxifying in general.

Okay.

That is the skinny on binders, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed that. I do want to thank my sponsor, adored beast Apothecary. I am always talking about their go to. I know it's true, but another go to moment I had. So this past week, I got a text from a colleague in the professional arena that wasn't so nice. And it just surprised me so much that, you know, you kind of felt it in your gut, like what you know, and you can only react how you respond to something, you know, Most things. Most things. If you're in integrity and you get the full story, which I did not get, but most things are not about you. Right? Just think about, like, the stuff that we. We. We react to. Right. The stuff that irritates me is usually always about me, unless it's some injustice to an animal or, like, political injustice or something like that. But even the things that we kind of get upset about in the world really come back to us as people. Like the things that are important to us. But when we're being a little on the nasty side, it's usually about us, Our ego or something like that. And I definitely kept that in mind. Like, I was like, no, this is not about me, but what I did to help calm my nervous system and calm me down and like really get some perspective quickly. I use the go to by Adored Beast and the interesting thing is that I could tell that my dog knew that I was upset and one of my dogs, Wheezy Weezy, knew that I was upset and then she started getting weird so I gave her some too and we both calmed down almost immediately. The mixture of aconite and Arnica is absolutely beautiful and so quick acting. I absolutely love it and so it is definitely high on my list of recommendations. Adored Beast has such lovely products. They're very effective. They can really make a difference in your dog's life if they're well indicated. Products need to be well indicated. They need to be something that is like specific to your dog's needs. You know, we just don't want to throw a bunch of products at your dog and hope something will stick, you know. Do I love brands? Absolutely I love brands. I love Adored Beast. But do I love Adored Beast products for every dog? No, that's not how. That's not how brands work. That's not how. Because remember, brands are the umbrella for the ingredients in the products and those ingredients in the products may not necessarily be for your individual dog. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disaster or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest, the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any production.