Biotherapeutic drainage has been brought to the U.S. in the last 20 years through the hands of a few pioneering naturopaths, including Dr. Thom, Dr. Mikhael Adams and Dr. Gabel. It is a common modality used in Dr. Adatya’s Vancouver naturopathic practice.
A definition for “drainage remedies” states that they are “remedies which promote the excretory functions of a particular organ or organ system“. The reason this is necessary can be compared to repainting your home. Before you actually paint, you must wash the walls, repair the holes and then prepare the surface to receive the paint. If you paint the wall before removing impurities, the job will soon begin to break down and will likely have to be redone before long, the same is true in healing the body. This is why drainage is essential in order to help restore your body and vitality to what you want it to be. Mikhael Adams, N.D., one of the pioneering practitioners of Drainage in North America, defines Drainage as, “the process of detoxifying the body by opening the routes of elimination (emunctories) and discharging the toxic accumulations.”
These drainage routes (or emunctories as they were historically called) are separated into two categories: primary, which includes most of the abdominal organs (liver, kidney, intestines, lungs, stomach and pancreas) and secondary, which includes the other naturally existing routes of elimination such as the skin, mucus membranes, nose and genitals. These natural routes of elimination may not be active and functioning at all times leading to an unnatural accumulation of toxins. These toxins in the body may be considered to be the cause of many different symptoms and diseases. That is to say that your present health concerns may be a result of toxic accumulations in your tissues.
Michel Bouko Levy of Marseilles, France, a medical doctor and a Drainage practitioner gives this explanation of Drainage: “Cleaning and fortifying of the body is maintained by the emunctories. In most cases you need to help and stimulate the organs touched by chronic disease. This is drainage.“ Thus Drainage is involved not only in helping to eliminate toxic accumulation but also serves to stimulate the proper function of organs in order to improve the patient’s overall health.
The most complete writings on Drainage are available only in French with the best-known books written jointly by medical doctors G. Gueniot and C. Deplanque. They believe that the accumulation of toxins can be a factor in acute and chronic illness, genetic weaknesses, and chronic disease and create blockages to therapeutic treatment. In these texts, the doctors clearly outline the necessity of Drainage, as well as the actions of individual remedies in the UNDA Numbered Compounds, which are the low potency combinations popular in Drainage and used extensively in my clinic.
Once there has been the gentle elimination of toxins, (the walls have been washed and repaired using our painting analogy), other therapeutics are then available for use to help you achieve and maintain a level of optimal health. That is why during the beginning treatments you receive at the clinic, I will often utilize Drainage remedies, specifically the UNDA numbers, to start the process of cleansing and clearing your tissues of toxic accumulations which will help you on your path to a higher level of health.