Tag Archives: chronic mercury poisoning

Which Hair Test is Best?

What I mean by the title is which Hair Testing company provides the most accurate and informative results.

For Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) I have used Analytical Research Labs (via Dr L Wilson) in the past. The results have been accurate but there is a better alternative available.

I’m afraid to say that ARL is a little behind the times. They seem to be stuck in the 1980’s and they haven’t adapted or changed over time. (as at July 2016). I hope they lift their game.

Trace Elements (TEI) in Texas provide more information than ARL. They use the same quality testing procedure but a skilled hair test interpreter is missing some vital clues if only relying on ARL tests.

I took a snapshot of part of the Trace Elements test but the full sample is at the end of the post.

Trace Elements

Trace Elements Hair Test

 

With Trace Elements you get:

  • 15 Nutritional Elements including Sulfur an accurate Boron reading.
  • 8 Toxic Elements including Antimony, Uranium and Berylium. That’s on top of Mercury, Aluminium, Lead, Arsenic and Cadmium. (ARL just has these last 5)
  • 14 Additional Elements including: Germanium, Barium, Bismuth, Rubidium, Nickel, Lithium, Platinum, Thallium, Vanadium, Strontium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Zirconium. (ARL only do 5)
  • 7 Significant Ratios. These are gold for interpreters; more the better. Both companies provide the same with Trace Elements adding Iron/Copper.
  • 9 Toxic Ratios – e.g. Calcium/Lead. Toxic minerals vs Essential Minerals.
  • 11 Additional Ratios – mainly for reference while patient improves.

Here’s what a full sample test looks like: (PDF)

Trace Elements Hair Test

You’ll most likely have to find a practitioner to get access to these testing facilities but that shouldn’t be too difficult. Hunt around on the net or email Trace Elements

http://www.traceelements.com/

A hair test is a great start to unravelling the underlying causes of your symptoms. If the practitioner you are seeing doesn’t cut the mustard then show the test to someone who does and don’t stop till you get some answers.

The hair analysis should give you some clues as to what do next in terms of recovering your health.

Everything else I’m doing is covered in my Book

 

Chelation Therapy – My rough start with DMSA

It took me so long to try Oral Chelation Therapy which basically involves taking a powder that binds to heavy metals such as Mercury and excretes them via your kidneys and urine. Sounds easy doesn’t it?

I’d had some nasty side effects with Cilantro and Chlorella, even MSM, so I was very reluctant to try more products that had anything to do with stirring up toxins.

No-one in New Zealand could help me with Chelation. I wondered whether I was the only one in the country thinking I had some mercury poisoning and I wanted to get it out? Surely not. Had I gone that mental that I thought I needed this but I didn’t really? And how was I going to get some DMPS or DMSA into the country? (the link is below)

That’s why it took me so long; because it was all too hard and unknown. Years went by.

After reading Dr Andrew Cutler’s book Amalgam Illness I decided to try the lowest dose of 12.5mg of DMSA every 3 or 4 hours for 3 or 4 days straight. Then a break a of a week or so to allow my body to recover and push more toxins into my bloodstream for removal. The regular dosing keeps blood levels of the drug at levels which keep extracting metals without redistributing too much. These drugs either don’t get everything or cause minerals to imbalance, so there MAY be redistribution symptoms. It can be tough on your body in some way that it can cause a lot of fatigue. I won’t pretend to know exactly what goes in inside. Just do your homework on how much to take and what supplementation you need; vitamins like Vitamin C, E, Zinc and Magnesium The drug binds to metals in your blood and they get excreted. Then your body pushes more metals out from tissue into your blood for extraction and you do another cycle.

So, Day 1 went well with no problems. At the end of Day 2 I was starting to really get tired and was really dragging myself around. I was committed to finishing the cycle so hung in there until the end of day 3. In hindsight I should have stopped and started the following week on half that dose.

When i woke the next morning I literally could hardly move. Every muscle was so weak and sore I could not properly move until 3pm. I had completely seized up. I was really concerned and I thought i’d really wrecked myself once and for all. It happened again the next day, I could hardly move until the afternoon.

It took 3 or 4 days to slowly come right and within a week I think I was better than before I started, so that gave me some hope. I decided to continue with DMPS, not DMSA, which meant I could dose every 8 hours and get some sleep throughout the dosing. After my little setback, I decided to start on 5mg DMPS to be safe. This went much better although on Day 3 I was struggling to finish it because of fatigue. Recovery was much better but decided to do some rounds at 2.5mg just to be safe. That’s what I’m on now and hardly getting any side effects after my 10th ’round’ so will increase back up to 5mg soon and see how that goes. Slow and steady is the name of this game. I will add Alpha Lipoic Acid at a later date, as I understand this is a fat soluble chelator that cleans the brain.

Supplements are crucial while ‘on round’ and ‘off round’. I average 1 round a month which is very conservative and will delay recovery but I want to keep my mineral levels steady after working so hard to improve them with Nutritional Balancing (NB). Chelation is tough on the kidneys and body in general so I am very careful about this. My NB practitioner would prefer that I do not do these and believes chelation is unnecessary. He believes that the NB program will allow the body to push these toxins out at the right time and chelation forces them out which messes with body chemistry. This makes sense but I’m human and I think I know better so I might get taught another lesson here. We’ll see. More info on Chelation is at:

http://www.livingnetwork.co.za/chelationnetwork/chelation-the-andy-cutler-protocol/

https://www.livingsupplements.com/

Depending on how this all goes, I may switch to Dr Chris Shade’s (Quicksilver Scientific) protocol. I know little about it, DYOR, but it seems to be less harsh on the body and excretes through the bowels not kidneys so I’ll keep an eye on his work. Intestinal Metal Detox (IMD) is his main product . I understand MetalSweep is similar, it’s a silica based product. Dr Cutler doesn’t think they can work which doesn’t help knowing which way to go. Dr Shade’s website is:

https://www.quicksilverscientific.com/

Feb 2018 Update: Please read my latest blog posts to see what’s has been working for me. I believe that anyone has to have a reasonable level of health to tolerate Chelation therapy. I’m sure that once I get nutritionally balanced (not using Dr Wilson’s regime as it didn’t work for me or anyone else I know) and balance out my Thyroid (TSH 1 to 1.5) then Chelation may be very effective. I may not need it at all but will post any further attempts at Chelation. Also RIP Dr Andy Cutler; his heart was in the right place.

John

Dr L Wilson Interview – Adrenal Fatigue

Here is a very informative interview with Dr Wilson regarding Nutritional Balancing. It was conducted by Wendy Myers and is also available on her website www.liveto110.com

Dr Wilson

3rd Re-Test

I’m feeling stronger so I was surprised to see all four levels decrease. I didn’t understand that this is actually a positive result. Testing four lows on a retest is different to testing four lows on a first test. What is happening here is referred to as a ‘settling down’ pattern and means that my body is starting to heal in a more normal fashion. I’m out of the ‘stuck in mud up to my shoulders’ stage, and making good progress. It feels like the worst might be over.

4LowsRetest

After listening to the analysis, it became clear that my body needs to do certain things in ‘four lows’ before it can move on. Without knowing this, just looking the chart would have been discouraging. It’s not possible to force my body out of ‘four lows’.

Other positive results were that copper levels have normalized and other heavy metals such as lead and mercury are decreasing. Also, my important ratios are normalizing so overall it’s good news. It’s taking a while but after 15 years of struggling it’s actually happening relatively quickly.

My original full test and audio can be seen HERE.

Overall, this is good news but there is more work to be done.