Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing

Prostate Cancer

This sheet is part of the cancer series. The Cancer sheet explains what allows cancer to form anywhere in the body and lays out the full Incurables Program. This sheet covers what is particular to the prostate. An enlarged prostate, infection and everyday prostate care are on the Prostate Health sheet.

Understanding the Condition

How the Healthy Prostate Works

The prostate is a small gland about the size of a walnut. It sits just below the bladder and wraps around the urethra, the tube that carries urine out of the body. It makes part of the fluid that carries the sperm, and its work is driven by the male hormones, mainly testosterone.

Its neighbors matter. The prostate sits at the very bottom of the pelvis, with the bladder above it and the rectum pressed right against its back wall. The part of the gland that lies against the rectum is where most prostate cancers begin. That is why a doctor can feel the prostate through the rectum, and why the suppositories on this sheet can reach it. When the bowel is full and backed up, it presses on the prostate and slows the circulation through it. The closest point on the outside of the body is the perineum, the skin between the testicles and the anus.

Side view diagram of the bladder, prostate, urethra, seminal vesicle, rectum and perineum

The prostate and its neighbors, seen from the side. A backed-up bowel presses on the gland, and the perineum is the closest outside point to it. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

How Prostate Cancer Forms

Prostate cancer follows the same road down that the Cancer sheet describes: years of waste coming in faster than the bowel, liver, kidneys and lymph can carry it out, until the tissue is starved, congested and no longer able to keep its designed structure. Dr. Christopher taught that the prostate fills with mucus and sediment, often in a body whose own hormones are no longer keeping the gland working well.

  • A stagnant pelvis. The prostate sits at the bottom of the pelvis, where circulation is slowest. A constipated bowel pressing against it, long hours of sitting and little movement all let the area grow stagnant. Dr. Richard Schulze said it plainly: “With the prostate, you really need to increase the circulation.”
  • Hormones. Prostate cells grow in response to male hormones. The liver breaks hormones down once they have done their work; a congested liver leaves the gland bathed in old hormones longer.
  • Food. Dr. Christopher warned strongly against processed meats such as hot dogs, bologna and other cold cuts, with their nitrates and nitrites. In my practice, going completely meat-free while the prostate recovers is very important, and sandwich meats and beef products are the worst offenders.
  • What can’t be changed. Age is the biggest one: about 6 in 10 prostate cancers are found in men 65 or older. A father or brother with prostate cancer, African ancestry, and inherited genes such as BRCA2 also raise the risk (American Cancer Society). A tendency is only a weak spot, not a sentence.

About 1 in 8 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime, and about 1 in 49 will die of it (American Cancer Society, 2026). Many prostate cancers grow very slowly, and many men live with them for years.

How It Progresses

  • In the gland. Abnormal cells grow inside the prostate, often for years without any symptom at all.
  • Through the wall. The cancer grows through the gland’s outer capsule into the tissue around it and the seminal vesicles.
  • Lymph nodes. Cells travel along the lymph to the nodes in the pelvis.
  • Distant spread. Prostate cancer spreads most often to the bones, especially the spine and hips, and sometimes to other organs.

About the PSA test. PSA is a protein the prostate makes, measured in a blood test. Cancer can raise it, but so can an enlarged prostate, infection, a recent ejaculation and even a long bicycle ride. One number on its own tells you little. Dr. Schulze taught men to compare a reading to their own earlier numbers rather than to a chart: the direction it is moving matters more than where it stands.

Know the Signs, and When to Get Help

Early prostate cancer usually has no symptoms. Later signs can include trouble starting or keeping a stream, a weak flow, getting up often at night, blood in the urine or semen, new trouble with erections, and pain in the hips, back or other bones. Most of these are more often caused by an enlarged prostate than by cancer, but each one deserves a look. Those of you who use a doctor will want to have them checked.

Get help right away if you cannot pass urine at all, or if you have a fever with pain low in the pelvis. A bladder that cannot empty is an emergency.

Imaging and a biopsy are the only ways to know for certain whether it is cancer. My caution about biopsy is on the Tumors & Lumps sheet; weigh what you will gain from knowing. Prostate cancer can be a serious, life-threatening disease. Herbs and cleansing are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. If you are having surgery, radiation or hormone treatment, tell your doctor what you are doing.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing.

The prostate sits at the center of a man’s sense of himself as a man. Trouble here very often comes with trouble in the bedroom, and with fears about growing older and losing strength. Many men carry this quietly and alone. Facing it, and talking about it with the people who love him, is part of the healing.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

  • Prostate: “Represents the masculine principle.” Turn it around: “I accept and rejoice in my masculinity.”
  • Prostate problems: “Mental fears weaken the masculinity. Giving up. Sexual pressure and guilt. Belief in aging.” Turn it around: “I love and approve of myself. I accept my own power. I am forever young in spirit.”
  • Cancer: “Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. ‘What’s the use?’” Turn it around: “I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.”

Emotional patterns quoted from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The prostate is where the cancer shows, but the work starts with the whole body. First establish the full program on the Cancer sheet. A week or two on the Incurables Program clears the liver and kidneys and shores up the body to heal. Then work on three areas: the bowel, which presses on the gland and must carry the waste out; the kidneys and urinary tract, which the prostate is part of; and the prostate itself, through the rectum and the perineum.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. With prostate cancer the trouble shows in the gland, but the bowel pressing against it and the liver behind it are where it is held. Keep them open, or the prostate has nowhere to send its waste.

Clear the Bowel, Liver and Kidneys

  • The bowels must move. The Lower Bowel Formula (LBF), building up until the bowels move two or three times a day. A full bowel presses directly on the prostate.
  • Liver and kidney flushing on the schedule in the Cancer sheet, with castor oil packs over the liver and bowel at night.
  • Kidney Support. The prostate is part of the whole urinary system, and it all needs to be supported. Take Kidney Support alongside the prostate formula.
  • The Blood Purifying Formula or the Detox Formula during the cleanse weeks, as directed on its formula sheet, and Essiac as on the Cancer sheet.
  • Echinacea every day, to keep the immune system strong enough to handle the die-off. If you have an autoimmune condition, talk with Dara before starting. Echinacea can overstimulate an immune system that is already attacking the body. In its place we use astragalus and marshmallow root. This is much slower, and the whole program has to be done in a gentler way so the body can handle the detoxing. Some people are able to use Echinacea later, once their system has healed and cleared; others never can.

Using Chaparral With Care

Chaparral is one of the herbs in the Blood Purifying Formula. It has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use and has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Stay at the dose on the formula sheet. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

Feeding and Clearing the Prostate: Prostate Support

Prostate Support is our main formula for the prostate: saw palmetto berry, pygeum bark, nettle root, cleavers, corn silk, juniper berry, uva ursi, thuja and oat tops. These herbs are traditionally used to reduce swelling and congestion in the gland, keep the urine flowing, and feed the prostate what it needs.

  • On the program: 1 teaspoon every three hours, five times a day.
  • Once things are under control: 1 teaspoon two or three times a day; to maintain, once a day.
  • It works best used steadily for 3 to 4 months, along with the foundational programs.
  • For urgent flow or infection: Dr. Christopher’s Male Urinary Tract Support Tea (goldenseal, gravel root, marshmallow, parsley root, juniper, lobelia and cayenne) is a very good formula. We no longer make it because it is so expensive to produce, but you can make it yourself: the recipe is on its own sheet. Take 2 capsules morning and night, or ½ cup of the tea often through the day when the need is urgent.

Working on the Prostate Itself

Because the prostate lies against the rectum and just above the perineum, we can reach it from two sides: from inside, with suppositories and garlic, and from outside, with packs over the perineum. Every HEAL salve is available as the oil, before the beeswax is added; ask for the oil form when you order.

Prostate suppositories, nightly at bedtime, and as needed throughout the healing to support the flow of urine:

  • Make them: mix 60% M&L Oil with 40% coconut oil. Pour into the fingers of an unpowdered disposable glove and freeze for 20 minutes. Tie off the fingers and store them in the dairy compartment of the refrigerator.
  • Insert: put a little olive oil on the rectal opening, then insert one suppository as deeply as you can, toward the prostate. As it melts, it eases the blockage in the prostate and brings back a better flow of urine.
  • For a stronger anti-inflammatory effect, make them the same way with the Healing Salve oil.

A garlic clove. Peel a whole clove, cut one small slice in it if you like to let out a little of the juice, and insert it into the rectum, toward the prostate. Never use crushed garlic here; it is far too painful.

The M&L Salve and castor oil pack, overnight:

  • Lay a piece of flannel, folded two layers thick, over the lap and rest the genital area (his manhood) on it.
  • Pack M&L Salve well into the perineum, the area between the testicles and the anus. It is the closest point on the outside of the body to the prostate. Cover the genitals with a good coating as well, and a little over the lower belly just above the shaft.
  • Lay a castor-oil-soaked flannel over the salve. The salve opens the area, and the castor oil breaks up the congestion.
  • Fold the flannel around the genitals and back underneath, leaving the tip free so he can pass urine without unwrapping. Leave it on all night.
  • Give the area at least 6 hours a day out of the pack so the skin can absorb the extra oil.

Hot and cold showers with a shower wand. Aim the spray low, at the area between the legs and the lower belly: hot for about 3 minutes, then cold for 30 seconds to a minute. Repeat three times and finish with cold. This pumps fresh circulation through the prostate without putting anything into the body.

A spastic bladder. Sometimes the prostate is flowing, but there is still a sudden, urgent need to go. That is the bladder in spasm. One dropperful of Lobelia by mouth stops the bladder spasm.

Movement. Walk or rebound every day. The pelvis grows stagnant with sitting, and the lymph depends on movement to carry the waste away.

The Prostate and the Marriage Bed

When there is trouble with the prostate, there is very often trouble with erections too. An erection is all about circulation: the fluids must flow freely through the area, and any blockage or buildup there keeps the shaft from filling properly. Surgery, radiation and hormone treatment for prostate cancer can also bring this on. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and it can be helped.

The M&L Salve pack above opens the area and frees the constrictions so the fluids can flow. It usually helps after one or two applications, and it can be repeated as needed while the prostate and male glands are being restored.

If hormones need support too, Male Support and Male Booster are available. You can decide whether you need the added support: read their formula sheets, and if you have questions, ask. Keep in mind that prostate cancer often grows in response to male hormones, which these formulas support, so weigh that with your own program. Male Support contains yohimbe, so anyone on heart or blood pressure medicines should check with Dara first.

Food

  • Go completely meat-free while the prostate recovers. The worst offenders are sandwich meats and beef products. Once the body has recovered, you can decide what you can safely eat again.
  • The full food program on the Cancer sheet: the juicer going every day, at least 32 ounces of carrot juice, Superfood, and fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
  • Pumpkin seeds. Dr. Christopher wrote that “the pumpkin seed has given much relief to prostate problems.” A small handful a day.
  • Drink plenty of distilled water so the urinary tract stays flushed.

Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water.

Level of Commitment

  • Gentle support. For a man with a family history who wants to stay ahead of it: a clean, mostly meat-free diet, bowels moving well, daily movement, Prostate Support once a day, and the hot and cold showers.
  • Focused cleansing. For a rising PSA with no diagnosis, or an enlarged prostate: see the Prostate Health sheet.
  • Incurables Program. For any diagnosed prostate cancer. The full program on the Cancer sheet, full time, with the prostate work on this sheet. Plan on six months or longer, and don’t stop when the numbers improve.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

  • First: know what you are working with. If you use a doctor, learn the type, size and stage, and keep a record of your PSA numbers. Tell your doctor what you are doing.
  • Weeks 1 and 2: the foundation. The Cancer sheet’s program: food program or juice fast, Superfood, Echinacea, LBF until the bowels move two or three times a day, castor oil packs over the liver nightly. Start Prostate Support and Kidney Support. Go meat-free.
  • Week 3: liver flushing. Then Week 4: kidney flushing. Repeat the cycle as the Cancer sheet calls for.
  • From the start, every night: a prostate suppository at bedtime, and the M&L Salve and castor oil pack over the perineum. Add the garlic clove as you are able.
  • Every day: hot and cold showers with the wand, walking or rebounding, plenty of distilled water.
  • All along: the heart work. Talk with your wife. Let go of the fear of growing old. You are forever young in spirit.
  • Every few months: take stock. If you use a doctor, compare your PSA to your own earlier numbers. Keep going long after things improve.

Stories from the Work

I have supported many men with prostate trouble over the years. Men don’t tend to share many details, and I often don’t hear the end of the story.

Dara’s Story: Finding the Gift in M&L Salve

A few years ago I set out to find a natural answer for trouble with erections. That is when I discovered the gift we have in the M&L Salve. It worked after one application, and any time the need comes up again, it still works, usually with just one application. For it to be completely effective, Male Support needs to be taken along with it: the hormonal support helps build and hold the erection. Male Support is strong, and daily use can be more stimulation than a man wants, so many find it works best taken only when the need arises.

From Dr. Richard Schulze: The Engineer Who Would Not Be Cut

An engineer in his early fifties came to Dr. Schulze with a tumor wrapped so tightly around his prostate that his doctors wanted to remove the prostate, the urethra and most likely the bladder. He was a runner, but also a big meat eater with high cholesterol. He did the full Incurables Program: bowel cleansing, juice fasting, garlic in the rectum every day, hot castor oil packs between the anus and the testicles, and plenty of exercise.

At about three to four months the tumor, once hard as a baseball, had softened like a rubber ball. By six months it was about half its size, and over about ten months he could no longer feel it at all. His PSA, very high at the start, came down steadily into the normal range, and his oncologist finally told him, “Whatever you are doing, go with it.” A year later he slipped off his program and felt twinges again, until he got back on track. He gave up meat for good.

Credited to Dr. Richard Schulze, from his interviews with Sam Biser.

More on Prostate Cancer

Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing

Skin Cancer

This sheet is part of the cancer series. The Cancer sheet explains what allows cancer to form anywhere in the body and lays out the full Incurables Program. This sheet covers what is particular to the skin. Lumps under the skin, moles and other look-alikes are on the Tumors & Lumps sheet.

Understanding the Condition

How the Healthy Skin Works

The skin is the largest organ of the body. It has three layers. The epidermis is the thin outer layer we see. Its surface is made of flat cells called squamous cells, which are always wearing away and being replaced. At the bottom of the epidermis sits a row of basal cells, which divide all day long to make the new cells that move up to the surface. Scattered among the basal cells are the melanocytes, the pigment cells. They make melanin, the brown color of the skin, and when the sun touches the skin they make more of it. A tan is the skin’s own sun shade.

Under the epidermis is the dermis, a thicker layer full of blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, hair roots, oil glands and sweat glands. The blood feeds the skin from below and the lymph carries its waste away. Below that is a cushion of fat.

The skin is also one of the body’s channels of elimination. Through the sweat glands it carries waste out every day, which is why it has been called the third kidney. The liver is the vacuum cleaner of the body. When the liver and bowel are backed up, the body pushes more of its waste out through the skin, and the skin shows it: rashes, boils, acne, eczema. Skin cancer grows in this same skin.

Diagram of the layers of the skin showing where basal cell, squamous cell and melanoma start

The layers of the skin. Each of the three main skin cancers starts in a different kind of cell in the epidermis. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

How Skin Cancer Forms

Skin cancer follows the same road down that the Cancer sheet describes: years of waste coming in faster than the bowel, liver, kidneys and lymph can carry it out, until the tissue is starved, congested and no longer able to keep its designed structure. The skin cells at the bottom of the epidermis divide constantly, and when they are damaged and poorly fed, they can begin to grow out of order.

Dr. Christopher taught that skin cancer starts on the inside. In his words, “it is the putrid condition of the body that is poisoning the tonsil, or the skin!” He did not believe the sun creates cancer. He taught that the sun can “ripen and bring the cancer that is already there to the surface, wherein the waste matter can slough off, so that the body may heal.” He pointed to tribal peoples who lived in the sun year round with very little cancer until they began eating “civilized” food.

What science has found. Ultraviolet light from the sun and tanning beds can damage the inner workings (the DNA) of skin cells, and repeated burning is linked to skin cancer (World Health Organization). But the kind of sun matters. A review of 57 studies found that sunburns roughly doubled the risk of melanoma and short, intense bursts of sun on unprepared skin raised it, while steady, regular sun, such as outdoor work, did not raise it (Gandini and others, European Journal of Cancer, 2005). And food matters. In a two-year study of people who had already had skin cancer, those who cut their fat intake to 20 percent of calories grew about one-third as many new precancerous spots as those who ate their usual diet (Black and others, New England Journal of Medicine, 1994).

Other things that raise the risk: fair skin that burns easily, many moles, a family history, older age, a weakened immune system (for example, from anti-rejection drugs after a transplant), arsenic and other chemical exposures, smoking (especially for cancers of the lip), old scars and wounds that never fully healed, and tanning beds. Melanoma can also appear where the sun rarely reaches, such as the soles of the feet, the palms, under the nails and inside the mouth (American Cancer Society). The sun is not the whole story.

The Three Main Kinds

  • Basal cell carcinoma is by far the most common: about 8 out of 10 skin cancers (American Cancer Society). It starts in the basal cells and usually shows up on the face, nose, ears, neck, scalp and other places that get a lot of sun. It often looks like a pearly or waxy bump, sometimes with tiny blood vessels on the surface, or a flat, pink, scaly patch. It may bleed, crust over, seem to heal and then come back. It grows slowly and almost never spreads to other parts of the body, but if it is left alone for years it can dig deep and destroy the tissue around it.
  • Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common. It starts in the flat cells near the surface and often looks like a rough, scaly red patch, a firm bump, a wart-like growth or an open sore that will not heal. It favors the face, ears, lips, scalp and backs of the hands. It is more likely than basal cell to grow deep and, now and then, to spread, so it deserves more attention.
  • Melanoma starts in the pigment cells. It is much less common, but it is the most serious, because it can spread through the lymph and blood to other organs, sometimes quickly. It can start in an existing mole or as a new dark spot. Most melanomas are brown or black, but some are pink, red or skin colored.
Left, basal cell carcinoma: a pink, pearly, raised spot. Right, squamous cell carcinoma: a rough, crusted sore.

Left, basal cell carcinoma: a pink, pearly, raised spot. Right, squamous cell carcinoma: a rough, crusted sore. Photos: National Cancer Institute (public domain).

Know a Melanoma: ABCDE

Most moles are harmless. A normal mole is usually small, round or oval, with a smooth, even edge and one even color. The signs that a mole or dark spot may be a melanoma are easy to remember:

  • A, Asymmetry. One half does not match the other half.
  • B, Border. The edges are ragged, notched or blurred.
  • C, Color. The color is not the same all over: shades of brown or black, sometimes with patches of pink, red, white or blue.
  • D, Diameter. It is larger than ¼ inch (6 mm), about the size of a pencil eraser, though melanomas can be smaller.
  • E, Evolving. It is changing in size, shape or color, or it begins to itch, crust or bleed.

Watch also for the “ugly duckling,” a spot that looks different from all the other moles on your body.

Melanomas on the left beside normal moles on the right for Asymmetry, Border, Color and Diameter

A melanoma (left) beside a normal mole (right) for each sign, from top: Asymmetry, Border, Color, Diameter. Photos: National Cancer Institute, NCI Visuals Online (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Before Cancer: Rough Spots (Actinic Keratosis)

Many skin cancers announce themselves years ahead. Actinic keratoses are small, rough, dry patches that feel like sandpaper, often easier to feel than to see. They may be pink, red, tan or skin colored, and they come and go on the face, ears, scalp, lips and backs of the hands. They are not cancer, but some of them, left alone, go on to become squamous cell carcinoma. This is the easiest stage to turn around, and it is the body telling you it is time to clean house. It is also the stage the low-fat diet study above was measuring.

Spots That Are Not Cancer

Not every spot is something to fear. Moles are small clusters of pigment cells, and almost all are harmless. Seborrheic keratoses are waxy, brown, “stuck-on” looking growths that come with age; they are harmless. Skin tags are small, soft flaps of skin on a thin stalk, often on the neck, under the arms or around the eyes. Warts are rough growths caused by a virus. Cherry spots (cherry angiomas) are tiny, bright red dots of blood vessels. See the Tumors & Lumps sheet for what to do with these. Any spot that is changing, bleeding or not healing should be looked at more closely.

Watch Your Skin, and Know When to Have a Spot Checked

Check your skin once a month, front and back, using a mirror for the back and scalp. Take a dated photo of any spot you are watching, with a ruler beside it, so you can see real changes instead of guessing.

A spot deserves a closer look if it follows the ABCDE signs above; if it is new and growing; if it is a sore that does not heal within about a month; if it bleeds without being hurt; or if it keeps coming back in the same place. Those of you who use a doctor will want to have it checked.

Melanoma is the one to take most seriously. It can spread quickly through the lymph. If you go straight to the poultice, work closely with someone experienced and keep your weekly photos. If a dark spot keeps growing while you are on the program, if new dark spots appear around it, or if a gland near it (in the neck, under the arm or in the groin) swells and stays swollen, have it seen right away. Herbs and cleansing are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it.

Imaging and a biopsy are the only ways to know for certain what a spot is. My caution about biopsy is on the Tumors & Lumps sheet; weigh what you will gain from knowing.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing.

The skin is the boundary between ourselves and the world. It is how we are seen, and it is the first thing that feels what comes at us. When we are carrying fear, anxiety or old hurts we have never dealt with, the skin is often where it shows.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

  • Skin: “Protects our individuality. A sense organ.” Turn it around: “I feel safe to be me.”
  • Skin problems: “Anxiety, fear. Old, buried guck. I am being threatened.” Turn it around: “I lovingly protect myself with thoughts of joy and peace. The past is forgiven and forgotten. I am free in this moment.”
  • Cancer: “Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. ‘What’s the use?’” Turn it around: “I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.”

Emotional patterns quoted from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The spot is where you see it, but it was fed from the inside. The work has two sides. On the inside: open the bowel, clear the liver and blood, and keep the lymph moving, so the waste has somewhere to go. On the outside: draw the spot out with the Black Cancer Poultice, then rebuild the skin. For melanoma, or any skin cancer that is large, deep or spreading, first establish the full program on the Cancer sheet.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. With skin cancer the spot is on the skin, but the liver is where the trouble is held. The poultice draws the waste out, and the liver has to be free to carry it away.

Clear the Liver and the Blood

  • Bowel first. The Lower Bowel Formula (LBF), building up until the bowels move two or three times a day. Castor oil packs over the whole front of the body, with a hot water bottle over the liver, to soften years of backup.
  • Liver and kidney flushing. A week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing. Plan on at least one, and better two, rounds of liver flushing while the poultice is working on a spot. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that decides whether a spot clears for good.
  • The Blood Purifying Formula or the Detox Formula during the cleanse weeks, as directed on its formula sheet. Either one supports the liver in clearing the blood and tissues. Chaparral, the backbone of the Blood Purifying Formula, has a long history with skin cancer: Dr. Christopher wrote that it “aids in reducing the size of and eliminating growths and malignant tumors, malignant melanomas… and skin cancers.” See his story of the man with the recurring melanoma below.
  • Essiac for diagnosed skin cancer, as on the Cancer sheet.
  • Echinacea every day for squamous cell or melanoma, and for anyone on the full program, to keep the immune system strong enough to handle the die-off. If you have an autoimmune condition, talk with Dara before starting. Echinacea can overstimulate an immune system that is already attacking the body. In its place we use astragalus and marshmallow root. This is much slower, and the whole program has to be done in a gentler way so the body can handle the detoxing. Some people are able to use Echinacea later, once their system has healed and cleared; others never can.

Using Chaparral and Comfrey With Care

Chaparral is one of the herbs in the Blood Purifying Formula. It has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use and has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Stay at the dose on the formula sheet. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

Comfrey root is one of the nine herbs in BF&C, where it feeds and rebuilds tissue as part of a traditional blend. Take the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day. Use the salve as an overnight pack, and leave the area open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day. More is not faster.

Working on the Spot: The Black Cancer Poultice

The Black Cancer Poultice is my first choice for skin cancer. It is a dry mix of red clover blossoms, powdered poke root, slippery elm, bentonite clay, goldenseal and activated charcoal, blended into a paste with apple cider vinegar, bloodroot, tea tree oil and garlic. In my experience it does not harm the healthy skin around the spot. Garlic is the big killer in this poultice and one to respect.

  • Make the 50/50 solution: 4 oz raw apple cider vinegar and 4 oz distilled water. Add 1 oz bloodroot extract for every 8 oz of 50/50 solution.
  • Blend: In a Magic Bullet, pour in 2 oz of the solution first, so the liquid is on the bottom. Add ¼ tsp tea tree oil for every 8 oz of liquid used. Add 1 to 2 Tbsp of the herbal powder mix on top (start small; a skin spot needs only a little), then more solution on top of the powder. Add 3 large garlic cloves for every 16 oz of liquid; adjust it to your preference. Blend until smooth, adding solution until it is a paste.
  • Store in a lidded glass jar in the refrigerator for up to one week.
  • Apply a thick layer over the spot twice a day and hold it in place with a bandage. It often dries to a hard crust, which can be soaked off in the shower or bath before the next application.
  • What to expect. As the poultice works, the spot usually becomes red, angry and tender, and it may open. Sometimes a core or a solid mass comes out of the middle. Then it crusts over and begins to heal from the bottom up. This can take a few weeks for a small spot, and much longer for a larger or older one.
  • When the bleeders begin, add cayenne. Dr. Christopher and Dr. Schulze both taught adding cayenne powder right into the poultice mix to help prevent small bleeds: a rounded teaspoon in a regular batch, more for a larger one. If a bleed breaks through, pack it with cayenne powder.
  • Don’t stop when it looks better. The poultice works all the way down if you stay with it long enough. Spots come back when people stop as soon as the surface looks healed. I have watched a spot on the back of a hand come and go for years because the poultice was stopped every time it looked better. Keep going past that point.
  • Stop if the healthy skin around the spot becomes raw, blistered or very painful, and let it calm before starting again.

Watch How It’s Made: Making a Black Drawing Poultice

See the poultice mixed step by step in our video, Making a Black Drawing Poultice.

Dr. Christopher’s Black Ointment, a drawing salve of chaparral, comfrey, red clover, poke root and other herbs in pine tar and mutton tallow, was used the same way in his day, and his newsletters carry many letters about it clearing skin cancers. We use the Black Cancer Poultice for this work today.

Healing and Rebuilding the Skin

  • Healing Salve first, once the poultice work is done, to calm the inflammation.
  • Then BF&C (Bone, Flesh & Cartilage) to rebuild the tissue: the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day, and the BF&C Salve as an overnight pack, leaving the skin open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day. Done this way, the skin can fill in and heal over until you cannot see where the spot was.
  • A word of warning about BF&C. It has a good chance of reminding you of any and all old injuries that healed poorly. The formula goes through and cleans house beautifully, so an old hurt may ache or act up for a while as it is finally put right. Once you are reminded, you need to support the proper healing process: rest and support that area (a sling for an arm or shoulder, for example) and keep up the BF&C until it has healed correctly.
  • For scars and hardened tissue: the three-oil massage. Once the skin has closed, massage the area with castor oil for two days, olive oil the next two days and wheat germ oil the following two days, then rest a day and repeat. Dr. Christopher taught that the castor oil cleanses and draws out toxins, the olive oil feeds and rebuilds the flesh, and the wheat germ oil, rich in vitamin E, heals. Follow it with a short sunbath (see below). He used it for a woman whose three C-section scars were so bad her doctors told her another pregnancy would kill her. Her scar tissue softened and became healthy tissue, and she went on to have more children.
  • Potassium foods. Dr. Christopher taught that moles, warts and growths form where the body lacks potassium: fresh vegetables and their juices, and the Potassium Broth on the Tumors & Lumps sheet.

The Sun, Used Wisely

The sun is a true healer, and I find it sad that people have been made afraid of a free source of healing. Dr. Christopher called it “the Great Doctor of all times,” but he warned that it “is like fire, which can either provide gentle warmth or it can burn a city down.” A burn is the opposite of healing. The answer is not to hide from the sun but to build up to it slowly and never burn. Wisdom must be used, or anything, no matter how healing, can become toxic.

Dr. Christopher’s directions, with his three-oil massage, which he taught lets the skin take the sun without burning:

  • The three oils. Massage the whole body with castor oil for two days, olive oil the next two days, and wheat germ oil the following two days. Rest one day, then repeat the cycle week after week.
  • Right after the oil massage, lie in the sun with as much of the body bare as you can: 2 minutes on the front and 2 minutes on the back the first day. Add 2 minutes front and back each day. Fair skin that has never sunned should start with 1 minute, timed by a clock, and add a minute a day.
  • Never at midday. No sunbathing between 11 and 1, when the sun is harshest. The sun feels so good that you will want to stay longer, and that is where the trouble starts.
  • Help from inside. Burdock root or burdock seed tea, which works on the lymph and the oil glands, makes the sunbath more beneficial.
  • Keep a spot under treatment covered with its poultice and bandage while you sun the rest of the body.
  • Some medicines, including some antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs, make the skin burn very easily. Ask your doctor or pharmacist before sunbathing while you take them.

When you will be out longer than your skin is built up for, cover with light clothing, a wide-brimmed hat or shade.

Food, Skin and Bathing

  • Eat for clean skin. The full food program is on the Cancer sheet. Cut the fried foods, fatty meats and refined oils; the low-fat diet study above shows how quickly the skin responds. Fresh vegetables, fruit and their juices every day, with carrot juice a favorite.
  • Dry skin brushing every day with a natural-bristle brush, toward the heart, to open the pores and move the lymph.
  • Hot and cold showers to open the pores and drain the skin. Finish with cold.
  • Sweat. A good sweat, from exercise or a hot bath, lets the skin do its work as a channel of elimination.
  • Move the lymph. Rebound or walk every day. The lymph has no heart to pump it; it depends heavily on movement and breathing.

Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water.

Level of Commitment

  • Gentle support. For healthy skin and for anyone with fair skin, many moles or a family history who wants to stay ahead of it: a clean food program, daily juice, seasonal liver cleansing, skin brushing, and sunshine built up slowly so you never burn. Check your skin monthly.
  • Focused cleansing. For rough precancerous spots and small basal cell spots: bowel cleansing, a week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing, the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula during the cleanse week, the Black Cancer Poultice on the spot twice a day, and Healing Salve and BF&C to rebuild. My father’s small spots cleared with this; his large one did not, because his liver was never flushed.
  • Incurables Program. For squamous cell carcinoma that is growing, any melanoma, a large or deep spot, a spot that keeps coming back, or any sign of spread. The full program on the Cancer sheet, full time, with the poultice work on this sheet. Plan on six months or longer, and keep going after the skin looks clear.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

  • First: know what you are working with. Look closely at the spot, measure it and photograph it. If you use a doctor, have it checked. For melanoma or a large spot, set up the full Cancer sheet program before starting the poultice.
  • Week 1: open the bowel. LBF until the bowels move two or three times a day, castor oil packs over the liver and bowel, juices and Superfood every day. For a small spot, start the Black Cancer Poultice twice a day.
  • Week 2: liver flushing, with the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula. Week 3: kidney flushing. Repeat the cycle while the poultice is working.
  • As the spot opens and drains: keep the poultice going twice a day, add cayenne if it bleeds, and keep the liver clearing. Stay with it past the point where it looks better.
  • When the spot has closed: Healing Salve to calm it, then BF&C Salve packs and the extract to rebuild the skin.
  • All along: the three-oil massage and the sunbath built up slowly, skin brushing, hot and cold showers, potassium foods, and the heart work.
  • Every month: take stock. Check your skin and compare your photos. Keep flushing on schedule.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: The Spot Beside My Husband’s Nose

For years my husband had a small pale bump right beside his nose, just under his eye. Then it began to grow. At first he thought it was a pimple, but it didn’t act like one, and by the time of his cataract surgery it had grown so large that his eye doctor told him he should have it looked at. He never did see a doctor for it. He put the cancer poultice on it himself and stayed with it for quite a while before the lump opened, and the opening was something he had to endure. On October 17, 2025, it broke open and a solid mass came out of the middle. He kept up the poultice as it crusted over, even using a batch that was over a month old, and it kept working. It sealed up and healed over, and today you cannot see where it was. It was never diagnosed, so we will never know for sure what it was. Stay with it until the job is done.

Family photos, used with permission.

Dara’s Story: My Father’s Skin Cancer

My father came to live with us in 2008 with three spots of skin cancer, diagnosed at the VA, where he had already had others cut out. The Black Cancer Poultice cleared the smaller spots in short order, with no harm to the skin around them, even though he wasn’t careful to keep it only on the spots. But he would not do a liver flush. The largest spot, right beside his nose, would not clear. His liver was full and could no longer draw the cancer out, so he went in for surgery to have the rest removed. The poultice draws the waste out, but the liver has to be free to carry it away.

A Member’s Story: Deborah’s Spot

Deborah, a local member, had a spot on the side of her face. Around 2018 she used the Black Cancer Poultice on it several times, and it went away. This past year it came back. She spends a lot of time out in the sun, and she likely did not stay with the poultice long enough the first time to clear it completely.

Her story is a good reminder: keep going past the point where it looks better, and keep the liver clearing, so the spot clears all the way down.

From Dr. Christopher: The Man With the Recurring Melanoma

Dr. Christopher often told of a case reported by doctors at the University of Utah. An 85-year-old man had a malignant melanoma on his right cheek that had been cut out three times, and each time it grew back larger. When it returned a fourth time, with a large tender mass in his jaw and neck, he refused more surgery and went home. On the advice of a friend, he began drinking 2 to 3 cups of chaparral tea every day. Within about three months the growth on his cheek had shrunk to a few millimeters and the mass in his neck was gone, and his weight, color and strength had greatly improved.

Credited to Dr. John R. Christopher’s writings; the case was published by Dr. C. R. Smart and others in Cancer Chemotherapy Reports, 1969.

I have not used chaparral on skin cancer myself; the Black Cancer Poultice does that job well. In my work chaparral goes in through the Blood Purifying Formula, to help the liver clear the blood.

From Dr. Christopher’s Letters

“We have used your Black Ointment with great results. I had skin cancer on my forehead; in six weeks it healed up beautifully.”

A woman whose doctor wanted to refer her to a skin cancer specialist told him it was her body and she would try the herbal remedy first. In six weeks the spot was cleared, and it had not returned two years later. Her husband was then using the ointment on a spot on his nose.

Letters to Dr. John R. Christopher, from his newsletters. His Black Ointment was his drawing salve; we use the Black Cancer Poultice for the same work.

More on Skin Cancer

Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing

Breast Cancer

This sheet is part of the cancer series. The Cancer sheet explains what allows cancer to form anywhere in the body and lays out the full Incurables Program. This sheet covers what is particular to the breast. Everyday breast care (tenderness, nursing, plugged ducts and mastitis) is on the Breast Health sheet.

Understanding the Condition

How the Healthy Breast Works

The breast is a gland, not a muscle. Each breast has three main parts: lobules, ducts and connective tissue (CDC). Each breast has 15 to 20 lobes, arranged like the petals of a daisy, and each lobe holds many small lobules, the milk glands. Thin ducts carry the milk from the lobules to the nipple. Fat and connective tissue fill the spaces between and give the breast its shape.

Woven all through the breast are blood vessels and a fine network of lymph vessels. The lymph carries waste out of the breast tissue to the lymph nodes. About 75 to 90 percent of the breast’s lymph drains to the nodes under the arm on the same side; the rest drains inward to nodes along the breastbone. That pathway matters a great deal: it is the road waste must travel to leave the breast, and it is the road cancer travels when it spreads.

Inside the breast: lobules, ducts, nipple and the lymph nodes the breast drains to

Inside the breast: the lobules and ducts where cancer starts, and the lymph nodes the breast drains into. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

How Breast Cancer Forms

Breast cancer follows the same road down that the Cancer sheet describes: years of waste coming in faster than the bowel, liver, kidneys and lymph can carry it out, until the tissue is starved, congested and changing from its designed structure. It settles in the breast because the breast is where that woman’s tissue is weakest and most burdened.

  • Hormones. Breast tissue grows and changes with every monthly cycle, driven by estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone are broken down mainly in the liver before they leave the body. A congested liver that cannot keep up leaves the breast bathed in old hormones longer.
  • Stagnant lymph. When the lymph under the arm and around the breast backs up, waste sits in the breast tissue instead of moving out. The lymph has no heart to pump it; it depends heavily on movement and breathing, so little movement and shallow breathing slow it further.
  • Lifestyle. The CDC lists these risk factors a woman can change: not being physically active, being overweight after menopause, certain menopausal hormone therapy and some birth control pills, a first pregnancy after 30, not breastfeeding, and drinking alcohol, with risk rising as intake rises. Smoking, chemical exposure and night-shift work may also raise risk.
  • What can’t be changed. Getting older, inherited genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, early periods or late menopause, dense breasts, and a family history of breast or ovarian cancer (CDC). As Dr. Joel Robbins teaches, a tendency is only a weak spot, not a sentence. It shows itself when the laws of health are broken, and then the trouble shows up in the weakest tissue first.
  • Breastfeeding protects. Across 47 studies in 30 countries, every 12 months of breastfeeding lowered a woman’s breast cancer risk by about 4.3 percent, on top of about 7 percent for each birth (Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer, The Lancet, 2002).

About 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime (American Cancer Society, 2026).

How It Progresses

Most breast cancers begin in the ducts or the lobules (CDC). Invasive ductal carcinoma, starting in the lining of a milk duct, is by far the most common type, about 70 to 80 percent of cases; invasive lobular carcinoma, starting in the lobules, is the next most common.

  • Cancer in place (DCIS). Abnormal cells sit inside the lining of a duct and have not broken through. This is the easiest stage to turn around.
  • Invasive. The cells break through the duct or lobule wall into the breast tissue around it.
  • Lymph nodes. Cells travel along the lymph, most often first to the nodes under the arm.
  • Distant spread. In time, cells can travel to the bones, liver, lungs or brain.

Know Your Breasts, and Have Changes Checked

Have a doctor check any of these warning signs (CDC): a new lump in the breast or underarm; thickening or swelling of part of the breast; irritation or dimpling of the breast skin; redness or flaky skin in the nipple area or the breast; the nipple pulling in, or pain in the nipple area; nipple discharge other than breast milk, including blood; any change in the size or shape of the breast; or pain in any area of the breast. These can also be caused by conditions that are not cancer, but every one deserves a look.

Imaging (mammogram, ultrasound or MRI) can show where a lump is and how big it is. Only a biopsy can tell for certain whether it is cancer. My caution about biopsy is on the Tumors & Lumps sheet; talk it over with your doctor and weigh what you will gain from knowing. Breast cancer is a serious, life-threatening disease. Herbs and cleansing are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. If you are having surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or hormone-blocking drugs, tell your doctor what you are doing.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing.

The breast represents the nurturing of the self. I have seen this again and again: women who have done the perfect herbal program and still not healed, because they stayed in abusive or degrading marriages, or never learned to nurture themselves. So many women pour themselves out for everyone else and leave nothing for their own care. Healing the breast often means learning to receive care as well as give it.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

  • Breasts: represent mothering and nurturing and nourishment. Turn it around: “I take in and give out nourishment in perfect balance.”
  • Breast problems (cysts, lumps, soreness): “A refusal to nourish the self. Putting everyone else first.” Overmothering, overprotection, overbearing attitudes. Turn it around: “I am important. I count. I now care for and nourish myself with love and with joy.”
  • Cancer: “Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. ‘What’s the use?’” Turn it around: “I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.”

Emotional patterns quoted and paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The breast is where the cancer shows, but the work starts with the whole body. First establish the full program on the Cancer sheet: the foundational programs (Echinacea, bowel cleansing and nutrition), liver and kidney flushing, the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula, Essiac, the food program and juicing, and the hydrotherapy. Then work on three areas: the liver, which must clear the hormones and the waste; the lymph under the arm and along the breastbone, which is the breast’s drain; and the breast itself.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. With breast cancer the lump is where you see it, but the liver, the bowel and the lymph under the arm are where it is held. Keep them open, or the breast has nowhere to send its waste.

Keep the Liver Clearing

  • Castor oil pack over the liver every night, with a hot water bottle.
  • Liver flushing on the schedule in the Cancer sheet, and an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) each night for up to five nights in a row while the poultice is drawing.
  • The bowels must move. If they begin to tighten, increase the Lower Bowel Formula (LBF #1) until they are moving well again. Waste drawn out of the breast has to leave through the bowel.

Keep the Lymph Moving

  • M&L Salve over the breast and over any swollen lymph nodes, under the arm and along the breastbone, several times a day. It opens the area so the waste can move out through the lymph.
  • Hot charcoal and flaxseed poultice over swollen lymph nodes and over the liver during the day, as hot as can be tolerated, changed every 3 or 4 hours, and again at bedtime for the whole night. It draws waste out and keeps the lymph from backing up. Never reuse a poultice.
  • Mullein and lobelia fomentation. Dr. Christopher’s glandular fomentation: a tea of 3 parts mullein to 1 part lobelia, soaked into a natural-fiber cloth, laid over the swollen glands as warm as possible, covered with plastic and left on all night. He also had it taken as a tea, ½ cup three times a day.
  • Rebound 10 to 15 minutes a couple of times a day. The lymph has no heart to pump it; it depends heavily on movement and breathing.
  • Hot and cold showers, paying special attention to the breast and underarm, and dry skin brushing toward the armpit and the heart.
  • Wear loose, natural-fiber clothing, and give the breasts time free of anything that binds the armpit, especially at night.
  • The Prune Juice Flush is a good lymphatic flush to add while the poultice is drawing. Expect loose, watery stools: you are dumping old, stagnant lymph fluid, and that is what you want. Don’t worry about it; just stay well hydrated with distilled water and herbal teas. Directions are on its direction sheet.

Working on the Breast Itself

Two strong poultices draw the waste out of the breast through the skin. Both are powerful tools that belong with the Incurables Program, never on their own; the body needs clear, open channels to carry away what they draw out.

The Black Cancer Poultice has been a huge aid with breast tumors. Smear a generous amount onto flannel, lay it over the tumor and bandage it in place; leave it on overnight or 6 to 8 hours, alternating with the castor oil pack. The full recipe and directions are on the Tumors & Lumps sheet. It contains bloodroot, a strong herb: stop if the healthy skin around the area becomes raw, blistered or very painful. When bleeders begin, add cayenne to the poultice; if a bleed breaks through, pack it with cayenne powder and call your doctor that same day. Bleeding that does not slow with pressure, or signs of infection (fever, spreading redness or red streaks, foul-smelling pus with fever), need emergency care.

The Poke Root Poultice for the Breast

Dr. Christopher’s poke root and bayberry poultice for cancer of the breast, after Dr. Jethro Kloss. We developed the supporting program around it with a young woman who had been doing a faithful Incurables Program for over a month before she began. Read these directions carefully, and read them again.

  • When to begin. Establish the foundational programs, then do a week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing. Begin the poultice during the second liver flushing week.
  • Increase Echinacea to two ounces a day, six days a week, the whole time the poultice is being used. The poultice breaks down a great deal of tissue, and the immune system has to be strong enough to handle that much die-off.
  • If you have an autoimmune condition, talk with Dara before starting. Echinacea can overstimulate an immune system that is already attacking the body. In its place we use astragalus and marshmallow root. This is much slower, and the whole program has to be done in a gentler way so the body can handle the detoxing. Some people are able to use Echinacea later, once their system has healed and cleared; others never can.
  • You need: fresh poke root, ground fine; bayberry powder; and, only if the root is dry, poke root extract diluted to 1/16 strength. Use fresh root each time and grind only enough for one use. Wear gloves when handling it.
  • Make it. Cut a piece of muslin or cheesecloth large enough to cover the breast, and cut a hole for the nipple before adding the root (it is much easier). Spread small spoonfuls of the ground root over the cloth and level it with a rolling pin, pressing it into the cloth, about ¼ to ½ inch deep (our member used ⅛ to ¼ inch).
  • Apply it. Lie down while your support person places it on you, root against the skin. Cover the back with a piece of old cotton T-shirt, then plastic wrap, and tape it snug to hold in the moisture. Moisten it once a day with the diluted extract only if the root is dry. Never use the extract full strength.
  • Change it every 2 to 3 days, depending on how much waste is coming from the breast. When the poultice is off, do hot and cold changes in the shower to open and drain the pustules. Fever, spreading redness or red streaks mean infection: see a doctor.
  • What to expect. Within about two weeks, often much sooner, the breast breaks out in pustular sores as the waste comes out through the skin. Continue one to two weeks after the breakout begins. If the lymph nodes become painful and swollen, take a break and let the body catch up: rebound, flush, and use the warm charcoal and flaxseed poultice.
  • Healing the skin. When the drainage stops, wash carefully with diluted apple cider vinegar, dust with bayberry powder and let the breast dry. The skin heals in about 7 to 10 days.
A member’s poke root poultice: the breakout of sores, the skin calming between rounds, and the used poultice

What to expect: a member’s poke root poultice, from left: the breakout of pustular sores as the waste comes out; the skin calming between rounds; the used poultice. Member photos, used with permission.

Use With Care: Poke Root

Poke root is a powerful lymphatic cleanser and should be used with respect. Used too freely it causes uncontrolled vomiting; internally, use it only in a blend with other herbs, never alone. On the skin it is strong enough to burn and blister if the extract is used full strength or the body is not ready. If that happens, take the poultice off, use warm charcoal and flaxseed poultices, and let the skin heal before trying again. If you feel weak, dizzy or faint, or begin vomiting, take the poultice off, wash the skin with soap and water, and call your doctor or Poison Control (1-800-222-1222). Keep the fresh root away from children and pets.

Rebuilding the Breast

  • BF&C (Bone, Flesh & Cartilage) feeds and knits the tissue back together: the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day, and the BF&C Salve as an overnight pack once the area has softened, leaving the skin open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day.
  • Soothing. Once the drawing is done, aloe vera, slippery elm and comfrey are soothing and healing on the tissue. Dr. Richard Schulze taught that the same programs that remove a tumor also heal and regrow the breast, and that many women make the mistake of quitting as soon as the tumor is out.
  • Nutrition is the big key: the juicer going every day, Superfood, and the rest of the food program on the Cancer sheet.

Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water.

Level of Commitment

  • Gentle support. For keeping the breasts healthy, or for a woman with a family tendency who wants to stay ahead of it: an 80/20 food program, daily juice, seasonal cleansing, movement, loose clothing, and caring for herself as well as everyone else. Breastfeed your babies if you can.
  • Focused cleansing. For a lump that has been checked and is not cancer, such as a cyst or fibroadenoma: bowel cleansing, liver and kidney flushing, castor oil packs and M&L Salve over the area, and the charcoal and flaxseed poultice. See the Tumors & Lumps and Breast Health sheets.
  • Incurables Program. For any diagnosed breast cancer, including cancer still in place (DCIS). The full program on the Cancer sheet, full time, with the liver, lymph and breast work on this sheet. Plan on six months or longer, and don’t stop when the lump is gone.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

  • First: know what you are working with. Have the lump checked and learn its type, size and stage. Tell your doctor what you are doing.
  • Weeks 1 and 2: the foundation. The Cancer sheet’s program: food program or juice fast (at least 32 ounces of carrot juice a day), Superfood, Echinacea, LBF until the bowels move two or three times a day, castor oil packs over the liver nightly, hot and cold showers, rebounding. M&L Salve over the breast and underarm several times a day.
  • Week 3: liver flushing. Then Week 4: kidney flushing.
  • Week 5: the second liver flushing week. Begin the poke root poultice (or the Black Cancer Poultice), raise Echinacea, add nightly ELFs for up to five nights, and keep the charcoal and flaxseed poultice over the nodes and liver by day.
  • As the breast drains: keep the lymph moving, take breaks when the nodes swell, and keep flushing on schedule.
  • When the drawing is done: heal the skin with apple cider vinegar and bayberry, then rebuild with BF&C and soothing herbs.
  • All along: the heart work. Rest. Receive care. Let go of what you have been carrying. Put yourself on your own list.
  • Every month: take stock. Have the breast checked and measured. Keep going long after it looks clear.

Stories from the Work

A Member’s Story: Learning the Poke Root Poultice

A member in Michigan, diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, sent in her pictures and her story so other women would know how to do this poultice. Her first attempt went badly because she misread the directions: she added undiluted extract to fresh root that was already moist, and it burned and blistered her skin and left her weak and dizzy. She healed within about a week. “Let me urge you to read and re-read these instructions carefully before doing this.”

Her second attempt, with no extract added, “produced amazing results.” Within a day the breast was covered in pustular sores: “It was amazing to see how much garbage was being pulled right out through my skin!” By the third day a sour-milk smell came from the sores, which she connected to her tumor being inside a milk duct. When her lymph nodes became painful and swollen, she took a break, did lymph cleansing, rebounding and liver flushing, and used warm charcoal and flaxseed poultices, and the pain quickly went away. Her advice: “Know that it isn’t pleasant, it isn’t comfortable, but it is powerful! Don’t be afraid of the sores and swelling.” A third try, after only a two-day break, burned and blistered her within an hour; her body needed more time. At the time she wrote, her tumor had not yet cleared: “My body is still working on that.”

Her story is shared to show what the poultice process looks like, not as a promise of results. Every body and every life is different, and healing asks for the whole person: diet, cleansing, emotions and faith together. The physical, spiritual and emotional life rise and fall together; if one is not being nurtured and healed, it will pull the others down or hold them back.

From Dr. Christopher: The Woman on the Airplane

On a flight to Toronto, Dr. Christopher sat beside a woman who told him her story. She had lost one breast to cancer, then the other six months later, and six months after that the doctors wanted to remove her reproductive organs and part of her bowel. She refused further surgery and chemotherapy, went home and prayed, and felt led to change her diet: fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds, as much as possible raw. A few months later her doctor found her amazingly improved, with only a little cancer showing on her Pap smear. After a few more months on natural foods, even that cleared. She spent years afterward traveling the country telling women what had helped her.

Credited to Dr. John R. Christopher’s writings.

More on Breast Cancer

Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing

Cancer

Understanding the Condition

A Word That Brings Fear

Few words stop us cold the way “cancer” does. The fear is understandable, but fear is a poor guide. Understanding what cancer is, and what has to happen inside a body before it can take hold, takes away much of the fear and shows the way to clearing it. Dr. Christopher preferred the words “cell deterioration,” because they describe what is really happening better than the word “cancer” does.

How Healthy Cells Live

Your body is made of trillions of cells, and every one of them is born, does its work, wears out and is replaced in an orderly way. Skin, the lining of the bowel and the blood are renewed constantly. Healthy cells grow only when the body needs them, stay in their own place, and die off when they are damaged or no longer needed. To do this, every cell needs three things every day: good nutrition carried in by the blood, oxygen, and a clean way for its waste to be carried off through the lymph, the liver, the kidneys, the bowel, the lungs and the skin.

The body also keeps its own guard. Every day a few cells are copied wrong. The immune system, including the white blood cells called natural killer cells, finds these abnormal cells and clears them away long before they can cause trouble. Researchers call this immune surveillance. A body with a strong immune system and open channels of elimination handles these mistakes quietly, every day of our lives.

What Cancer Is

Cancer is cells growing out of order. A group of cells stops listening to the body’s signals. They keep dividing when they should rest, they do not die when they should, and they crowd into a mass. Unlike a benign tumor, a cancer has no smooth wall around it. It reaches into the tissue around it like roots, and cells can break away into the blood or lymph and start new growths somewhere else (Medline Plus; American Cancer Society). Cancer is named by where it begins: breast, colon, prostate, lung, skin, blood and so on.

Not every lump is cancer, and most are not. The Tumors & Lumps sheet explains benign and malignant tumors and the lumps that are not tumors at all, and it gives the full directions for the poultices and packs mentioned on this sheet.

What Allows Cancer to Form

Natural healing asks a different question than “How do we kill it?” It asks, “What happened in this body that the guard could no longer keep up?” Dr. Christopher taught that cancer is not an isolated problem. It shows up in an old injury or a weakened part of the body because the whole bloodstream is carrying more waste than the body can clear, and it settles where the tissue is weakest. In his words, it “is a systematic disease. It depends on filth in the bowel and the blood stream.” That is why cutting it out, by itself, so often fails: the cancer “breaks out in another place.” The bloodstream must be cleaned.

Dr. Joel Robbins’ article Health Through Nutrition gives one of the clearest pictures I know of how a body travels down to cancer. I have shared it with my members for years. Here is the heart of it in plain words.

The road down to cancer and the way back up

The road down to cancer and the way back up, after Dr. Joel Robbins’ “The Disease Process” in Health Through Nutrition. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

  • Disease is the body’s effort to keep us alive. The body is designed only for health. When we break the laws it runs by, it does not quit; it makes the best adjustment it can to survive. That adjustment is what we call disease. “We do not ‘catch’ a disease or illness, we earn it.”
  • Waste comes in by mouth and by breath. At first the body refuses it: we cough, sneeze, gag or turn away from what burns. Sugar and habit override those warnings, and the bowel takes over, throwing waste out by vomiting and diarrhea.
  • The liver takes the load. When the bowel can no longer keep the waste out, it is absorbed, and the liver must neutralize it before it reaches the blood. To protect itself and the blood, the liver begins to store what it cannot clear. It becomes congested, and everything it does for the body slows down.
  • The blood and tissues take the overflow. When the liver can hold no more, waste slips into the blood, and the body moves it out of the blood and into the tissues to keep the blood clean enough to live. Robbins calls a pocket of stored waste “a localized area of constipation.”
  • Acute cleansing. While the body still has strength, it pushes this waste out through the skin and mucous membranes: colds, fevers, rashes, sinus and ear trouble. These are cleansing efforts. When they are suppressed again and again and the waste keeps coming, the body loses the energy to throw it off.
  • Chronic, then stored. The cleansing becomes weak and lingering, a chronic disease. At last the body can only pack the waste deeper into the tissues. Robbins names arthritis, diabetes, senility and cancer as diseases of this deepest level.
  • Degeneration. Tissue that has been starved of nutrition and buried in its own waste for years begins to change from its designed structure. “The tissues, in essence, are mutated from their normal state.” This is the soil where cancer grows.

Robbins also explains why two people living the same way get different diseases. Four things decide it: our attitude, the kind and weight of the stress we put on the body, the body’s vitality, and our genetic tendency. A tendency is passed down from parents, but it is only a weak spot, not a sentence. It shows itself only when we break the laws of health, and then the trouble shows up in our weakest tissue first.

Source: Dr. Joel Robbins, D.C., N.D., M.D., Health Through Nutrition (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Quotations are his words.

Rabbits and Cigarette Tar

In the 1950s, Dr. Ernest Wynder and his colleagues produced cancers on rabbits’ ears and necks by painting them with tar from cigarette smoke over the animals’ life spans. The cancers came only after long, steady exposure. The study looked at the skin, not the inner organs, but what I take from it, and from what I have seen in my own work, is that before a tumor or cancer can form, the eliminative organs (the liver, kidneys and bowel) have already been worn down until they can no longer clear the waste. The cancer is not the real issue. It is a symptom of a degraded internal system. Not until those organs are rebuilt and able to carry out waste again can a body be truly free from cancer.

Study: E. L. Wynder (Sloan-Kettering Institute), E. A. Graham and A. B. Croninger (Washington University, St. Louis); rabbits painted with cigarette-smoke tar over their life spans (reported December 1957). The conclusion about the eliminative organs is my own teaching, not a finding of the study.

What Science Has Found

Much of what the old natural healers taught is now being described by researchers in their own words:

  • Cancer takes years to build. Most cancers grow slowly from the first changed cells. In the colon, “a polyp can take as many as 10 to 15 years to develop into cancer” (American Cancer Society). There is time to change the soil.
  • Cancer cells live in a starved, low-oxygen, acid place. Nearly a century ago, Dr. Otto Warburg found that cancer cells burn sugar by fermentation even when oxygen is present, leaving lactic acid behind. The tissue around a tumor becomes acid, about pH 6.0 to 6.5, and that acid weakens the immune cells sent to clear it (Warburg, Science, 1956; Barba and others, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2024).
  • Long-standing inflammation feeds cancer. The National Cancer Institute states that “over time, chronic inflammation can cause DNA damage and lead to cancer,” and people with long-term inflammatory bowel disease have more colon cancer.
  • Much cancer is preventable. The World Health Organization says “between 30–50% of all cancer cases are preventable,” naming tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, low activity, excess weight, infections, polluted air, workplace chemicals and radiation.
  • What we eat matters. In 2015 the World Health Organization’s cancer agency classed processed meat as a cause of cancer in humans (Group 1), mainly colon cancer, and red meat as a probable cause (Group 2A).

How Cancer Progresses

The medical picture and the natural healing picture describe the same road from two sides.

How cancer grows out of order, from healthy cells to spread

How cancer grows out of order, from changed cells to spread. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

  • Pre-cancer. Some cells in a tissue begin to look and act wrong. A doctor may call this dysplasia, atypical cells, or a precancerous polyp or spot. This is the easiest place to turn things around.
  • Cancer in place. The changed cells have become cancer but are still sitting in the lining where they began (“in situ”). They have not broken through.
  • Invasive cancer. The cells break through the floor of the tissue and grow into the tissue around them.
  • Spread. Cells travel in the lymph or blood. They often lodge first in the nearby lymph nodes, then in distant places, most often the bones, liver, lungs or brain. By now the whole body is deeply involved.

In natural healing terms, each stage is the body losing more ground: less vitality, more stored waste, and an immune guard that can no longer keep up. Some cancers move quickly. Among the most serious and fast moving are pancreatic and lung cancer. With these, the window for clearing is often very narrow, and even with the most aggressive natural programs the diagnosis can come too late. Others linger for years. The individual’s constitution matters too: someone strong in body, mind and spirit will usually have a much easier time clearing the disease.

Cleanse & Feed

Dr. Christopher taught cleansing and rebuilding, and I put it as “cleanse & feed.” You must cleanse out the waste while you feed and rebuild the system. Cancer and tumors do not appear in the body until there has been a serious degrade in the body’s organs, so understanding that a body which has developed cancer must be nourished and rebuilt is as important as supporting the liver in flushing out the waste.

The natural healing programs vary little from one condition to another. A case of hives and a case of cancer are cleared through the same channels. Hives usually clear quickly; cancer takes many months.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing. A person can follow a perfect herbal program, but if she stays in a life that keeps wearing her down, or never makes time to care for herself, the body will keep losing ground. Healing the body often means facing what is happening in the heart and spirit as well.

I have seen this again and again with breast cancer. The breast represents the nurturing of the self (Louise Hay also writes that the breast represents mothering, nurturing and nourishment). Women have done the perfect herbal program and still not healed because they stayed in abusive or degrading marriages, or never learned to nurture themselves. Dr. Robbins lists the same things among what decides how long healing takes: freedom from pent-up emotional scars, freedom from ongoing anxiety, spiritual alignment, and the amount of “want to” a person brings. Dr. Christopher often said, “There are no incurable diseases, but at times there are incurable patients.”

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes this pattern:

  • Cancer: “Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. ‘What’s the use?’” Turn it around: “I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.”

Emotional pattern quoted from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). This is not a fault to blame anyone for; it is a reminder of how much the heart is carrying. Forgiving everyone in your past, including your doctors, is part of the work.

Cancer Needs Medical Care

Cancer is a serious, life-threatening disease. Have any new or changing lump, a sore that will not heal, unusual bleeding or discharge, a change in bowel or bladder habits, a lasting cough or hoarseness, trouble swallowing, or unexplained weight loss, fevers or night sweats checked by a doctor. Only a doctor can diagnose cancer, and knowing its type, place and stage tells you how much time you have to work.

The choice of treatment is yours to make, with your eyes open. Herbs and cleansing are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. If you are having chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, or take any prescription, tell your doctor what you are doing; some herbs and flushing routines need to be timed around treatment. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without your doctor. If a tumor bleeds and does not stop quickly, or you have sudden severe pain, trouble breathing, confusion or a high fever, get help right away.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Cancer shows itself in one place, but it was built by the whole body. The work starts with the channels that carry waste out: the bowel, the liver (the vacuum cleaner of the body), the kidneys, the lymph, the skin and the lungs. Open those channels first. At the same time, flood the body with living nutrition so the immune system can do the work it was designed for. Then work directly on the site where the cancer is.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. Not where the symptoms show up, but the part causing the issue. That is the area that needs to be cleared. With cancer, the tumor is where you see it, but the bowel, the liver and the blood are where it comes from. Clear them, and the cancer has nothing left to feed on.

The Foundational Programs

Three programs must be established first and continued all through the healing: boosting the system with Echinacea, bowel cleansing, and nutritional support. Begin with these before you do a liver flush.

  • Bowel: the Lower Bowel Formula (LBF). Start with 1 capsule just after dinner and add one capsule each day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Once the bowel is working, add LBF #2, the drawing and detoxifying formula, to keep it clean.
  • Castor oil pack over the front of the body. Soak a flannel in castor oil, lay it over the whole front of the body (neck to groin), and put a hot water bottle over the liver for about 1½ hours. It turns years of “cement” in the bowel into soft mud that is easily evacuated, and softens the waste in the liver so the flushes work better.
  • Echinacea to build the immune guard: 2 dropperfuls four times a day on the full program. Echinacea is never alternated or rotated out. It is a steady-use formula that keeps the immune system fired up and able to deal with the healing process from beginning to end.
  • If you have an autoimmune condition, talk with Dara before starting. Echinacea can overstimulate an immune system that is already attacking the body. In its place we use astragalus and marshmallow root. This is much slower, and the whole program has to be done in a gentler way so the body can handle the detoxing. Some people are able to use Echinacea later, once their system has healed and cleared; others never can.

Clearing the Liver and Kidneys

Keeping your liver actively pulling and dumping waste is the key to removing any major disease. The liver is the organ that carries the waste of a tumor out of the body, through the bowel. On the full program:

  • A castor oil pack over the liver every night.
  • A week of liver flushing every other week, with a week of kidney flushing between, so the kidneys stay on top of what the liver releases.
  • An ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) three nights a week during both the liver and the kidney flushing weeks.

When what was working stops working, it is time to flush the liver again. The vacuum bag is full.

Cleansing the Blood and Lymph

  • The detox formulas: Blood Purifying or Detox Formula. H.E.A.L. has two anti-cancer detox formulas, and either one will do the work of supporting the liver to detox the blood and tissues. Use one; switching between them is fine if you can use both, but it isn’t necessary. The Blood Purifying Formula is free of cayenne and black walnut, so it is the one for anyone who should not use cayenne or has a nut allergy. It is Dr. Christopher’s Red Clover Combination, built on red clover, chaparral, burdock and poke root; he called it the same type of formula Harry Hoxsey used for years. Dr. Christopher taught that “the bloodstream must be cleaned,” and this is his formula for it. In my practice, many members have used it over the years to clear tumors. Take it as directed on its formula sheet, traditionally 2 dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day during a cleanse week, in a few ounces of grape juice.
  • Essiac Tea. I use Essiac for cancer only. Its four herbs, burdock root, sheep sorrel, slippery elm and Turkish rhubarb root, cleanse the blood and lymph and keep the waste moving out through the bowel. For serious conditions, take up to 3 ounces three times a day, warmed or in hot water. The recipe and brewing directions are on the Essiac page.
  • Red clover tea for sipping through the day, with a very small amount of raw honey if desired.
  • Garlic. At least 3 cloves of fresh raw garlic every day, eaten, swallowed whole, chopped into food or put through the juicer. The hotter the better. If you take a blood thinner, or have surgery coming up, talk with your doctor first.
  • Move the lymph. The lymph has no heart to pump it; it depends heavily on movement and breathing. Rebound or walk every day, and keep M&L Salve over any swollen lymph nodes.

Using Chaparral, Poke Root and Comfrey With Care

Chaparral is one of the herbs in the Blood Purifying Formula, long regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers and one of the herbs I have relied on most in cancer work. Stay at the dose on the formula sheet. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked. Dr. Christopher noted that as chaparral pushes waste into a deposit, a growth can look larger for a time before it shrinks.

Poke root is a powerful lymphatic cleanser and should be used with respect. The amount in the detox formulas is safe, and it is a valuable tool for healing when used together with the entire Incurables Program. Used too freely it causes uncontrolled vomiting, so internally use it only in a blend with other herbs, never alone.

Comfrey is one of the nine herbs in BF&C, where it feeds and rebuilds tissue. Take the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day. More is not faster.

Feeding the Body

Cleanse and feed: clear the waste out while flooding the body with nutrients at the level of the cell. Raw fruits and vegetables come to us as complete packages, with their enzymes, minerals and water still alive. Every step of processing takes more away, until fried, canned and additive-laden food gives nothing and adds toxins. Robbins urges a diet of 70 to 80 percent alkaline (mostly raw plant) foods.

  • The food program. For the first 30 days, all food is raw and vegan: vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, and soaked or sprouted beans and grains, as fresh, organic and local as you can get. No meat, eggs, milk or milk products, no cooked foods, and no alcohol, coffee, black tea or sugar. If you are seriously ill, a fresh juice fast for the full 30 days is stronger still: 8 to 10 ounces of fresh juice every hour, about a gallon a day. A juice fast is not for someone who is thin, frail or losing weight, or who has kidney disease or takes blood-pressure or heart medicine that raises potassium, without their doctor. Either way, juice fast at least one day each week. If you cannot get organic, don’t let that stop you; do the very best you can.
  • Fresh juice. At least 32 ounces of fresh carrot juice a day on the full program, or carrot, apple and parsley. Sip it slowly, by itself, not with food. A juicer is not an option; if you don’t have one, buy one.
  • Superfood. 2 tablespoons twice a day (a double dose), blended into 8 ounces of fresh juice, 8 ounces of distilled water and ½ to 1 cup of fresh fruit.
  • Potassium Broth. 1 to 3 cups a day between meals. The recipe is on the Tumors & Lumps sheet.
  • Protein in the morning only. Dr. Christopher taught that a person with cancer should not overdo protein, which he said overworks the pancreas. Eat 8 to 10 almonds in the morning and again at noon, no peanuts, and no protein from evening until the next morning, giving the body 16 to 18 hours of rest. No meat at all. If you are losing weight or muscle, work with your practitioner to be sure you are getting enough protein from plant foods.

Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water. If you use a hot water dispenser for your teas, using only distilled water greatly adds to the life of the unit.

Fasting: Giving the Body Time to Clean House

Dr. Christopher’s long overnight rest from food, the weekly juice-fast day, and the 30-day juice fast all give the body time to stop digesting and turn its energy to cleaning out. Research is now pointing the same way:

• A long overnight fast. In a study of 2,413 women with early breast cancer, those who went less than 13 hours overnight without food had a 36% higher chance of the cancer coming back than those who fasted 13 hours or more. Shorter fasting also went with higher blood sugar and less sleep, though there was no difference in survival (Marinac and others, JAMA Oncology, 2016).

• Less protein, especially animal protein. Among adults aged 50 to 65 followed for 18 years, a high-protein diet was linked to about four times the cancer death rate of a low-protein diet, tied mostly to animal protein and the growth hormone IGF-1. Over age 65 the pattern reversed, so older and frail people need enough protein (Levine and others, Cell Metabolism, 2014).

• Tree nuts over peanuts. Stage III colon cancer patients who ate at least two 1-ounce servings of nuts a week after surgery and chemotherapy had 42% better disease-free survival and 57% better overall survival; the benefit came from tree nuts such as almonds, not peanuts (Fadelu and others, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2018). Peanuts can also carry aflatoxin, a mold toxin that causes liver cancer.

• Dr. Jason Fung, a kidney specialist known for his work on fasting, makes the case in The Cancer Code (2020) that cancer is fed by the body’s growth signals, insulin and growth factors, and that fasting and a whole-food diet turn those signals down.

Fasting is a strong tool. Someone who is thin, frail or losing weight, diabetic, or in active cancer treatment should work it out with their doctor first.

Water, Sun, Air and Movement

  • Hot and cold showers. One minute hot, then one minute cold, seven times over, about 15 minutes, finishing cold. Do two or three a day for the first 60 days, paying special attention to the affected area, then at least one a day. A person too weak to stand can have it given while lying in the tub.
  • The Cold Sheet Treatment twice a week while on the program, then once a week after you have turned a corner.
  • High enema with distilled water, using a tea of equal parts chaparral, Oregon grape root and red clover. How often depends on how well the bowels are working. Three times a week (every other day) is good. Once a day takes time, but it has its benefits: done first thing in the morning, it clears the bowels so you will likely not need to go again until the afternoon. If you do it daily, use BF&C Salve as the lubricant to protect the skin around the rectum.
  • Follow with an implant. After the high enema, put in a small amount to be held and absorbed. Soothing: 8 ounces of aloe vera gel with 8 ounces of distilled water. Detoxifying: 2 ounces of wheatgrass juice with 16 ounces of distilled water. Anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal: 1 to 2 cloves of garlic blended into 8 ounces of raw apple cider vinegar and 8 ounces of distilled water; this one is an excellent healing aid but can be very intense. Red clover tea for blood cleansing and Echinacea root tea for the immune system also make good implants. Step-by-step directions are on the How to Do a High Enema page.
  • The skullcap and catnip liver dump. A really good herbal mix for getting the liver to release. Put 1 rounded tablespoon of skullcap and 1 rounded tablespoon of catnip in a 32-ounce jar, fill it with boiling distilled water, set a saucer or loose lid on top, and leave it in the bathroom overnight. In the morning, strain it into your final enema bag of water: a small strainer that fits over the mouth of the enema bag works perfectly, or strain it into another glass first and then add it to the bag. Hold it until the need to let it out is clear. It normally takes effect in 5 to 10 minutes, and the liver will release a good amount of toxic waste, so stay close to the bathroom. A wonderful way to start the day with a cleared-out liver. I find it better than a coffee enema: it gets the liver to release without stressing the endocrine system with too much stimulation from the caffeine.
  • Sun and air bath daily, built up slowly so you never burn (see The Sun: the Great Doctor below). Walk barefoot on grass or earth and breathe deeply outdoors. Sleep with the window open in summer and cracked in winter.
  • Skin brushing and massage. Brush the whole body daily with a natural-bristle brush, toward the heart. Massage daily, and don’t be afraid to touch the sore or sick area; put some life back there.
  • Exercise every day, as much as you are able, with a walker if you need one. Wear and sleep in natural fibers only: cotton, wool, linen or silk.

The Sun: the Great Doctor

Dr. Christopher called the sun “the Great Doctor of all times,” but warned that it “is like fire, which can either provide gentle warmth or it can burn a city down.” Used gradually and wisely, he taught, it heals where herbs and other procedures are slower, and it helps the skin with acne, eczema and other troubles. He saw skin cancer as coming from the inside: “it is the putrid condition of the body that is poisoning the tonsil, or the skin!” The sun, he said, does not create the cancer but can “ripen and bring the cancer that is already there to the surface, wherein the waste matter can slough off, so that the body may heal. This is why we must work inside the body with herbs, as well as outside the body with the sun.”

His rule was always to build up slowly and never burn:

  • Never at midday. No sunbathing between 11 and 1, when the sun is harshest. Bare skin in the direct sun, not through glass.
  • Fair skin: start with 1 minute the first day, timed by a clock, and add a minute each day. The sun feels so good that you will want to stay longer, and that is where the trouble starts.
  • Darker skin: start with 2 minutes front and 2 minutes back, and add a little each day. On his Incurables routine, the patient builds up to 12 minutes front and 12 minutes back by the end of the first week.
  • Experienced sunbathers who sun every season may start with a little more.
  • Help from inside. Drinking burdock root or burdock seed tea, which works on the lymph and the oil glands, makes the sunbath more beneficial.

Some chemotherapy drugs and other medicines make the skin burn very easily in the sun. Ask your doctor or pharmacist before sunbathing while you take them.

Within about thirty days of gradual building, a person can be sunning up to an hour. A burn is the opposite of healing: it can cause third-degree burns, shock and even death.

Source: Dr. John R. Christopher, Helios-therapy and the Incurables sunbath. The sun is a true healer, and there is no need to fear it. But wisdom must be used, or anything, no matter how healing, can become toxic. Some people go overboard with sunshine, and sunburn is linked to skin cancer (World Health Organization), so keep Dr. Christopher’s rule: build up slowly and never burn.

Working at the Site

  • Castor oil packs over the cancer every night. Spread a layer of M&L Salve over the area first to open it so waste can move out through the lymph, then lay the castor-oil-soaked flannel over it and leave it on all night. Several packs can be used on different parts of the body. Castor oil packs nightly are critical; there’s no excuse for skipping them. For a deep area such as the prostate or pelvis, the pack can be alternated hot (10 minutes) and cold (5 to 10 minutes with an ice bag) to drive circulation through the stagnant area.
  • The poultices. For skin cancer and breast tumors, the Black Cancer Poultice and the Poke Root Poultice draw the waste out through the skin. They belong with the full program, never on their own, and the complete directions, with care notes, are on the Tumors & Lumps sheet. The Black Cancer Poultice contains bloodroot, a strong herb: keep it away from the eyes, and stop if the healthy skin around the spot becomes raw, blistered or very painful. When bleeders begin, add cayenne to the poultice; if a bleed breaks through, pack it with cayenne powder.
  • Watch, don’t guess. As a growth loosens, it often softens first, and it can look larger for a time before it shrinks. Have your doctor measure it so you know what is really happening.
  • Rebuild with BF&C. As the waste leaves, BF&C (Bone, Flesh & Cartilage) feeds and knits the tissue back together: the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day, and the BF&C Salve as an overnight pack once the area has softened, leaving the skin open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day.

Level of Commitment

Cancer is the deepest level of disease, and it calls for the deepest level of work. Be honest with yourself about where you are:

  • Gentle support. For keeping well after you have cleared, or for anyone with a family tendency who wants to stay ahead of it: an 80/20 food program (80 percent raw, 20 percent cooked vegan food), daily juice and Superfood, and a seasonal bowel cleanse with liver and kidney flushing.
  • Focused cleansing. For precancerous findings: an abnormal Pap test, precancerous polyps, suspicious skin spots. Bowel cleansing, a raw food program, a week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing, the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula during cleanse weeks, and castor oil packs over the area. Repeat the cycle and have the area rechecked.
  • Incurables Program. For any diagnosed cancer. The full program, full time: the food program, juice, Superfood, Echinacea, bowel cleansing, repeated liver and kidney flushing with ELFs, the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula, Essiac, garlic, castor oil packs nightly, high enemas, hydrotherapy, sun, air and exercise, and the heart work. Plan on at least 30 days, and for cancer usually six months or longer. In severe cases, a break in the routine may not be wise.

Don’t stop when it looks better. Do not discontinue the program the minute your symptoms disappear. Continue until long after they are gone, or you may be only partially healed. After that, the 80/20 program is a good way to eat for the rest of your life. The 30-day program can also be used as a touch-up whenever your health starts running down again.

An honest word. Some people change their whole way of living and still do not win. Dr. Robbins names two reasons: either they were not ready in heart to take responsibility for their health and learn the lesson the disease was pointing to, or the disease had such momentum that there was not enough time for a tired, toxic body to use the new nutrition before the disease overtook it. Healing takes time. Robbins estimates about a year of healing for every seven years of toxic living, though many improvements come along the way. Even when time is short, the natural program can ease pain and bring comfort. An elderly or very frail person can do a strong program with great benefit, but begin slowly and watch how the body responds.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

  • First: know what you are working with. Get the diagnosis: the type of cancer, where it is, and its stage. Make your treatment choices with your eyes open, and tell your doctor what you are doing.
  • Before you start: have everything you need for the next 30 days on hand, including a juicer. Read the program through, take a deep breath, and read it again. Line up a good support person, someone who will help you along and not give in to the “why me?” days.
  • Week 1: the foundation. Begin the food program or juice fast, fresh juice and Superfood every day. Echinacea. LBF, building up until the bowels move two or three times a day. High enemas three times a week or daily, with the skullcap and catnip liver dump in the morning when you want a good liver release. Castor oil pack over the front of the body. Garlic. Hot and cold showers, sun and air, movement.
  • Week 1 onward: the site. M&L Salve and a castor oil pack over the cancer every night.
  • Week 2: liver flushing. A week of liver flushing with the Blood Purifying or Detox Formula, and ELFs three nights. Essiac every day.
  • Week 3: kidney flushing. A week of kidney flushing, still with ELFs three nights.
  • Week 4 onward: repeat the cycle. Liver flushing every other week, kidney flushing between. Add the poultices if the site calls for them. BF&C to rebuild.
  • All along: the heart work. Forgive, let go, rest, and fill your days with what brings you joy.
  • Every month: take stock. Have the cancer measured. Expect six months or longer. Keep going long after the symptoms are gone, then settle into the 80/20 program for life.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: My Father’s Skin Cancer

My father came to live with us in 2008 with three spots of skin cancer, diagnosed at the VA, where he had already had others cut out. The Black Cancer Poultice cleared the smaller spots in short order, with no harm to the skin around them. But he would not do a liver flush. The largest spot, right beside his nose, would not clear. His liver was full and could no longer draw the cancer out, so he went in for surgery to have the rest removed. The poultice draws the waste out, but the liver has to be free to carry it away.

A Member’s Story: Twenty Years and Counting

A member in Michigan did his cancer work with us back in the early 2000s, when our offices were in Hendersonville. He was diagnosed with lymph cancer and did the entire Incurables Program. His doctors left a port in his neck for a few years, because they were sure the cancer would come back with a vengeance. It never did. More than 20 years later he is alive and well, still faithful to a clean, healthy life. He and his wife are always calling with questions about a friend or someone who works for them who needs help. Really great people.

From Dr. Christopher: A Man of Eighty

A man eighty years old was diagnosed with cancer throughout his body. His family gave him carrot and celery juice along with the blood cleansing formula (the Red Clover Combination) in capsule form, alternating the carrot and celery juice with grape juice. In four months’ time the doctors could not find any cancer cells. “They didn’t believe it was the same man.”

Credited to Dr. John R. Christopher’s writings.

From Dr. Christopher: The Woman on the Airplane

On a flight to Toronto, Dr. Christopher sat beside a woman who told him her story. She had lost one breast to cancer, then the other six months later, and six months after that the doctors wanted to remove her reproductive organs and part of her bowel. She refused further surgery and chemotherapy, went home and prayed, and felt led to change her diet: fruits, vegetables, grains and seeds, as much as possible raw. A few months later her doctor found her amazingly improved, with only a little cancer showing on her Pap smear. After a few more months on natural foods, even that cleared. Dr. Christopher thought, “This is exactly what I’ve been teaching all these years.”

Credited to Dr. John R. Christopher’s writings.

More on Cancer

Cleansing & Flushing, Digestion & Gut, Herbal Healing

Enema for an Infant or Young Child

By Breanne Fariss, written for the benefit of the H.E.A.L. members. Cautions added by H.E.A.L. are marked.

Why Do an Enema?

An enema is a washing of the colon by way of the rectum. Digestive illness and the general American diet can cause partial blockage in the colon, which backs up toxins that are meant to leave the body. Signs of a colon that is not properly cleaned out are a build-up of gas causing pain or bloating, mucus building up in other places because it can’t exit through the colon, and poor digestion. Diet change is important, but in the meantime enemas help get the waste out of the body.

All of this is true for children as well. Even a child who seems to go regularly can benefit from an enema when sick or uncomfortable, from the simplest cold or fever to childhood illnesses. Some feel it is extreme to wash the colon, but others feel it is a better choice than putting medicines into their little bodies when it can be avoided. It should, of course, go along with a pure diet and plenty of water.

Cautions First (added by H.E.A.L.)

Get medical help right away for a baby under 3 months with any fever (100.4°F or higher); a child who is hard to wake, limp, or unusually fussy and can’t be comforted; a stiff neck, a rash that doesn’t fade when pressed, or trouble breathing; signs of dehydration (no wet diaper in 6 to 8 hours, no tears, a dry mouth, a sunken soft spot); vomiting that won’t stop; a swollen, hard or very tender belly; or blood in the stool. An enema is not a substitute for care in these cases.

Use only a small amount. An infant can hold about a cup of water; a younger baby needs less. Stop when the child shows they are full.

Don’t keep repeating. If the water does not come back out, don’t give enema after enema. Water that stays in is being absorbed, and too much plain water in a small child can upset the body’s salt balance. One more try is plenty; if nothing comes, or the child is not taking fluids by mouth, call your doctor.

Never use the solution from a store-bought enema on a child. If you use a disposable enema bottle, empty it completely and rinse it out well before filling it with water.

Use distilled water, warm to the inside of your wrist.

What You Need

  • An adult-size Fleet or generic enema bottle, emptied and rinsed well. You can clean it and reuse it as many times as you like.
  • Olive oil or a water-based lubricant.
  • Warm distilled water.

How to Give It

Truth be told, the best way to relate to your child is to do a series of enemas yourself, so you know what it’s like and can prepare your child better. (Not to mention, it could be good for you too!)

  • Get ready. Lay your child on a towel on the bathroom floor. For an infant, put a fresh diaper underneath, ready to quickly fasten in case they go on you!
  • Keep it calm. Talk or sing gently. If they are old enough, explain why it will help, what they will feel, and encourage them to relax and let the water go in easy. If they don’t fight it, it goes much quicker and is more comfortable. Keep it light-hearted. Some children cry at the small discomfort; some never flinch. Read your child and keep it comfortable and quick.
  • Fill the bottle with warm distilled water.
  • Insert gently. Lubricate the nozzle and the child’s bottom. Lift their feet and bend their knees to their chest, as when changing a diaper. Find the opening with the nozzle tip, then gently and slowly twist slightly and slide it straight in, about an inch.
  • Squeeze in the water slowly and steadily until the bottle is empty, or until they let you know they have to go.
  • Let it come out. Help them onto the toilet, or fasten the diaper, and give them time. Sometimes it comes right away; sometimes it takes a few minutes, or comes in two or three rounds as gas and waste work their way out. The first time or two, only water may come out; after that you should see waste as things loosen.
  • Ease cramps. If they cramp, especially from gas, help them relax: massage the tummy in a clockwise circle, bend over, walk around, or lie back down on the towel until they are ready to go. If there’s an accident on the floor, encourage them that it can be cleaned up, and it’s better out than in!

Fever, Mucus and Long-Term Use

  • Fever. An enema can help bring a high fever down by a degree or so, and works even better followed by a cool bath. It can be repeated if the fever spikes again later. Watch for the warning signs in the caution box.
  • Mucus. A child dealing with mucus is often more constipated than you realize, which backs up even more mucus. An enema can be very helpful then.
  • Good bacteria. If you are giving enemas often over a long time, give a multi-strain probiotic in their juice each day, or empty a capsule or two into the enema water.

Growing Up

When children are old enough to do it themselves, move them up to an enema bag (see the How to Do a High Enema sheet). It’s easier than squeezing a little bottle and holds more water for a bigger child. The best way to teach is to do it yourself and then explain. Let them know the benefits outweigh the weirdness of it, and it’s just water! Have everything set up for them: the bag filled with warm water, the nozzle washed, the air cleared from the hose, a towel on the floor, and a favorite book or music. When they feel better afterward, they’ll be grateful and more willing next time.

After your first time or two, it will feel much smoother and simpler. Just relax about it, and your child will too. Happy cleansing!

Instructions by Breanne Fariss, written for the benefit of the H.E.A.L. members. Cautions added by H.E.A.L.

Sliced grapefruit, oranges, limes and green apples on fresh green leaves
Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing, Organs & Glands

Kidney Flushing: From Light to Intense

Photo: Julia Filirovska / Pexels

This post gathers my kidney flushing routines and class videos in one place. For the full picture of what is happening in the kidneys and a loose healing plan, start with my Kidney Disease information sheet.

From Light to Intense

Kidney flushing runs from a light daily or seasonal flush all the way to an intense flush used to lower rising blood pressure, dissolve kidney stones, and help the renal system clear edema. It is part three of the Incurables Routines, and it goes hand in hand with liver flushing: every week of liver flushing should be followed by a week of kidney flushing, so the body can stay on top of the healing.

  • Light: Hot Lemonade every day, Kidney/Bladder Tea with Kidney Support, and plenty of distilled water.
  • Moderate: a full Kidney Flushing week, alternated with liver flushing weeks.
  • Intense: the Ultimate Kidney Flush, also known as the Stone Dissolve Routine, below.
Kidney Flush Class

Download the handout from the Kidney Flushing Class here:

The Daily Flush: Hot Lemonade

Using the Hot Lemonade as a daily kidney flush is an excellent idea. Those who have suffered through kidney stones will want to keep up with this routine to keep new stones from forming. In a 16-ounce glass of hot water: 1 teaspoon cayenne, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, and fresh lemon juice and maple syrup to taste.

Learning to Use Cayenne: Hot Lemonade

The Ultimate Kidney Flush & Stone Dissolve Routine

So many of the great healing truths I have discovered have come from our members. The idea of using the Kidney Stone Dissolve Routine as an extreme kidney flush came from one of our brightest members, whose blood pressure was ticking up without a real reason. She understood that clogged kidneys, full of pus or sediment, make the heart work harder to force the blood through, and she wanted an intense flush. What a brilliant thought: an ELF* for the kidneys! (*ELF = Emergency Liver Flush.) It quickly clears excess sediment from the filters, and when the kidneys are free and clear the heart does not need to work as hard. All flows more freely.

This routine does not take the place of the daily Hot Lemonade for preventing new stones, but it quickly flushes the kidneys so they can filter better. Uric acid crystals dissolve quickly. Small calcium gravel and plaque dissolve faster than one large stone. Whatever the size of your crystal and rock collection, if you have or even suspect sediment, gravel or stones in your kidneys or bladder, it is time to get to work.

Ultimate Kidney Flush & Stone Dissolve Routine

What you need (the Kidney Stone Dissolve Kit):

  • Kidney Support: uva ursi leaves, juniper berries, corn silk, horsetail herb, pipsissewa leaf, burdock root and seed, goldenrod flower and parsley root.
  • Kidney/Bladder Tea: juniper berries, corn silk, uva ursi leaves, parsley root and leaf, dandelion leaf, horsetail herb, goldenrod flower, hydrangea root, gravel root, marshmallow root, orange peel and peppermint leaf.

In a gallon jug, combine:

  • 98 ounces organic, freshly juiced apples (use the tartest available, such as Granny Smith)
  • 10 ounces organic, fresh-squeezed lemon juice
  • 10 ounces organic, fresh-squeezed lime juice
  • 10 ounces organic, raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar
  • 8 ounces of dry Kidney/Bladder Tea (unbrewed)
  • A 2-ounce bottle of Kidney Support (added after the dry herbs are strained out)

The routine takes 3 days and can be repeated.

  1. Day One: Combine everything except the Kidney Support in the gallon jug. For a stronger brew, run it all through a blender to break down the herbs. Let it steep at room temperature for 24 hours, shaking for a minute or two every couple of hours.
  2. Strain through a stainless steel strainer, or squeeze it through a clean cotton T-shirt. Add the 2-ounce bottle of Kidney Support. Keep the strained brew in the refrigerator until it is gone.
  3. Days Two and Three: Drink 4 ounces every waking hour, each followed by a glass of distilled water (or an ounce every 15 minutes). At 4 ounces an hour over a 16-hour day, you will drink about 64 ounces a day, so the gallon lasts almost two days.

Drink up to 64 ounces of distilled water a day along with it. Only distilled water, the emptiest water, is allowed. It acts like a vacuum, the universal solvent for unwanted mineral deposits. Just drinking distilled water regularly helps dissolve stones and keep new ones from forming; added to this routine, you have a real winner. Repeat at one-week intervals if needed; one large stone dissolves more slowly than many small ones.

Hydrangea, the gravel remover. There is much disagreement about hydrangea’s stone-dissolving properties. Most authorities agree it removes stones, but not all consider it a solvent. Dr. Butler affirmed that it relieves the pain of passing stones. Dr. Shook explained that the sharp pain of gravel comes from the crystal’s sharp points piercing the kidney or ureter; when those points are even partly dissolved, the pain, bleeding and inflammation subside and the stones often pass with just a stretching of the tubes. He asked how else to account for stones that x-rays showed with sharp points, yet passed smooth and round after hydrangea. His clinical evidence, he said, proved hydrangea a true stone solvent.

Kidney Infections

If you have back pain and are not sure whether it is your kidneys, try my three drinks (Echinacea, Herbal Aid 1 and Hot Lemonade), explained on the Kidney Disease sheet. If you determine you have a kidney infection, the Infection Program has proven very helpful in aiding the body to clear it.

Infection Program: Light to Intense

Feeding the Kidneys and Salve Packs

Care and Feeding of the Kidneys

A hot herbal fomentation brings healing herbs right into a struggling kidney, but it is messy and time-consuming, and few people will set one up. A salve pack does the same work without the hassle: spread the salve on flannel, lay it over the kidneys, and cover it with plastic wrap, a towel and a moist heating pad. For the Kidney Salve herbs, proportions and how to make it, see A Salve Pack for Struggling Kidneys.

Topical Application: Herbal Salve Overview

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Get prompt care for fever and chills with back or side pain, blood in the urine, being unable to pass urine, stone pain that is severe or comes with vomiting, or swelling with shortness of breath. These routines are not for anyone on dialysis or with kidney failure.

More on the Kidneys

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

Sliced grapefruit, oranges, limes and green apples on fresh green leaves
Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing, Infection, Colds & Flu, Organs & Glands

Kidney Disease

Photo: Julia Filirovska / Pexels

Infection, Inflammation, Gravel & Stones, and Failing Kidney Function

Understanding the Condition

Dr. Christopher called the kidneys “the filters of the blood,” and that is exactly what they are. Every drop of blood in the body passes through them many times a day, roughly 45 to 50 gallons of blood filtered every 24 hours. Each kidney holds about a million tiny filtering units called nephrons. In each one, a little knot of blood vessels (the glomerulus) strains the blood, and a long, thin tubule then takes back the water, minerals and nutrients the body needs to keep. What is left, the waste, acids and excess fluid, becomes one to two quarts of urine a day.

The kidneys do more than make urine. They keep the body’s water, salt, potassium and acid balance steady; they help set the blood pressure; they make the hormone that tells the bone marrow to build red blood cells; and they turn vitamin D into the form the body uses for strong bones. When the kidneys struggle, all of these jobs slip, which is why kidney trouble can show up as tiredness, anemia, high blood pressure, swelling, cramps and weak bones long before anyone thinks of the kidneys.

How It Develops

Kidney disease is seldom one sudden event. It is usually a slow wearing-down of the filters, and it tends to move through stages (see the picture below):

  • Overload. The most common beginning is simply not drinking enough water, combined with a heavy load for the filters to handle: lots of animal protein, salt, soda, coffee, alcohol and processed food. Urine becomes dark and concentrated, and minerals and uric acid begin to settle out as fine sediment.
  • Irritation and infection. Sediment and concentrated urine irritate the delicate tubules. Bacteria, most often climbing up from the bladder, find a home there. The tissue swells and heats, bringing the deep back ache, fever and burning that go with a kidney infection (pyelonephritis). Inflammation of the filters themselves is called nephritis; the old books call long-standing nephritis Bright’s disease.
  • Gravel and stones. Left in place, crystals grow into gravel and stones. Their sharp points tear at the lining of the kidney and ureter, which is where the terrible pain and the blood in the urine come from. A stone can also block the flow of urine, backing pressure up into the kidney.
  • Scarring and lost function. Each round of infection, inflammation or blockage leaves some nephrons scarred. Nephrons do not grow back, so the ones that remain have to work harder. Over years the kidney can shrink and lose function. This is chronic kidney disease (CKD). The two biggest causes today are diabetes and high blood pressure, both of which damage the tiny blood vessels of the filters; long-term use of some pain relievers and other drugs is another.

The hard part is that, as Dr. Christopher said, “our kidneys cannot talk.” Chronic kidney disease is usually quiet until much of the function is gone. Early signs are easy to brush off: tiredness, a dull ache across the lower back, restless legs and night cramps, puffy eyes or ankles, foamy or very dark urine, getting up often at night, itching, and blood pressure that creeps up for no clear reason. The simple blood and urine tests a doctor runs (eGFR, creatinine and urine protein) show how well the filters are working, and they are the best way to measure your progress.

Diagram of four kidneys showing how kidney trouble builds: healthy filter, overloaded, inflamed or infected, and stones and scarring
How kidney trouble builds. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
A jagged kidney stone about 3/8 inch across beside a dime and a ruler
A real kidney stone, passed by Dara’s husband in 2013, beside a dime and a ruler: about 3/8 inch across, with rough, jagged edges. Photo: Dara Dietz, H.E.A.L.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing. A person can follow a perfect herbal program, but if she stays in a life that keeps wearing her down, or never makes time to care for herself, the body will keep losing ground. Healing the body often means facing what is happening in the heart and spirit as well.

The body and the heart are not separate. The kidneys sort what we keep from what we let go, and feelings we hold on to instead of releasing can settle here too. Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, ties kidney trouble to old hurts, disappointment and anger that never got cleared out. Letting those go is part of the flush.

  • Kidney problems: criticism, disappointment and a sense of failure; shame; reacting to life like a hurt child. Turn it around: Everything happening in my life is working toward good, and good comes from every experience. It is safe for me to grow up.
  • Kidney stones: hard lumps of anger that were never dissolved. Turn it around: I let go of past problems easily.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House).

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The kidneys sit high in the back, tucked under the lower ribs on either side of the spine, with the adrenal glands resting on top of each one. Two thin tubes, the ureters, carry urine down to the bladder. Look at the picture below and notice what sits around them: the liver over the right kidney, and the colon lying in front of both.

Diagram showing where the kidneys sit, with the liver, adrenal glands, colon, ureters and bladder around them
Where the kidneys sit, and their neighbors. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L. (not to scale).

Why the neighbors matter. The kidneys never work alone. The liver breaks down poisons and hands much of that waste to the kidneys to carry out, so when the liver is cleansed, the kidneys get extra work. That is why every week of liver flushing should be followed by a week of kidney flushing, so the body can stay on top of the healing. The bowel matters just as much. A backed-up colon sends its waste back into the blood the kidneys must filter, and a full, heavy bowel presses on the ureters and bladder. Keeping the bowels moving is part of every kidney program.

Opening the Way: Flow, Circulation and Warmth

  • Water first. Fluid is what keeps the filters open and keeps sediment floating so it can pass. Steam-distilled water was Dr. Christopher’s choice, and HEAL’s; it is “empty” and picks up mineral deposits on its way through. A common guideline is at least half your body weight in ounces each day; Dr. Christopher recommended up to an ounce per pound. Let Kidney/Bladder Tea carry much of that amount. (This sheet is not written for anyone on dialysis or with kidney failure; see the box below.)
  • Kidney Salve pack. Parsley root, juniper, marshmallow, ginger and burdock in a salve, spread on doubled flannel, laid over the kidneys on the back, covered, and warmed with a heating pad for 45 minutes to an hour at bedtime, then left on all night. It does the work of a fomentation without the mess. Alternatives: a hot fomentation of strong Kidney/Bladder Tea, or fresh cabbage leaves laid over the kidneys overnight.
  • Hot and cold. Hot and cold showers two or three times a day bring circulation through the back and pelvis. For the pain of a moving stone, hot fomentations over the kidneys (wet hand towels heated in the microwave, wrung out, laid over the kidneys and changed as they cool) give the most relief. It needs nothing special; you can put it together in a motel room that has a microwave. In Dara’s practice, people rolling on the floor in agony from a stone have been comfortable within 15 minutes. When urine is held back, alternating hot and cold fomentations over the kidneys and groin can help break up the blockage.
  • Keep the bowels moving. Lower Bowel Formula (LBF) and plenty of fiber, so the colon is not adding to the load.

Feeding the Kidneys and Helping Them Clear

  • Kidney Support and Kidney/Bladder Tea. The foundation. Kidney Support (juniper, uva ursi, parsley root, corn silk, goldenrod, horsetail, pipsissewa, burdock root and seed) is food for the whole renal system. Add ½ teaspoon to each 8 ounces of Kidney/Bladder Tea, hot or iced, and drink freely. The tea adds hydrangea and gravel root to discourage stones, and marshmallow to soothe.
  • Hot Lemonade. In a 16-ounce glass of hot water: 1 teaspoon cayenne, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, and fresh lemon juice and maple syrup to taste. Once or more a day. It keeps the urine from becoming a breeding ground for stones and gets circulation moving.
  • Parsley. Fresh parsley, parsley tea and parsley in green juices; one of Dr. Christopher’s greatest kidney herbs.
  • Marshmallow root. Soothing and coating for raw, burning or inflamed tissue, and it helps gravel pass smoothly. Slippery elm does the same job.
  • For active infection. Herbal Aid 1 is the formula Dara uses for kidney infections; it works best for clearing them. Use it on the schedule from the HEAL Infection Program: 1 teaspoon in hot water every three waking hours for a mild infection, every two hours for a moderate one, and every hour for a serious one. Add 1 ounce of Echinacea in a mug of hot water once a day (once or twice for a serious infection), garlic paste on the feet as needed, and an ELF every few days, or five nights in a row for a serious infection. Keep Kidney Support and the tea going alongside. If you have taken antibiotics again and again for the same infection, expect the clearing to take anywhere from two weeks to three months.
  • For gravel and stones. Hydrangea root and gravel root, used in HEAL’s Stone Dissolve Routine (Ultimate Kidney Flush). Fresh juices: carrot and cucumber, celery and parsley, or watermelon.

For a Kidney Pain Attack: Dara’s Three Drinks

Kidney pain often feels like a stiff, aching back, so bad you hold onto the furniture to get around. But the kidneys sit at the same level as the lower back, so an ache there can be hard to place: is it the kidneys, or the back itself (or, for a woman, her monthly cycle)? These three drinks answer the question. Drink them one right after the other. As the fluid filters through, it calms spastic kidneys: if the kidneys are the trouble, the ache will be gone within about an hour. If it does not let go, the trouble is most likely in the back, and you can turn to back support instead.

  1. Echinacea: 1 ounce of Echinacea in 16 ounces of hot water.
  2. Herbal Aid 1: 1 tablespoon in 16 ounces of hot water, with honey.
  3. Hot Lemonade: a 16-ounce glass, made as above.

Pain with fever, blood in the urine, or pain that won’t let up still needs medical care (see the box below).

Taking Away the Burden

Careful with rock-based minerals. Most ordinary calcium supplements are ground-up rock (limestone, oyster shell) that weak kidneys cannot handle. Dara’s kidneys went into spasm within four hours of a single capsule. Dr. Christopher’s herbal Calcium extract has given her the calcium she needs with no kidney trouble.

Keep animal protein low, cut out soda, sugary drinks and junk food, go easy on salt and coffee, and avoid alcohol. Ask your doctor about long-term use of over-the-counter pain relievers, which are hard on the kidneys.

When to Get Medical Care

Kidney disease can become serious quickly. Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Get prompt care for: fever and chills with back or side pain; blood in the urine; being unable to pass urine; stone pain that is severe, does not let up, or comes with vomiting; a sudden drop in how much urine you make; or swelling with shortness of breath.

Not for dialysis or kidney failure. This sheet is not written for anyone on dialysis or with kidney failure. Their care is managed by their medical team.

Level of Commitment

How much work kidney healing takes depends on how long the trouble has been building and how much function has been lost. Be honest about where you are:

  • Gentle support. For a tired, achy back, dark or cloudy urine, a history of bladder and kidney infections, or simply keeping weak kidneys strong. Daily Kidney/Bladder Tea with Kidney Support, Hot Lemonade, plenty of distilled water, a salve pack when the back aches, and taking away the burden foods. Most people can live on this for good; Dara has for over 30 years.
  • Focused cleansing. For gravel and stones, recurring infections, swelling, or blood pressure creeping up. Add a full Kidney Flushing week (the Kidney Flushing Schedule: the Kidney Flush Drink three times a day, Detox Formula, and 16 ounces of Kidney/Bladder Tea with Kidney Support every three hours, on fresh juices). Alternate it with liver flushing weeks so the body stays on top of the healing. For stones, add the 3-day Stone Dissolve Routine.
  • Incurables Program. For diagnosed chronic kidney disease, nephritis, or kidneys that are failing. The full program: a flush every morning for the first 30 days, alternating a week of liver flushing with a week of kidney flushing; up to six cups a day of Kidney/Bladder Tea with Kidney Support; the cold sheet treatment at least weekly; salve packs nightly; and a clean, plant-based diet. This level is done hand in hand with your doctor and your lab work.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

  1. Weeks 1–2: Build the foundation. Start your Foundational Program (Superfood, Echinacea, Vitamin C, bowel cleansing with LBF). Begin Kidney/Bladder Tea with Kidney Support every day and work up to your fluid goal. Hot Lemonade each morning. Drop soda, junk food and most animal protein. Kidney Salve pack at bedtime if the back aches.
  2. If there is infection: start Herbal Aid 1 right away on the Infection Program schedule, with Echinacea and garlic paste on the feet; use the three drinks for a pain attack, add marshmallow root tea for burning, and keep the fluids up. If there is fever with back pain, get medical care the same day.
  3. Week 3: Kidney Flushing week. Five days on the Kidney Flushing Schedule, on fresh juices if you can, with hot and cold showers two or three times a day.
  4. Weeks 4 onward: Alternate. A week of liver flushing, then a week of kidney flushing, for as many rounds as your level of commitment calls for, with gentle-support weeks in between.
  5. For stones: do the 3-day Stone Dissolve Routine. Repeat at one-week intervals if needed; one large stone dissolves more slowly than many small ones, and some cases take two or three rounds.
  6. About 3 months: Check your progress. Have your kidney labs and blood pressure rechecked so you can see what has changed, then settle into gentle support for life.

Stories from the Work

Dara: A lifetime with weak kidneys

Kidney infections were part of my life from childhood. By sixteen, an infection and high fevers put me in the emergency room in convulsions, and I lived on antibiotics for the next fifteen years. When I discovered herbs, I finally began to clear the infections from my renal system completely. Kidney Support in my Kidney/Bladder Tea, along with my hot lemonade, have been my daily supports ever since. I haven’t had a kidney attack or kidney pain in over 20 years. I know my kidneys are a weak spot, so I keep animal proteins very low, and I have no soda, sugary drinks or junk food. The body just doesn’t need that stuff.

Dara: Ground-up rocks and my kidneys

Regular calcium supplements are nothing but ground-up rocks, and my kidneys cannot take that at all. A friend told me about a high-quality calcium supplement that would never affect my kidneys. Within four hours of taking only one capsule, I could not even walk straight; my kidneys were completely spasmed. I had to drink emergency kidney teas and hot lemonade to clear the congestion and calm it down. I never touched those capsules again. Then I discovered Dr. Christopher’s Calcium extract. My mentor at the time talked me into making it, as I was very leery. It has been amazing: no kidney issues.

Dara: My husband’s kidney stone on the road

On a weekend trip to a class in Tennessee, my husband had a kidney stone attack. He had felt a little discomfort before we left, and the lack of fluids on the four-and-a-half-hour drive likely set the stones off. One of the worst things you can do with kidney stones is let yourself get dehydrated. The vessels in the kidneys are lined with nerve tissue; when the fluid falls off, the vessels collapse around the stones and the rough edges rip and tear as they pass. Staying hydrated keeps the stones floating in the center, with much less tearing. Hot fomentations over his kidneys were what really eased the pain. He said they were the only thing that truly helped. He has given birth to many, many stone children over the years, and the stone pictured on this sheet is one of them.

Dara: Kidneys or my back?

During this time of my life, when my back began to ache there were three possible reasons. One was my cycle, which was easy to rule in or out. The other two were trickier. In 1985 I was in a car accident that fractured my lower back. I could go long periods without any discomfort, then out of the blue it would begin to spasm. Since the fracture was in my lower back, right at the same level as my kidneys, I needed to figure out which one was talking to me. When my back began hurting I would do the three kidney drinks. Within an hour, if it was my kidneys, the discomfort would be gone. If it did not go away, I knew it was my back, and I began using the BF&C formula for my back along with Lobelia for the spasm. We were not yet making salves, so my only relief was hydrotherapy and the extracts.

Dara: Hot fomentations for stone pain

I have had people rolling on the floor in agony from a kidney stone who were comfortable in 15 minutes or less with hot fomentations over the kidneys. They are so helpful.

Dara: The night at the cabin door

One night my husband’s boss showed up at our cabin door in severe kidney stone pain. His nephew was on the way to take him to the emergency room, but it would be over an hour before he arrived. I was setting him up for hot fomentations when he threw up blood all over my bathroom. I gave him an ounce of fresh-squeezed ginger root juice and an ounce of Cayenne extract. His stomach settled and the bleeding stopped. I left the mess, got him into bed and put the hot fomentations on his kidneys. About 15 minutes later he had fallen asleep, relaxed and exhausted from the pain. When his nephew arrived, he drove him, now comfortable, to the emergency room, where they could find no hole in his stomach lining and no internal bleeding at all. He later told me there was no way he had thrown up blood in my bathroom; I assured him I’d had to scrub the proof off the walls and floor. For as long as I knew him, he joked that I had tried to kill him with that ounce of Cayenne. It was the only part of the whole night he remembered. It worked.

Dara: A member’s bright idea, the Ultimate Kidney Flush

So many of the healing truths I have learned have come from our members. A member called to order a Kidney Stone Dissolve Kit. When I asked if her stones were coming back, she said no: her blood pressure was ticking up without a real reason, and she knew that clogged kidneys full of sediment make the heart work harder to push the blood through. She wanted an intense kidney flush. What a brilliant thought, an ELF for the kidneys! The stone routine quickly clears sediment from the filters. When the kidneys are free and clear, the heart doesn’t need to work as hard, and everything flows more freely.

From Dr. Christopher’s files: The marshmallow root

One of Dr. Christopher’s students had a teenage son who teased her for studying herbs. One day he was brought home from football practice doubled over in pain, unable to pass his urine. She ran out to the irrigated field and pulled up marshmallow plants, root and all. Too desperate to wait for tea, he asked for a washed root and began chewing it. Within seconds he straightened up, went to the bathroom, and was relieved. He never teased her about herbs again.

More on the Kidneys

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

The pan scored into small squares
Cleansing & Flushing, Digestion & Gut, Herbal Healing

Bowel Formula Squares: An Easier Way to Take Your Herbs

Not everyone can swallow a handful of capsules, and the herbs in a good lower bowel formula are bitter. Here is a simple way around both problems: make the powder into coconut oil squares. The coconut oil masks the bitter taste, and small chunks go down easily with a swallow of juice.

A dear doctor friend of mine, who practiced well into her nineties, made these squares for all of her patients who needed a lower bowel formula. She bought the powder 30 pounds at a time.

What You Need

LBF #1 powder in a glass bowl beside a jar of coconut oil

1 pound of lower bowel formula powder (see Helping Sluggish Bowels Move Again for what goes into it), 1 cup of coconut oil, and a foil-lined cookie sheet.

Making the Squares

Melted coconut oil being poured into the powder

Melt the coconut oil and pour it into the powder.

Whisking the powder and oil until smooth

Whisk until it is completely smooth, then pour it onto the foil-lined cookie sheet and spread it evenly.

Scoring the set mixture with a knife

Chill it just until it is firm enough to hold a knife line but still soft: about 4 to 5 minutes in the freezer, or 15 to 20 in the refrigerator. Then score it into squares. I always did 14 cuts the long way and 10 the short way. Whatever size you choose, cut it the same way every time, so every square holds the same amount.

The pan scored into small squares

Put the pan back in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. The squares will break apart evenly along the score lines. Store them in the dairy compartment of your refrigerator.

Taking Them

Build up just as you would with capsules: 1 square the first day, 2 the second, 3 the third, and so on, until your bowels are moving well. Once you know how much you need, you can cut future batches to suit your own dose.

Don’t try to swallow a whole square; it can get stuck in the throat. Cut each square into small chunks with a paring knife. Put a spoonful in your mouth and wash it down with a swallow of Superfood or juice. They float right down, and you will hardly taste the herbs.

The finished pan of squares on the counter

This is shared for educational purposes, from my own study and experience. It is not medical advice.

Cleansing & Flushing, Herbal Healing

Clearing Heavy Metals from the Body

Heavy metals and other pollutants get trapped in our systems from the world around us and from what we put into our bodies. Clearing them is not a quick job, but it can be done. It takes an herbal combination that draws the metals out, a routine of hot mineral baths, and a bowel that is open and working so the metals have a way out of the body.

That last part matters more than most people realize. The bowel vacuum, the absorbing fiber blend in A 911 for Vomiting and Diarrhea, should be used the entire time you’re working to clear heavy metals. People using it found their hair samples showing a decrease in heavy metals within a few weeks.

What a Good Heavy Metal Formula Contains

A good heavy metal formula might contain these three herbs:

  • Bugleweed, 3 parts. The lead herb, long used to draw out minerals, drugs and other pollutants trapped in the system.
  • Yellow Dock Root, 3 parts. A strong blood purifier that helps the liver and bowel carry the waste out.
  • Lobelia, 1 part. Relaxes and opens the body, and carries the other herbs where they need to go.

“Parts” can be any measure you like, as long as you use the same one for every herb. By weight, that’s 3 ounces each of Bugleweed and Yellow Dock, and 1 ounce of Lobelia.

It is paired with a Chaparral extract. Chaparral is one of the strongest blood-cleansing herbs there is.

Putting It Together

The heavy metal extract: Put the dry herbs in a glass jar and pour in 80-proof vodka. Once the herbs have settled, you want about 60% herb sediment on the bottom and 40% liquid on top. Shake the jar every day. The traditional timing follows the moon, from the new moon to the full moon, about two weeks. I prefer to let my extracts sit a full three months, which makes them good and strong. Then strain and bottle the liquid.

The Chaparral extract: Make it the same way, but use a 50-50 mix of 80-proof vodka and apple cider vinegar instead of straight vodka. A few herbs respond better to that mix, and Chaparral is one of them.

How to Use It

  • The tea: ½ teaspoon of the heavy metal extract and 1 teaspoon of the Chaparral extract in a cup of hot water, three times a day.
  • The baths: every other day, soak in a tub of hot water with 1 to 3 pounds of Epsom salts. Keep up the baths for three weeks, then rest from the baths for a week while you keep taking the tea. See The Detox Bath.
  • The bowel vacuum: keep it going the whole time, with your lower bowel formula alongside it so the bowels keep moving well.

Two or three cycles of baths is a good place to begin. How many you need really depends on how bad things are, and on whether you’ve cleaned up your life so the cleansing is actually working.

Lay the Foundation First

Before beginning the baths, the foundational work should already be in place:

It’s also good to have at least one week of liver flushing and kidney flushing under your belt. See Week 2: Liver Flushing and Kidney Flushing Light to Intense.

Then, all the way through the program, do at least one ELF liver flush a week. It keeps the liver cleared so the waste can move out freely, and leaves the liver free to pull toxins effectively.

For the full routine as I taught it in class, see Clearing Heavy Metal Class.

This is shared for educational purposes, from my own study and experience. It is not medical advice.

Cleansing & Flushing, Digestion & Gut, Herbal Healing

Helping Sluggish Bowels Move Again

Everything we eat that the body can’t use has to leave through the bowel. When the bowel is sluggish, that waste sits. If you hold a cesspool in your middle, the blood that travels through every part of you picks up that poison and carries it throughout your entire system. What can you expect but to develop issues in every part of the body? Supporting the body to remove its waste every day is one of the most basic, most important things we can do for our health.

Over the years I’ve come to rely on two bowel formulas. The first is fashioned around the formula Dr. Schulze used to make. The second I put together for myself nearly twenty years ago, fashioned around Dr. Christopher’s lower bowel formula. So many people have come to love it that it’s made right alongside the first.

What a Good Lower Bowel Formula Contains

A good lower bowel formula might contain these eight herbs:

  • Curacao and Cape Aloe, 2 parts. A strong bitter that wakes up the muscles of the bowel wall and gets things moving.
  • Cascara Sagrada Bark, 2 parts. Tones the muscle of the bowel and helps it find its own natural rhythm again.
  • Senna Pods, 1 part. A dependable bowel stimulant, the gentler part of the senna plant.
  • Senna Leaves, 1 part. Adds the stronger push of the senna leaf.
  • Ginger Root, 1 part. Warms the bowel and eases the cramping that can come as it starts to move.
  • Barberry Root Bark, 1 part. Stimulates the flow of bile from the liver, which is the body’s own natural laxative.
  • Garlic, 1 part. Cleanses and fights the bacteria and parasites that thrive in a sluggish bowel.
  • African Bird Pepper, 1 part. Brings fresh circulation and carries the other herbs where they need to go.

“Parts” can be any measure you like, as long as you use the same one for every herb. By weight, that’s 2 ounces each of Aloe and Cascara, and 1 ounce each of the rest. Powder the herbs, mix them well, and fill capsules.

With or Without the Cayenne

I make this formula two ways, with the African Bird Pepper and without it. If you find you need more than five capsules a day, the cayenne can upset your stomach or burn a bit. It can feel like acid reflux, especially if you take the capsules without food in your stomach. For anyone who needs a larger number, leave the pepper out.

An Extract for the Very Sensitive

Some people can’t swallow capsules, and some bowels are so sensitive that even a small amount of the powdered herbs sends them into cramps. For them, the same formula without the cayenne can be made into an extract.

I had a woman who could not move her bowels, but even a quarter of a capsule would rip her up. She’d be in horrid cramps. We made the extract, and she needed only one or two drops a day. Without that little bit of help her bowels were just too tight, but with it she was fine.

Put the dry herbs in a glass jar and pour in 80-proof vodka. Once the herbs have settled, you want about 60% herb sediment on the bottom and 40% liquid on top. Shake the jar every day. The traditional timing follows the moon, from the new moon to the full moon, about two weeks. I prefer to let my extracts sit a full three months, which makes them good and strong. Then strain and bottle the liquid. Start with a single drop a day and adjust from there.

A Second Formula: Heavier on the Cascara

Senna has been given a bad name over the years, and some people find it harsh. Some simply respond better to a different set of herbs. For them, a good alternative formula might contain these five herbs, with no Senna and no cayenne:

  • Cascara Sagrada Bark, 4 parts. The heart of this formula. When I built it for myself I tripled the Cascara, because that was what my body responded to. It appears a good many other people like it too.
  • Barberry Root Bark, 1 part. Gets the bile flowing.
  • Ginger Root, 1 part. Warms the bowel and eases cramping.
  • Curacao and Cape Aloe, 1 part. A bitter that wakes up the bowel wall.
  • Turkey Rhubarb Root, 1 part. Moves the bowel, then gently tones it afterward.

By weight, that’s 4 ounces of Cascara and 1 ounce each of the rest.

How Much and How Often

Both formulas are used the same way. Take 1 capsule with dinner the first day, 2 the second day, and 3 the third day. Keep adding one capsule a day until you find your number, the amount that gives you good, easy movements.

The average person lands between 3 and 5 capsules a day. There are a few poor souls who need 10 or more. I need many times the average myself, and my body is grateful for every one. There is no limit. The goal is to support your body in removing its waste, however many capsules that takes.

Working Alongside the Fiber Blends

These formulas get the bowel moving. Fiber gives it something to move. In a bowel cleansing program, a lower bowel formula is always established first and kept going, so the bowel keeps moving well while an absorbing fiber blend, the bowel vacuum, does the heavy cleansing work. For a healing fiber blend, see A Fiber Blend That Heals While It Works, and for the bowel vacuum itself, which doubles as a 911 for vomiting and diarrhea, see A 911 for Vomiting and Diarrhea.

If capsules are hard for you to swallow, or the taste is too bitter, see Bowel Formula Squares: An Easier Way to Take Your Herbs.

This is shared for educational purposes, from my own study and experience. It is not medical advice.