Towards the end of 2021, we were super lucky to be able to do the Niacin Detox using Infrared Sauna as a team. It was one incredible experience that not only bonded us as a team, but was transformative for our health.
When Harrison first explained this detox protocol a few months earlier, I thought to myself “I’ll never be doing that”. But alas, I found myself taking part in what I thought would be an extremely daunting experience.
My understanding of this detox based around the protocol by Dr David E. Root, is that it is working on removing “fat-soluble” toxins from the body. Our bodies have no idea what to do with many of the toxins in our environments, foods, self-care products, cleaning products and even the products which our walls and carpets are made out of. So most of these foreign compounds that come into contact with the body get stored in our adipose tissue (aka fat cells) or the tissue surrounding our main organs (scary!). So in essence, when you think about weight loss, if you loose weight too quickly, you will have an abundance of these toxins running around the body having no clue what to do. This is often when other health conditions can arise. Maybe you can relate if you’ve gone down an incredible body/ fat loss journey and you have found yourself dealing with health issues you never faced before.
So when learning about this, my question was when thinking about people who struggle with weight issues, “is it better to just not loose the weight?”. But no, that isn’t the solution either. You instead want to be assisting your body to detoxify properly in the weight loss process. Now, I have sort of explained this from a weight loss perspective… no idea why, I actually just found that the most fascinating part when learning about fat-soluble toxins. But we all store fat-soluble toxins in our body, no matter how healthy we may think we are, because often these are toxins in which we can’t escape from.
I make my own cleaning chemicals, use all natural skincare, eat organic to the best of my ability and don’t wear perfumes, but I still would have an insane toxic load in my body. So whilst this detox seemed daunting and a big commitment, after learning about this, I was so excited when Nick and Nicola offered the program to us staff to trial out.
A basic run down of what this protocol entails is simply 14 days of consuming a high dose of Niacin (vitamin B3) and following it up with an Infrared Sauna every day. Along with this, we would be taking about 10 different supplements to help support our bodies in the detoxification process and we would be monitored by one of our ALTR practitioners, Dr Harrison Stone.
Before the protocol, we have to fill out a rigorous screening form to ensure that we are healthy enough to undertake the detox. The screening form includes things such as our light and frequency exposure and asking questions around what we do to mitigate these effects. The ALTR practitioners place a large emphasis on these and so I found it super interesting to reflect upon. We then have a 30 minute consultation with the practitioner who is overseeing the detox, in this case it was Harrison. He works to make the detox suitable for you and your health needs and make any appropriate adjustments to the detox. He then takes a bunch of anthropometric measurements such as our weight, blood pressure, heart rate, breath hold etc.
Day one.
We woke up at 5am to take our dose of Niacin (obviously in our own homes, but I would have preferred if we just had one massive sleepover to be honest). I was filming my experience as I couldn’t find a single video on the internet about the detox, and about 1 minute after I down my niacin dose, I am talking to the camera when all of a sudden I’m thinking “wow how did I get so suburnt”. It took another minute to click that the Niacin effects had already kicked in!!! I was ready for hot flushes, but wow, it came so much quicker than I expected and was a lot more intense than I had imagined. I felt like Doug from the hangover, who had been cooking on the roof of the hotel in Las Vegas for a few days and was as red as you would think a human could possibly go. Everything was on fire, from head to toe, it was the mother of all hot flushes, but still, it felt odly nice.
Then, the nausea kicked in, so I took a bunch of charcoal which helped to settle it. Look, I don’t want to scare anyone, but I didn’t have the best reaction. But hey, so far, I am the only one to start the detox and have a bad experience like I did on the first day. If you want to watch my vlog, I explain it a little more in that, but essentially I believe I experienced extreme ovulation pain which the niacin most likely triggered. However I was good and ready to head to the clinic after my hour of pain.
Once we got to the clinic, Harrison took more measurements, checked me over to make sure I was okay and we all popped into the saunas. Everyone else completed their 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise which is apart of the program, but as for me, I sat out and just went straight into the sauna.
Day 2-14
Look, I’m not going to give you a day by day. The first day was the most eventful for me, but essentially each day as we upped our Niacin dosage, our hot flushes become less intense and eventually completely fizzled out. By about day 3, some of us were sweating black, which is a great sign that your body is detoxing properly. For me, I started sweating black towards the end of the 2 weeks, but it was so amazing to finally see.
Throughout the detox everyone felt so different, the first few days I felt incredible, I had so much energy and wasn’t sick or tired like we had been warned. But the other girls were super tired, and felt like they had just been “hit by a bus”. After the first week, most of my symptoms were just nausea from about 11am-4pm, but no one else really experienced this.
Since then, I’ve witnessed many other Niacin detox groups come into pH and go through the protocol, and it’s super interesting how everyone handles it so differently.
I actually loved the experience, I am craving the next time I get to do it. Because even though you don’t feel too crash hot some days or waking up at 5am to hot flushes everyday isn’t the most amazing experience, it somehow was. I was so glad we got to do it as a team, we bonded so much over the 14 days, I learnt so much and I just cannot wait to do it again!
The biggest thank you to Nicola and Nick for making such an amazing protocol accessible to people.
If doing the Niacin Detox Protocol is something your considering, let me tell you, just do it!
