Liver pain from olive leaf extract

[Aerose91]

I am treating two infections in my gut, citrobacter freundii and klebsellia oxytoca. The citrobacter was susceptible to uva ursi and i have read klebsellia is susceptible to olive leaf.

Since taking the olive leaf I've been having significant liver pain. I figured if anything, the uva ursi would do this but i had no problems with it. 3 days after adding the o.l.e. my liver started hurting and it only subsides when i back off it. Any ideas what that could be?

 

[Cheesus]

One possibility is that the olive leaf extract directly causing liver inflammation. Alternatively it could possibly be the release of endotoxin from the cell wall of dying gut bacteria which is known to be incredibly hepa-toxic. I have just read a few articles suggesting that olive leaf extract can exert some hepa-protective effective, which would imply that the OLE is not directly damaging your liver.

However, it is important to take this with a very big pinch of salt. The studies examining OLE were done on mice. Moreover there could be a million things currently going on in your body - it might not even be your liver that is hurting. It will not be possible to say with any degree of confidence what is actually going on inside your body. If you decide to continue with the OLE even though it is causing you pain on your right side then it is important to know that you are taking on risk that you are damaging yourself with no tangible benefit.

@alicec Might have other suggestions for reducing pathogenic gut bacteria?

 

[Aerose91]

My thought was it was causing my liver to be inflammed. I dont think it's a toxin overload because i do coffee enemas daily, epsom salt baths and liver flushes. I also read up on o.l.e and only heard that it's helpful for your liver so im not sure why it would be causing inflammation.

The crappy part is it felt like it was actually starting to help the SIBO!

 

[Cheesus]

I am not sure that coffee enemas, epsom salts or liver flushes would do very much if your liver is overburdened with endotoxin. It would still have to work very hard. Coffee enemas and epsom salt baths would be, in my view, particularly useless.

As for the liver flush, it would depend what you are doing for it, but the problem with endotoxin is not necessarily a toxic congestion within the liver - although that would obviously be a problem is your phase II detoxification is impaired - but rather an acute exposure to toxins that would be the cause of inflammation and pain. Your liver could be running perfectly, but if there is a large toxic exposure, your liver would still have to work through it regardless of how well it is functioning or how congested it is, and it would possibly cause a degree of inflammation and pain.

As I say, this is all purely speculative. Really we do not know what is happening in your body.

 

[Aerose91]

How does one clear endotoxins specifically from the liver? Id be down to try it and see if there is any relief as a process of elimination.

Like you said, the enemas and baths dont help at all.

 

[Cheesus]

Well the best option would obviously be to not overload the liver at all, though that isn't necessarily available. Curcumin is very good for the liver. It up-regulates a number of phase I and II detoxification pathways, meaning that things can move through more quickly. It also stimulates gall-bladder emptying, which literally dumps the contents of your liver out into the small intestine. You could then also use something to bind to the toxins in the gut such as chlorella, which conveniently has some broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity so may theoretically be beneficial in SIBO. If you choose to use chlorella you need to be careful to start at a low dose otherwise you could give yourself a rough ride.

If you are really overloading your liver then silymarin (milk thistle) is also good, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first line of defence as it actually protects the liver by slowing down a number of liver processes, thereby preventing the uptake of toxins into hepatocytes. This is good for the liver, but not necessarily great for eliminating toxins from the body.

Here is a very detailed paper on how food influence the different detoxification pathways in the liver. It is a pretty detailed paper so you would really need to sit down and focus on it to get anything out of it. You will notice that whilst a certain food may have a particular influence on the liver at one dose, it can have the complete opposite impact at another dose.

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jn...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I wouldn't get too hung up eating only things that improve liver function, but it is worthwhile knowing what will aid detoxification and what will hinder it. It is also good to know what the different types of liver detoxification are.

You could also try supplementing with something like acetyl-glutathione, or taking glutathione precursors like undenatured whey or ALA. Start low if trying glutathione and its precursors.

 

[Cheesus]

Also improving the integrity of your gut epithelium (i.e. leaky gut) is good for preventing toxins from arriving in the liver in the first place. L-glutamine is probably the intervention with the most supporting evidence for reducing intestinal permeability/shoring-up the intestinal epithelium. Again, you would want to start low with it.

 

[Aerose91]

Unfortunately i already do all those things and have for quite some time. I have Gilbert's syndrome so milk thistle isn't a good choice for me as it speeds up phase 1 and my problems are in phase 2.

The whole reason im doing this is to try and fix my leaky gut. For years i havent been able to so i did a good stool test and it found these infections. I have to clear them before i can start taking any repairing supplements.

Thanks for the conversation with this.

 

[Cheesus]

Have you ever tried far infrared saunas for your Gilbert's Syndrome? Infrared light breaks down bilirubin.

 

[Aerose91]

Been doing those for years now. The liver pain thing is brand new after o.l.e. but i was still doing all the other therapies