I'm experiencing major brain fog from my detoxing. I felt this before when I mistakingly was chelating while still having fillings in. My fillings have all been out for 2 months and I just switched from DMPS to DMSA last week (3 days on 4 off). I took the DMSA wed/thu/fri. I'm also taking all of these supplements a few times a day: L-Glutathione, Alpha-Lipoic Acid, Marine Lipid Acid, Mercury Amalgam Formula, Vitamin C and also taking a few things for lyme disease: Magnesium Oxide, Lyme Nosode, Samento and Resveratrol.
I'm starting to think it is too much. I know what is going on - more mercury is being stirred up than my body can excrete so its being redeposited around my body. This feels like a hangover but without the nausia. I am starting to worry because it has been all day now and its not going away. Could this be permanent?! I haven't heard back from my doctor yet but I'm starting to worry. I'm stopping everything for a couple of days. Hopefully it will go away. I just remembered I also took a large dose of Cilantro this morning. I know Cilantro also crosses the blood-brain barrier. Maybe that is the reason I'm feeling this.

I think you are taking far too many power chelators: alpha lipoic acid, dmps, dmsa and cilantro, I would lay off these for now, I have always stayed away from them and have been successful in my detoxing. I had the brain fog symptom u speak of, I had an extreme version of it for about 4 months straight, did not go away at all just stayed there, so I kno what its like. I think one of hte best supplements you can take at the moment is algin, with some vitamin c. Take it easy and make sure your diet is good. I kno its hard to clean up the diet but it helps so much, so much more than just taking a regime of supplements. Diet is the key! I kno I go on and on about it, but fresh vege and fruit juice from a juicer has helped me so much!

Hi, using lipoic acid or cilantro may be a big mistake. They both cross the blood brain barrier and if your body levels of mercury are still too high or you have a lot of free floating mercury around, it will be grabbed by either of those products and moved up into the brain as they cross over into it.

It's a wise move to reduce body levels first, usually with DMSA or DMPS on it's own for a few months first. A very common and safe protocol more people are using now, is taking DMSA every 4 hours around the clock for 3 or more days and having a break of the same amount of time spent on the chelator and repeating this for months.

The idea of this method is to reduce the redistribution that so often occurs when you take a detox or chelation anytime, randomly, which can just bounce mercury all over the place. Taking DMSA every 4 hours appears to keep blood levels more even and allows for safer and more effective chelation (usually). But of course, everybody is different.

If you want to take DMPS orally, it can be used every 8 hours around the clock for a few days and a break for the same amount of days and repeating for a few months.

I would certainly DROP the lipoic acid and drop the cilantro and concentrate on diet, other supplements that are not going to move mercury everywhere (such as garlic, which is another risky one) and stick with your samento, and if you can use DMSA or DMPS safely, you may find you reduce the mercury a little safer.

Don't worry too much, many people have redistributed mercury from many different things, we have all made mistakes and it's very easy to do. The brain fog should start to improve later on as things settle more, but if you're concerned, you could start trying the DMSA or DMPS according to how I suggested, which might help with what has occured.

But agian, brain fog can occur even on safe chelation. It's not always the brain that has been affected, the liver can be too and can cause brain symptoms! So sometimes brain symptoms can be caused from the liver area. It's pretty hard to tell what is doing what.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm going to back off and just take a 1 or 2 things at a time. For now I'm taking a day or two off from chelating. I have been slacking off on my diet though. It is hard to go extremely healthy right away. I'm trying.

is it safe to take cilantro with dmsa and ala?

Anonymous:
From my research, I have learned that you should chelate for a long time before using the cilantro or ala. They should be the last suppliments you take to remove the mercury. However, you can take DMSA and ala together per Andy Cutler.
I will be starting low doses of DMSA and chlorella in the next couple weeks. I am sick with a nasty cough and sinus infection right now. I don't want to start chelating too soon. Just had my amalgams removed on the 12th.

ALA should not even be added to the DMSA or DMPS until the person is detoxed enough for months beforehand. Then it might be added in very small amounts.

Andy Cutler is a biochemist and many people follow his way of using DMSA/DMPS and ALA. Here is the website for those following this method which seems to be proving the safer for most people. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/frequent-dose-chelation/ You might want to check it out and look at the files and links section to familiarise yourself with it.

He advises against things like Chlorella, cilantro, garlic supplementation etc. These can all move mercury into worse areas and make a person far worse. ALA is also risky because if you use it after a recent exposure to mercury, or after you've had a redistribution of mercury from using something else, the ALA can then readily take mercury into brain and nervous system.

I have had this occur and am frightened by what's happened. I thought I was ok to use ALA, but didn't realise that I had a redistribution of mercury from using garlic supplement (severe), and I used ALA thinking ti would help and instead it has excerbated it beyond belief and now I do not know what is going ot happen to me. I cannot even get myself out of this and have suicidal thoughts almost permanently. Even using DMSA is not helping now, whereas it used to before I did this. So nothing seems to be able to pull me back out of it.

Chlorella for me is also very bad. Some do ok on it. I think it's high in sulfur and sulfur can mobilise mercury, as can garlic supplementation. Garlic supplementation for me is nightmarish. So it is very risky for many of us to take chances on these, particularly if a person is ill enough in the first place.
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Beth have you tried saunas ?

Hi Dan,

I hope your brain fogginess symptoms are better by now & the advice above helps. Please let us know how it goes.

Sorry to jump on your thread ..

I have recently started using DMSA 4 hourly, 3 days on and 4 days off at a dose of 12mg. I have found that I have brain fogginess for the first day and a half of each round. Other people are even commenting on it now as sometimes when speaking I struggle to finish a sentence properly (I forget what I was going to say!) I am also using algin, plus a host of other supplements. I have had all my amalgams out, I am not using ALA, cilantro, chlorella etc .. My diet is very strict.

I am considering lengthening my rounds to longer periods to avoid the initial brain fogs .. the only downside is the lack of sleep at night and the stress on the body as DMSA draws other beneficial metals from the body too.. Or I could drop the dosage down, but at 6mg it's hardly waking up for at night ? Or is it?

Does anyone else have experience of this or any thoughts?

Cheers,
Karen <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I think for you. obviously when you start chelating, it kick starts the movement of mercury and clouds your mind up somehow, but then as it continues it clears again, so it might be better if you do go for longer rounds to give your system a chance to get through the brain fog and have a longer round of getting on with the chelating and hopefully getting more mercury out of you.

It's up to you though, you will be the best judge of what you can handle. If the brain fog is simply annoying, I'd stick with the 12 mg, but if you are finding it distressing, then yeah go down to half and see what happens.

more and more people are actually using 6 mg of DMSA because even 12.5 mg can be too much for some, so it will probably still be chelating mercury.

DMSA doesn't directly chelate out minerals, I think the stress of it is the problem and that's why we're supposed to take more antioxidants etc. Problem is, many mercury toxic people are very sensitive to supplements, so it's difficult to find thigns you can take without getting reactions.

It has gotten better. I was bad for about 2 days which was starting to scare me. I never had it for that long. I have a highly technical job (software engineer) so I need to think and can't have this problem. I know what you mean about trouble speaking, forgetting what you were going to say,etc... This is a big problem I have been having because of mercury. I even began stuttering for a while in my late twenties after having a lot of amalgams put in. Things are improving though. Most important, my problems with Pure-O OCD have subsided a lot since having the fillings removed. This is the main reason why I did it. If there is even a chance that mercury poisoning and OCD are related I had to take it.

Hi Dan,

Very glad to hear you are feeling a bit better. I am also in the IT industry (analyst programmer), well at least I was before I got sick. Hmmn, maybe there’s a common thread here … only kidding, a sample size of 2 isn’t exactly ground breaking (OK 3 includng Russ).

My thoughts have become MUCH clearer since starting the DMSA rounds. I am astounded at the difference. Whilst I am on the round it’s just horrible, but in my off round times it is SO MUCH BETTER. At this rate I may even be able to start programming again! I’ve gone from about 20% health up to 60% with amalgam removal & DMSA. It’s lovely to have my brain back with me again. I previously was not really sure if it was mercury/heavy metals causing me to be sick, now I am 100% sure.

Cheers.. Karen <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

You need to wait three months to use ALA after amalgam removal. You don't want to be dragging all that mercury into your brain. This will cause fog!

It does sound like too many substances that move mercury are being used at once. You need to choose one to start with until you become less toxic. I had my filling out two months ago, also and can't tolerate anything that moves it yet.
You may wish to stay with the dmsa, and minerals, vitamins. I do not have a clue what is in amalgam formula but if it is supposed to chelate mercury..this adds to the too many.

And the cilantro...yes, my friend too much at once. Choose one protocol for detoxing and go with that. Less is more with this, and slowly.
I would stop all the chelators as you suggested and just continue with vitamins, especially a lot of C right now and maybe some activated charcoal or other absorbing product to soak up some of what is released. Let things calm down for a week or two. Then choose one chelator to use and not ALA yet.