Oxalate Poisoning: Is It Affecting You?

Chronic joint pain was my first symptom of what I suspect was oxalate poisoning.¹ It started the day after a heavy dose of antibiotics with surgery.

I also suffered from intense medical trauma from the procedure. (Click the link to read the full story). I continued to have intense pain. Here are the years in which different body parts were affected: 

• 2008 ankles
• 2010 knees
• 2012 elbows 
• 2014 wrists
• 2016 lower back

Before that surgery, I had had floating pains around my ankles and knees but it wasn’t every day in the same spots. But after the surgery, it was like something was spreading in my body but we couldn’t identify it. 

On and off, I kept food diaries trying to track reactions, but could never figure out the common denominator of what was causing my pain to flare. I did years of physical therapy with ultrasound treatments. 

Nothing abnormal came up on X-rays or MRI scans. Still, my joints were hot and stiff. Sometimes it felt like I had shards of glass grinding inside. 

I was taking 12 to 16 ibuprofen a day, but I realized it wasn’t helping the pain. I started having stomach pains so I quit the pills and I resorted to icing multiple times a day. When I was pre-diabetic I also had polycystic ovarian syndrome. One time when I had a cyst burst, I took opioids to help the pain. 

The opioids didn’t touch the joint pain. 

Now, I suspect that I had oxalate deposits in my joints because my body ran out of places to store them. 

After I started eating an anti-inflammatory diet, the joint stiffness went away and my rheumatoid factor went down. But the pain didn’t get better.

Note: Never reduce oxalate intake cold turkey. It could put you in the hospital. Always work with a qualified healthcare professional. This is not medical advice. 

My False Negative Oxalate Poisoning Test

I had an organic acid test done in my early 20s. On a test like organic acids, your oxalate metabolites are not only oxalic acid but also include glyceric acid and glycolic acid. All of mine were within normal ranges. 

A functional medicine doctor I was seeing at the time believed that because my organic acid levels were low for oxalates, she thought that ruled out a diagnosis of oxalate poisoning. 

The doctor was wrong. 

So I continued to eat a paleo diet that was unintentionally very high in oxalates. 

The strangest thing is that whenever I gave blood, my pain would disappear for about 12 hours. No one knew what that meant.

Then, with my first pregnancy, I had intense morning sickness and was unable to eat anything for about 2 months. I thought I was having UTIs, but they didn’t respond to herbal remedies. Now, I suspect it was actually Interstitial Cystitis from oxalates dumping into my system since I stopped eating them. 

While I was on maternity leave, I was listening to one of those virtual health summits and I heard a health coach talking about how calcium oxalate crystals aren’t just responsible for causing kidney stones, but they can cause issues in your eyes, your bones, and elsewhere throughout the body. 

I started to wonder if the amount of oxalates I had eaten had caused me to have oxalate poisoning despite my previous test result.

What Is Oxalate Poisoning? 

Simply put, oxalate poisoning is when your body has more oxalates than it is able to process and excrete. In turn, the body stores oxalates throughout all kinds of tissues. It is also called Oxalate Toxicity.

The most common way is when kidney stones are made from calcium oxalate. Small kidney stones may pass on their own. They are very painful as they come out in the urine through the bladder. However, larger ones may require more intense medical intervention.

But we are learning more about how oxalates can wreak havoc after being put in other parts of the body. 

What Are Oxalates? 

Oxalates are an anti-nutrient in plants used as a razor-sharp defense mechanism. You can read more about what are anti-nutrients and how to reduce anti-nutrients. 

But what if you have high levels of oxalates and your body can’t keep up?

How Does Oxalate Poisoning Happen? 

Oxalate poisoning can happen when something in your body causes it to lose the ability to process and excrete oxalates well. In my case, the biggest inhibitor of my oxalate processes was living in toxic mold. 

I share in this post on signs of mold poisoning I missed how I came to realize that the house that I grew up in was moldy. Mold toxins, also called mycotoxins, use up pathways in your kidneys and liver that your body needs to process anti-nutrients like oxalates.

In particular, the primary way that your body excretes oxalates is via renal glomerular filtration aka your kidneys.² 

I have wondered if all the years that I took ibuprofen also led to my kidneys’ lowered ability to process oxalates. 

Mold Exposure

Aspergillus Niger, a type of mold that can grow on building materials, releases oxalates.³ 

If you work or reside in a place that has Aspergillus, you could be breathing in oxalates and maybe even absorbing them through your skin. 

High Oxalate Diet 

For some people, it’s merely a high oxalate diet that causes their symptoms. 

I’m not going to list all of the foods that are high or low oxalate, but you can see the full list of what the latest research is inside of this Facebook group called Trying Low Oxalates.

Many people who go gluten-free accidentally start eating a high oxalate diet because many gluten-free options contain high oxalate grains. Even a grain-free diet can be high in oxalates because it replaces the grains with nuts and vegetables that are high in oxalates. 

Some of the foods highest in oxalates are vegetables and other healthy foods like: 

• Spinach 
• Chocolate 
• Rhubarb 
• Sweet potatoes 
• Chocolate 
• Peanut butter
• Beets 
• Strawberries 
• Almonds (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!)

Remember, never go on a low oxalate diet quickly. You want to slowly reduce your oxalate intake under medical supervision so that your body doesn’t try to dump all of the oxalates out of your body at once. You can end up in kidney failure or other metabolic crises if you don’t reduce them gradually. 

Antibiotics 

One of the other ways that your body breaks down oxalates is with the normal bacterial flora in your gut, including oxalobacter formigenes.⁴ I suspect that the antibiotics I had with a surgical procedure were responsible for killing off much of the normal bacteria in my gut, especially the ones that break down oxalates.

Unfortunately, this precious gut bacteria is not easy to harness and put into a probiotic-type supplement. 

Some also hypothesize that leaky gut, which can be caused by antibiotics, also opens the junctions, which allows absorption of oxalates directly into the bloodstream. 

Over Supplementation 

You can also accidentally over-supplement with certain nutrients that can cause your body to create oxalates. 

Some of these include taking too much vitamin C which can convert to oxalates.⁵  Another is taking too much glycine, which is usually bound to vitamins like magnesium to make it easier to absorb.⁶

In the family I grew up in, one person got kidney stones. The doctor had blamed it on Vitamin C overconsumption. When they reduced that, their kidney stones reduced. 

It was enough of a relief to give the body resilience to get back to proper functioning. I still wonder if also living in a moldy house at the time contributed to their kidney stones. 

Genetics 

Last, some people may have the genes that make them more likely to have primary hyperoxaluria (a liver disease that prevents you from breaking down oxalates), or issues with oxalate stone formation.⁷

For a lot of people, they will have this genetic vulnerability and then their environment is what pushes them over the edge.

I was surprised to find out that I don’t have any of the genetic predispositions to oxalate issues, 

Symptoms of Oxalate Poisoning I Had 

Here is a summary list of the symptoms I had: 

• Joint pain 
• Painful urination 
• Interstitial Cystitis 
• Leaky Gut / Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Sebaceous cysts – these went away soon after I went low oxalate 

After I started addressing both mold and oxalates, I struggled some with oxalate dumping. Even though I went slowly, I had issues with: 

• Eye burning and irritation 
• Fibromyalgia – the pain moved from my joints into my soft tissue 
• Sandy stools 

Symptoms of Oxalate Poisoning Other People Have Had 

 Some of the symptoms I didn’t have but that other people can have are: 

• Tremors 
• Muscle weakness
• Kidney stones
• Kidney failure 

Where I am Right Now in my Oxalate Journey 

I’m happy to report that my back pain has been gone for over 2 years. My elbow pain is very rare. 

However, if I eat something high in oxalate, my joint pain goes through the roof though. 

Stay tuned for my next post after the New Year about what to do about oxalate poisoning. I’ll share about what I’ve done to optimize excretion and safely reduce my levels of oxalate. 

 Issues Related to Oxalate Poisoning

• Exhausted? Could It Be Cell Danger Response? –  Learn what toxins like oxalates can do to your body
• Histamine Sensitivity –  Often correlated with oxalate poisoning
• Home Mold Remediation Mistakes I Made and How You Can Avoid Them – To reduce oxalates in your environment

Sources 

1. Lorenz EC, Michet CJ, Milliner DS, Lieske JC. Update on oxalate crystal disease. Curr Rheumatol Rep. 2013 Jul;15(7):340. doi: 10.1007/s11926-013-0340-4. PMID: 23666469; PMCID: PMC3710657. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11926-013-0340-4
2. Lorenz EC, Michet CJ, Milliner DS, Lieske JC. Update on oxalate crystal disease. Curr Rheumatol Rep. 2013 Jul;15(7):340. doi: 10.1007/s11926-013-0340-4. PMID: 23666469; PMCID: PMC3710657. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11926-013-0340-4
3. Kubicek, C. P., Schreferl-Kunar, G., Wöhrer, W., & Röhr, M. (1988). Evidence for a cytoplasmic pathway of oxalate biosynthesis in Aspergillus niger. Applied and environmental microbiology, 54(3), 633–637. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.54.3.633-637.1988
4. Wigner, P., Bijak, M., & Saluk-Bijak, J. (2022). Probiotics in the Prevention of the Calcium Oxalate Urolithiasis. Cells, 11(2), 284. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11020284 
5. Chai, W., Liebman, M., Kynast-Gales, S., & Massey, L. (2004). Oxalate absorption and endogenous oxalate synthesis from ascorbate in calcium oxalate stone formers and non-stone formers. American journal of kidney diseases : the official journal of the National Kidney Foundation, 44(6), 1060–1069. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.ajkd.2004.08.028
6. Crivelli, J. J., Mitchell, T., Knight, J., Wood, K. D., Assimos, D. G., Holmes, R. P., & Fargue, S. (2020). Contribution of Dietary Oxalate and Oxalate Precursors to Urinary Oxalate Excretion. Nutrients, 13(1), 62. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13010062
7. Howles, S. A., & Thakker, R. V. (2020). Genetics of kidney stone disease. Nature reviews. Urology, 17(7), 407–421. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-020-0332-x

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