ALA as an antioxidant - big mistake?

March 22, 2007

In May 2004, I had health problems but I was functional. By November

2004, I was not. My health didn't decline, it plummeted. In June or

July I had seen a [supposedly] mercury-free dentist who decided to

adjust my bite (I had assumed that he would limit his grinding to

actual tooth surfaces). For the last couple of years, after

retro-actively considering the chain of events, I have believed that

he must have gound on and compromised a filling and that was what

precipatated my health crisis.

Sometime when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, one

of the possibilities that came up was B12 and other vitamin/mineral

deficiencies. I did already suspect mercury, but finding money or a

dentist for amalgam removal was impossible. Since the deficiency

possibility could be tested more easily and cheaply, I set about

deciding on an appropriate program and started taking a bunch of

supplements. At that time I had not seen anything about ALA being a

chelator but had seen much about it being good for peripheral

neuropathy, so my plan included 300 mg ALA 2x/day. I was on that

program for months but eventually decided it wasn't making enough

improvement to justify the cost and stopped everything.

In my mind I had thought that was in 2003. Today, I was talking to my

chiropractor about all of this stuff. He checked back in my chart and

he had noted that I was starting a supplement program in SEPTEMBER

2004. I was shocked when he said that. Now that I know what ALA is

and can do, putting that into the above timeline... makes me wonder if

I did this to myself?

I looked at some old journals after I got home from the chiro, and it

confirmed that I had started the ALA on 9/10/04 and that, although I

had been having increasing health problems through July and August, I

didn't fall off the face of the earth until October and November.

There is one entry for December '04, one for January '05, and then

nothing until 10/13/05 which says, " today I had my final quadrant

removed " .

I had 11 amalgams and 2 gold crowns and I was taking 300 mg of ALA

twice a day. Also 600 mg of NAC twice a day. Would that be enough to

cause such a severe plummet? Especially if the denist HAD compromised

a filling?

:-(

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