Posted by bleauberry on August 8, 2008, at 20:55:18
In reply to Re: VNS/Med poop-out and other assorted fun, posted by PC_Load_Letter on August 7, 2008, at 20:44:00
> Thanks for your feedback. I will look further into this, since at this point I am willing to consider just about anything, but I would really like to have the high levels of mercury confirmed by a blood test before doing something like this. My uncle suffers from debilitating migraines and had all his amalgams removed some years ago. Result: no improvement at all in his condition.
I'll try to keep it short, but here is a preliminary overview that might help.
The mercury vapor rising from amalgams presents a low level but chronic exposure. For genetically susceptible people, the body slowly weakens over years and loses the ability to excrete it. Many chronic diseases such as alzheimers, dementia, arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromylagia, migraines, food/chemical sensitivites, psychiatric, and tons more can have mercury at the cause. But these are all blamed on other things, aging, genetics, whatever. Not to say all cases are caused by mercury, but that it has to be suspect when there have been years of chronic exposure. In figuring out the cause of a disease, there is likely none other than stands out. Can you think of anything else that would cause your condition? Think about it. Mercury makes total sense. Unless you can think of something better, it has to be at the top of the list, if for no other reason, there is nothing else.
Blood testing will show a tiny bit of mercury from your current exposure, but not enough to concern anyone. Again, it is a low level exposure. Chronic is the key word. It is 24/7. The better test is hair samples. Hair stores our metals and minerals. The mercury in your blood right now is what you've been exposed to in the last 72 hours, but all the other mercury before that is stored in cells, brain, glands, and fatty tissues, where it will not show up on a blood test. Someone can test perfectly clean and yet be highly toxic. Mercury finds a home and binds there tightly for the remainder of its halflife, which is 30 years. That's why diseases do not necessarily always go away when amalgams are removed. The prior mercury is still there. Removing amalgams puts a stop to it getting worse. Chelating after amalgam removal gets the mercury out. Mercury toxicity from amalgams is actually a form of accelerated death, with one disease after another popping up over time.
A Nurse Practioner licensed in Psychiatry was treating me. It wasn't going well. Too many paradoxical reactions to meds, like you. She asked to look in my mouth. I'm like, what, I have depression and you want to look in my mouth? What the heck? She ordered a lab hair sample test. It came back showing elevated mercury, lead, and cadmium. Mercury from amalgams, lead from my old water pipes, and cadmium from cigarettes. I poo-poo'ed the whole thing and said it was ridiculous. Lots of people have amalgams. It's legal. It has to be safe. My doc is crazy. Right?
So 2 years later I still have amalgams and get another hair test. This time, zero mercury, zero lead, zero anything...no magnesium, zinc, manganese, copper, nothing. Zip. Then I discovered that is exactly what mercury does...it displaces other minerals and metals from their natural biological homes, including mercury itself. No wonder I felt so bad. Even though I had good nutrition, none of it was doing any good. Mercury was hogging all the docking sites where the nutrition was supposed to go and do work. Two years prior I was toxic, but not so toxic that all the metals and minerals were being blocked from their natural transport to hair and everywhere else.
Reading hair samples is tricky. There are telltale patterns that mercury does in hair. Hair can show very little mercury, and yet the patient is highly toxic. This can be seen by how it displaces the other metals. So while we look at mercury in hair, we are actually more interested in the other vital good minerals. Their patterns...what is real high, what is real low, etc, tells the story. When they are all over the map, or completely absent as in my case, that is diagnositc of mercury toxicity with 98.5% accuracy.
After amalgams are removed for a couple weeks, you can do a urine challenge test. Collect urine for 6 hours, then take a large dose of the mercury chelator DMSA and collect urine for another 6 hours. A lab compares the mercury in both samples. The second sample almost always has a very high amount of mercury in it, as DMSA pulled that tightly bound mercury out of some tissues into urine. I had this done, and my mercury excretion increased 500%. I was shocked. In hindsight, it is not a good idea. DMSA halflife is 4 hours, so as it wears off, the mercury that hasn't yet made it to the bladder gets deposited somewhere else. I felt worse for a month after.
Proper chelation is low dose DMSA every 4 hours around the clock. That prevents redistribution. Some people do the challenge test safe by taking DMSA every 4 hours for several days, then take a large dose, collect the urine, and continue with low doses. That gets a good sample and prevents much of the redistribution after the one large dose.
In all sincerity, it is not needed to get any tests. If someone has chronic disease symptoms that puzzle doctors, especially psychiatric or neuromuscular, and they've had amalgams for years, that alone is about 95% diagnostic without any tests.
Hope this helps.
poster:bleauberry
thread:844599
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080805/msgs/845052.html