Re: Interpreting urine tests

[Guest guest]

Lots of parents in autism mercury do lots of urine tests with their

kids mostly because the doctors want them to. Doctors want to have

pieces of paper that support what they are doing with their patients,

even if the pieces of paper are meaningless.

If you look through the various posts about kids urine test results

you will find that there is nothing meaningful in the results and most

of the talk about them is just theorizing. Andy also has said that he

has examined hundreds of tests and it is difficult to use them for any

practical purpose (sorry, I don't have links to those posts, they can

be found in autism mercury archives).

The only one practical purpose that I can see is if lead shows up

consistently in the tests, then the person knows to use DMSA regularly

to chelate the lead out.

There is a lot of error involved in sample collection for urine. That

means that the variation would be high. One would only be able to

estimate the error if a large number of samples are taken. One sample

doesn't say much. Without an estimate for error it is impossible to

say if results from two different time periods are statistically

different even if the other variables are held constant, which they

often are not.

J

>

> I took five 24-hour Doctors Data urine toxic metals tests in 2005, at

> the request of my doctor, and recently ordered another one through

> Direct Labs. I did very little chelation between late 2005 and June

> of this year, but have done a lot since June.

>

> A comment Andy made about blood tests in an old post made me re-think

> urine test interpretation. Andy said that when taking ALA, even if a

> lot of mercury is coming out of the brain, etc., it will be diluted

> by the whole body's blood and might not show up much on a blood test.

>

> I don't know whether this dilution effect also applies to urine, but

> it seems possible that it would. Also, ALA is said to excrete mercury

> through feces rather than urine, so mercury excreted by ALA will not

> show up in urine. In the case of a person whose extracellular mercury

> has been cleared, the only mercury that would show up in urine would

> be that mobilized by ALA and excreted with DMPS or DMSA or through

> natural processes.

>

> The first 2005 test, before I started chelation, shows low-green

> mercury. The next test, after some DMPS chelation, shows less

> mercury. The third test, after more DMPS chelation, shows zero

> mercury. The next two tests, after adding ALA to the DMPS, show

> mercury at twice the pre-chelation level, still in the lower green

> zone.

>

> Based on the preceding considerations, it now seems possible that the

> increase in urine mercury with ALA, after the extracellular mercury

> was apparently cleared, could be highly significant, despite being in

> the green zone. Side effects during chelation were and still are

> consistent with ALA engaging a lot of mercury.

>

> When I do the new urine test, it will be with DMSA (which excretes

> through the urine) + ALA. I did not use DMSA to any significant

> extent in 2005, and am interested to see how much lead will come out,

> as well as mercury and other stuff.

>

> I would be interested in any experiences or thoughts other people

> have.

>