Guest guest Posted June 9, 2010 Report Share Posted June 9, 2010 It was through blood tests ordered through my neurologist. I don't have a great faith in the testing but it is a first pass and gives an indication. I was about to order chlorella, adding in cilantro a few months down the road but having read your article, I need to do more research perhaps. I've been taking ALA (and MSM and spirulina) for other MS issues not knowing they had a role to play in detox or that I needed to. Thanks for your input. Janet To: mscured From: alimrobb@... Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 21:24:11 +0000 Subject: Re: Mercury Hi Janet, Was this through a provoked urine test? I've read that those are unreliable (some people with high mercury show low, and vice-versa), and can also be dangerous in stirring up mercury symptoms. Hair tests that show low mercury can also be meaningless if the mercury has been pushed deep into the organs and brain through long term exposure, such that it isn't excreted into the hair. Andy Cutler (author of the books Amalgam Illness and Hair Test Interpretation) proposed that a hair test (especially one from Doctor's Data Inc, with which he developed his " counting rules " ) showing statistically unusual patterns of the minerals (calcium, magnesium, zinc, etc) can indicate a high probability of mercury toxicity. My own hair test met 2 of his counting rules, indicating a VERY high probability of mercury toxicity. And the mercury in my test was low. I had 15 mercury fillings (most of them for decades), so no surprise! But there is also evidence that chlorella can be harmful to a mercury toxic person, by dragging around the mercury and not excreting it. (It's tecchnical,and has to do with monothiols and dithiols.) I felt worse several years ago after taking lots of chlorella. Here's a post of Cutler's regarding chlorella: http://onibasu.com/archives/am/27356.html Cilantro, he says, can actually bind tighter to mercury than chlorella and help excrete it, but not enough studies have been done to determinee safe dosages and dosing frequency, so he recommends avoiding it for now. I'm using the Cutler protocol for chelating the mercury out. I trust his info as he's a PhD chemist who has studied the medical and scientific literature extensively. He stresses the importance of low and frequent doses of chelators (based on the chelator's half life in the body). Otherwise too much mercury is dropped somewhere in the body when the chelator is excreted. And I believe he's right. Several years ago I took alpha lipoic acid 250-300 mg twice a day for peripheral neuropathy in my feet. (Cutler says ALA is actually the best mercury chelator overall, but I didn't know that at the time, or that I was even mercury toxic.) It did improve the neuropathy greatly for several months, then suddenly stopped working and I got a lot more symptoms, and was subsequently diagnosed with MS. There are a lot of other people who have gotten bizarre symptoms after taking ALA in high doses like that, but the bad symptoms don't usually start until the person has been taking it for awhile, so the connection is often missed. It also seems to have been missed by researchers, who haven't apparently done any long term studies on it. I believe the German studies were only 6 months. I had no idea that the ALA may have been exacerbating my neurological symptoms, so I kept taking for more than a year longer. But it turns out ALA's half life in the body is only 3-4 hours, so taking it only once or twice a day can drag the mercury around a whole lot, and, since it can cross the blood brain barrier, deposit a bunch of it in the brain. For more info, I suggest joining the Yahoo groups adult-metal-chelation and frequent-dose-chelation, where there are many people dealing with mercury toxicity, and quite a few there have been diagnosed with MS, including one of the moderators of both groups. The groups have very extensive files, links, and archives. BTW, the cheapest way to get Cutler's books (they're still not cheap!)is usually through his own website, noamalgam.com. Amazon charges outrageous prices! His website also has excerpts, and Google books also provides portions to read. You can contact me privately for more info. Hope this helps. Alice > > > I've just found out that my mercury levels are off the scale. > > I don't know if this is the norm these days with so much fish containing it. > > I had my amalgams removed (badly) a few years ago, have done one Detox and use cilantro in cooking a fair bit. > > Any suggestion about what is best to get rid of it? > > Apologies for not reading through the files here which might indeed have the answer. If no one replies I'll know to look at the archives but I'm panicking a bit. > > Janet > > __________________________________________________________ > Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. > https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969 > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 9, 2010 Report Share Posted June 9, 2010 It makes sense to me that anything you take, food or supplement, that gives your body ammunition to heal, is going to facilitate some sort of detox. Detox is what a healthy body does. > > > > > > I've just found out that my mercury levels are off the scale. > > > > I don't know if this is the norm these days with so much fish containing it. > > > > I had my amalgams removed (badly) a few years ago, have done one Detox and use cilantro in cooking a fair bit. > > > > Any suggestion about what is best to get rid of it? > > > > Apologies for not reading through the files here which might indeed have the answer. If no one replies I'll know to look at the archives but I'm panicking a bit. > > > > Janet > > > > __________________________________________________________ > > Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. > > https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969 > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 9, 2010 Report Share Posted June 9, 2010 Most agree that blood tests for mercury pick up acute levels of mercury in the blood. Most people I know who have come up high in mercury on blood tests were eating a lot of fish or at least some fish recently prior to the blood test. When they stopped eating fish, their blood tests no longer showed high mercury levels. I would bet that if you quit fish for a month and get your blood retested, it will come back normal. However, that does not address the issue of the mercury in the brain and tissues, which is not detected in a blod test, and something there is much controversy about how to test and treat. > > > It was through blood tests ordered through my neurologist. I don't have a great faith in the testing but it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 9, 2010 Report Share Posted June 9, 2010 I would suggest you do all the research you can on chlorella and dont just take it because someone recommends it. I hope that doesnt sound like I am against using chlorella, I am just " for " doing research personally. Personally I think chlorella is the best and safest mercury chelator there is. I know Andy doesnt believe in it, but that doesnt mean everything. I have read his book and talked to him, and he seems solidified in his beliefs. When I was doing research on chlorella, I have read many experts suggest you use large amounts and I think this is horrible advice at least for those who have ms and or toxic. I see many say go big and use gram size doses and if you get side effects just take more, I think this is horrible idea in my experience. I took one 200mg. tablets to start and couldnt tolerate it, so I took 2 more as suggested in the advice to take more and I couldnt walk. So I broke a tiny little tablets into quarters, so that is 50mg. and after 2-3 years I have worked my way up to 400mg. (two tiny tablets) but have made huge progress by taking chlorella and sticking with it. If I took large amounts I would be totally messed up and I suspect that is what happened to Alice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 10, 2010 Report Share Posted June 10, 2010 High mercury in blood does mean some kind of recent exposure (whether it's food or something else), because mercury doesn't stay long in either blood or urine. It quickly goes to the various body tissues and organs. Some fish are much more likely to contain mercury than others. The worst ones are the big fish like tuna and swordfish. Safer ones are sardines, wild Alaska salmon(especially sockeye, which is the smallest), etc. Alice > > > > > > It was through blood tests ordered through my neurologist. I don't have a great faith in the testing but it > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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