Charcoal picks up toxins - mainly toxic metals, and to avoid that it takes your other minerals or good metals, you try to take charcoal away from food. We usually take it before bedtime - we have taken 10 at a time or two at a time, depending on toxic feeling.
It is not recommended to take it all the time. It is a good idea to alternate with other toxin binders, i.e. fiber, chitosan, products containing combinations of fibers, pectin helps a lot, chlorella (30 min before meals and at bedtime), ground flaxseed meal, unpeeled apples, potatoes with peel, some statins are made from potato, betasitosteral works well, zeolite, ---- alternate, alternate.
Unless you pick up the toxins that are being released, with die-off, they will recirculate and resettle elsewhere in the body, and instead of having a sore shoulder one day, you end up with a bad spot elsewhere a couple days later.