The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. It's mainly located in the upper-right part of the abdomen, and it’s about the size of a football. The primary job of the liver is to filter the blood continually. By filtering the blood, the liver also supports the immune system and aids in digestion. Most importantly, the liver is the waste processor of the body.
Most people don’t realize that their skin is a reflection of the condition of their liver. Obviously, when the skin turns yellow (like when babies have jaundice), people figure that out, but long before that point, the skin will offer clues about what’s going on inside the body. I have noticed some common skin conditions related to a compromised liver:
· Excessive back and arm acne
· Acne-like growths (ones that can never be “popped”) that show up most commonly on the legs and abdomen, but can appear anywhere on the body
· Frequent bruising
· Consistent itchiness
My first exposure to the skin reflecting the health of the liver when my husband, Bobby, started announcing, “I’M ITCHY!!” on a regular basis. He’d itch and scratch and finally he’d resort to taking Allertec (a Costco store-brand version of Zyrtec) on a somewhat-regular basis to calm down his urge to itch his arms, legs, back, stomach, and scalp. It helped, but sometimes he had to take two Allertec per day to get relief (even though only one is recommended per day). I started worrying about what this amount of medication was doing to his liver so, of course, I had to research it.
Bobby, our daughter Lindsey, and our niece A.J., 2018
The Mayo Clinic lists itchy skin directly in correlation with a failing liver. That means that being itchy on a regular basis is a sign that the liver has too much of a toxic load and can’t keep up with the demands being placed on it. That toxic load can come from the sheer amount of junk food and preservatives we eat, it can come from daily prescription medication use, and it can come from something as seemingly benign as Tylenol (which is one reason we don’t recommend the use of Tylenol). If the liver gets too much of a toxic load, it could result in liver failure, which results in death. Having a functional liver is critical to your overall health.
At some point, virtually everyone needs some kind of liver detox. Milk Thistle helps detox the liver so that the liver can detox the body, but Milk Thistle had never impressed me as a supplement in the past. I had taken it with the understanding of what it was supposed to do, but it never seem to do anything noticeable, so I stopped taking it. Bottle after bottle joined the graveyard of supplements that I had tried that didn’t work for me.
When I talked to Nurse Rose about Bobby's itchy skin, she recommended a very specific brand of Milk Thistle that I had never tried: MediHerb's Milk Thistle Forte. Since MediHerb is part of the Standard Process family of products, and since I had experienced previous success with other Standard Process products, I was eager for my husband to try this brand of Milk Thistle.
He took Mediherb’s Milk Thistle Forte (two per day) until the bottle was gone… and Rose was right. It’s effective! Bobby’s daily itchiness was GONE. It’s not like he’s never been itchy again - that’s a normal part of the body’s skin-shedding process - but he rarely gets an urge to reach for Allertec, and when he does get that urge regularly, he knows it’s time to detox his liver again.
Since this worked so successfully for my husband, I finally decided to try MediHerb's Milk Thistle Forte for myself again and I have to admit that I was impressed with this brand of Milk Thistle. I would rank it as ten times as effective as any other Milk Thistle I’ve tried.
With that said, if your health is frail or your symptoms are plentiful, you may want to start slowly with this Milk Thistle (like taking only one per day – or maybe even ½ per day). Detoxing too fast can trigger a "Herxheimer Reaction" – mild to severe flu-like symptoms which most people attribute to the product they’re taking; but really, it’s a known reaction of detoxing the body.
Everyone's body is different. Bobby needs two tablets per day. I need four. Work with your health care professional to get the right amount for you to achieve the results you need. Just make sure to drink plenty of water during this process because drinking adequate water allows your body to flush toxins.
Taking care of your body by cleansing your liver is ridiculously easy. If you regularly add to your toxic load by using things like hair dye, scented lotions, regular perfume/cologne use, moderate to heavy makeup use, regular prescription use, alcohol consumption, etc, you may want to make MediHerb’s Milk Thistle Forte a regular part of your daily supplement regimen. Even if you don’t have any outward symptoms, you may want to take some of this Milk Thistle once a year or so to prevent the flaring up of any particular issue.
Itch-free Bobby and me, 2019
Please note: MediHerb's Milk Thistle Forte is only available through a doctor or a nurse. Reach out to a local chiropractor, natural doctor, or nurse who would have access to this line of products and give it a try!
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