Posted by Montag on November 6, 2009, at 3:15:42
Hi, Bleauberry, I read your posts and took great interest in your experience with mercury detox and DMSA. I don't know whether you're still reading this post, but if you are -- and assuming you have time for this sort of thing, of course -- do you think I could ask you a few questions?
Im fairly certain I have mercury toxicity. Ive had brain fog for years, Ive eaten a ton of seafood, and a recent hair analysis showed somewhat elevated levels of the metal. Plus I managed recently to aggravate the brain fog in two abortive attemps at chelation. In the first, I took a mere ten drops of cilantro tincture (one time) along with large doses of chlorella. In the second, I took about 30 mg. of DMSA three times a day for two days (with no regard for the 4-hour rule). In each case the brain fog spiked so alarmingly that I lost my nerve and quit the process. My reaction to these substances tells me that I must be carrying excessive mercury.
The recommendations in your posting make good sense, and Im going to try the DMSA again in the way that you outline. Here are my questions:
1. My DMSA experiment was only a few days ago, and the brain-fog spike has not yet completely subsided. Do you think I should wait until I feel normal before starting in again? In general, how long did you wait after becoming ill on a too-large dose before starting again on a smaller one?
2. You say that once the right DMSA dose has been hit upon, the length of the rounds and the time between rounds should vary according to how one feels. What sorts of reactions should I be looking for? If the dose is appropriately small, and if one is taking steps (as I will) to prevent candida growth, will the metals still accumulate and start making me feel terrible, and is this the sign to take a break? And then is it just a matter of waiting until the symptoms clear before starting up again? (I notice that some doctors recommend a three-days-on, eleven-days-off approach, but then theyre always assuming much higher doses of DMSA.)
3. How many rounds had you done before you finally started noticing an improvement in your longstanding symptoms? (And was brain fog ever a part of your picture?)
4. I'm going to be taking garlic, MSM, chlorella, minerals, milk thistle, vitamin C, psyllium husk, apple pectin, and N-acetyl cysteine, and an anti-fungal formula as my support protocol. Was there anything else that you found to be indispensable?
5. You mentioned Dr. Cutlers book, and Im aware of his claim that DMSA cannot chelate mercury from the brain. Does your experience support this? If DMSA really cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, its hard to see how it could alleviate depression or aggravate brain-fog symptoms. (Surely those results indicate that it's doing SOMETHING inside the brain.) Anyway, if it doesnt cross the BBB, does that mean I should expect no relief from brain fog on DMSA alone?
6. What approach did you take with cilantro, and what kind of experience did you have?
I dont know how much of all that you can answer, but Id appreciate anything you can tell me. I live in Japan, so unfortunately I have to do this on my own without the help of a physician. Reading posts like yours makes me feel its possible to pull it off, but of course the whole thing makes a little nervous. Id love to get Cutlers book, but my god, that thing is expensive. Anyway, Im sorry for the length of this posting; I really didnt mean to go on that long. Thanks very much for your time.
-- Montag.
> Followup to both of your previous posts...
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> I'm glad your amalgams are gone! Good move.
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> Your doctor's idea of getting acclimated to DMSA is a good one. But actually, it is kind of misleading the way that is stated. DMSA in a healthy person is neutral. It doesn't feel like anything. Sugar pill. It is only when it is moving metals through the body that you feel it. So, you are not getting acclimated to DMSA itself, you are removing metals. And the more your remove, the less bad you feel from DMSA, so it seems like you are getting acclimated to DMSA. In reality, metals are coming down.
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> As your doctor hinted at, ALA too soon is actually a bad idea. It crosses the brain barrier. Which is good. But if the body's burden of metals is high, it is bad that ALA crosses the barrier, because it will take those high levels into the brain. The strategy is to first get the body levels very low, and then introduce ALA to get the brain mercury.
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> Cilantro is another option. I tried it this last round and liked it a lot better than ALA. Do not ever take Cilantro without taking DMSA at the same time though. Cilantro can stir up a lot of metals, more than it can hold onto.
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> If the dose of DMSA is too high, or if the doses are spread too far apart, redistribution will happen. And that doesn't feel good. Your description of how you felt bad is common. For me, I had heavy fatigue, significantly worsened depression for a few days, pounding headache, and bad sleep. Unwell was a good way to describe it.
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> Basically, if you feel bad on DMSA or after the round, the dose has to be smaller. You are moving too many metals too fast. There will always be some distribution at the end of a round, but it can be kept to a minimum by matching the size of the dose to the size of the overall toxicity. That means real small doses to start with, and months later you will be on much larger doses comfortably, because a lot of metals are gone.
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> Am important thing to know is that higher doses of DMSA do not work in linear fashion. In other words, 50mg does not remove twice as much as 25mg. With each larger dose, you only remove a little bit more metal.
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> When I started, it was 25mg every 4 hours. Way too much. I felt like I got hit by a dumptruck. Like someone threw me out of a car going down the highway. I found in the next rounds that the highest dose I could tolerate comfortably was 3mg. Then after several of those I got up to 6mg. After several of those, 12.5mg.
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> Last week I finished another round of 12.5mg. It felt like a sugar pill, except that I felt good while on it. I had no bad after-effects. That tells me I have removed a lot of metals, and that very little redistribution is happening. It also tells me I am ready for a larger dose.
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> Mercury and lead moving through our bodies does indeed feel bad. How could it not? I mean, the second most toxic substance on the planet flowing through us? The bad stuff you feel afterwards is whatever metals didn't make it to excretion before that last dose wore off. Redistribution.
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> Keeping a steady blood level is extremely important. Most doctors are not aware of this strategy. The halflife of DMSA is about 4 hours. It is important for a new dose to take over when the previous dose is wearing off. That prevents redistribution.
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> The strategy includes waking up in the middle of the night to take the 4 hour dose. I did that maybe half of my rounds, and on others I skipped that dose. What I discovered was that in the first 8 rounds or so, I could not skip that night dose. It did indeed cause some bad feelings. But now I can skip that dose and not suffer from it. As the metals come down, redistribution is less of a problem. But in the early going it has to be taken very seriously. I had an alarm clock next to my bed, a glass of water right there, and the pill. I would open my eyes just long enough to shut off the alarm clock, swallow the pill, and and then immediately continue my sleep.
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> You should get good at customizing your doses. I did it by emptying out a capsule onto a plate and dividing the powder into equal size piles. For example, a 25mg capsule I cut into 2 piles, and then cut each of those into 2 piles, for 4 6.25mg doses. Then I could scoop each pile with the help of a razor blade onto a knife and slide it into a size AA large empty capsule. I believe you can also mix the powder in water, stir it well, and drink custom doses. A glass with measuring lines on it would be needed for accuracy. But it doesn't store well, so you'll need to make a new batch each day. And you want the water to be pure so the DMSA is not wasted by binding to impurities in the water.
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> When I spent a lot of time browsing through chelation forums, it was interesting to see how people were feeling so bad in the early days with doses as low as 6mg, but then months later they are doing 50mg and feeling good.
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> Nowadays I feel good on rounds. The first day feels a bit weirdish. Not bad, just kind of mildly drugged almost like a tiny dose SSRI. But day 2 and day 3 are really pretty good. Better than I have felt in a long time. I look forward to rounds just to feel that. It is an almost cured feeling. No depression, no anxiety, and I actually have interest and motivation to want to do things. It is great. Really great.
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> But as the round goes longer, I have gone as much as 10 days at a time, I start feeling bad again. From what I understand, that is most likely yeast. Yeast love DMSA and mercury. So as those things are moving through us, they are having a feast and they quickly multiply. That causes brain fog, fatigue, depression. So it is important to keep yeast under control. Which means during rounds, avoid sugars, and add to your daily supplements anti-yeast things such as Nystatin, Grapefruit Seed Extract, Caprylic Acid, and high dose garlic. The anti-parasite herbs with combos of Black Walnut Hull, Wormwood, and Cloves are also very handy. With some experimentation as to which herbs are best for you, they will keep you feeling good on a round without allowing the yeast to sabotage your efforts.
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> Many naturopaths or physicians suggest protocols such as 50mg DMSA twice a day, 3 times a day, for a few days. Or maybe 100mg once a day every other day. Stuff like that. All bad. Bigtime redistribution. Granted, if someone were to keep on those schedules for a long time, they would eventually get the metals out. But in the meantime during the journey, they caused a lot of damage that could have been avoided. They got repoisoned many times when they should not have.
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> The best rules to guide you are:
> 1) Lower the dose as much as you need to in order to tolerate the round with minimum bad effects. You will still remove a lot of metal even at tiny dose.
> 2) Give a great deal of respect to the halflife rule...every 4 hours.
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> I hope this helps! You're awesome. Keep at it.
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poster:Montag
thread:924677
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20090727/msgs/924677.html