I've tried several times to start on a very low dose of ALA, only 2mg every 3 hours per Andys protocal. The side affects are very bad, and I have to stop each time.
It seems odd because It's been 22 years since I had all my fillings removed, and for the last year or so I've been taking just DMSA working my way up to 100mg every 4 hours without any problems at all.
I don't think I have an issue with sulfer, besides 2mg of ALA is such a small dose that I really doubt that's the problem.
I just can't understand why after all this time and not having a problem with DMSA I still can't take such a small dose of ALA.

Roger

do you still have mercury symptoms? Half life in the brain is 25 years or more...... dmsa does not get in there

Yes I do still have mercury symptoms. I just thought after all this time I would be able to start taking a very low dose of ALA.

or you still have hidden amalgam in your mouth... but i think then you would have side effects with dmsa too...

Hi Rogert, either you are reacting with something in ALA, or you may very well have a high burden of brain mercury. If you had high body burden (which wouldn't make much sense after all this time), then you would notice symptoms with DMSA. I no longer notice a thing with DMSA, yet I suspect I have mercury in the brain. I have not yet tried ALA to find this out.

What kinds of symptoms do you get? And do you use DMSA with the ALA? If not, you might want to do that to help with any side effects (if in fact this is caused by mercury). Do you get an increase in mercury type symptoms?

Is a kind of detox reaction? That is an extremely tiny dose, but some people with high brain mercury can have that. Difference with DMSA and ALA is, you won't usually get any kind of aid with symptoms. DMSA "can" sometimes actually help with symptoms, although other times you can feel detox ones also. ALA does not tend to suppress any symptoms, which is why people find it difficult if they have a mercury problem.

Thanks for your help Bex!

I'm taking 12.5mg of DMSA along with 2mg of ALA. The symptoms gradually increase over a 24-48 hour period. I feel very fatigued, irritable, depressed, severe headache, and lower back pain. I'm starting to think my head must be loaded with mercury because when I had my fillings removed 22 years ago, I remember my dentist saying that whoever put my fillings in obviously didn't know what he was doing. Because according to him the percentage of mercury in my fillings was MUCH higher that it should have been.

Do you have on-round symptoms or off-round redistribution symptoms?

Some people do an extra day or two on dmsa only to help with the redistribution mop up operation. So if the round was 4 days, first two would be with dmsa and ala, then finish the round with dmsa only. You could try that.

You're welcome Rogert. I'm thinking as your symptoms increase as the round goes on, that is pretty much the hall marks of mercury and what used to happen to me too. It would reach an intensity where I would be forced to stop the round sometimes.

The more toxic you are, particularly when taking ALA, your symptoms will be much worse and if you've started detoxing organ/brain mercury well, you can pretty much expect an exacerbation of everything.

Sometimes a person needs to take their doses even more frequently. E.g. some go from every 4 hours to every 3 hours for DMSA. Or every 2 hours for ALA (even if they're taking DMSA as well). But sometimes there is just no way to cut out side effects, however if more freqent dosing helps cut down redistribution even more, it can be worth it.

I put up with mind I guess you could say, and it was hard going. I just had to continue battling. The tiny bit of ALA causing all this is probably diagnostic in itself and may indicate how much brain/organ mercury you actually have. Considering 22 years of all those amalgams containing even higher amounts of mercury (by a dentist's admission), is it any wonder you're suffering so much now that they're out? Sometimes taking amalgams out can then open the flood gates of years worth of storage just waiting to erupt out.

Make sure you are taking the supplement Andy's suggests. I find taking a good basic multi/vitamin/mineral is good for a foundation and then adding extras on top of that that mercury is known to interfere with. The ones I have read about that mercury can block/displace are iodine, zinc, selenium, magnesium etc, Plus antioxidants. So you really need to keep up the vitamin C (3-4 times a day for more effectiveness), B complex (3-4 times a day), milk thistle can help (3-4 times a day) vitamin E (just once or twice a day), and I think you need magnesium 3-4 times a day also.

Plus enough essential fatty acids to replace what mercury depletes. Andy believes that Flaxseed oil is a more economical way to get this, because you can take much larger amounts, which if you did with fish oil, you'd be financially pretty crippled! However, some people don't find they react too well to flaxseed oil.

If you use it, you need to be taking about 1 tablespoon or more a day (good to mix in yoghurt/cottage cheese etc). He also mentions borage oil as well to get more balance of oils (omega 3 and 6 etc).

Plus diet is extremely important as you might know. Candida is often ripe in mercury toxic people, making a bad situation often far worse. Without treating candida, I was a far bigger mess and many times nearly topped myself. It can make mercury more toxic, it overloads the gut and liver with it's own toxins and alcohols and causes issues with detoxification.

It may not be wise to kill it outright with antifungals, because candida can contain mercury and other metals apparently. Killing it aggressively can break open the cell walls and release the metals and cause acute toxicity symptoms. I've had it and I had to chelate it back out. Diet is the way to go and certainly the way to begin. Simply eliminating sugar, wheat/ gluten and yeast from the diet and starving the excess yeast out, so you have a better balance of it instead. It gives the body enough chance and better health to keep yeast levels more in check. without it, the body cannot do much to help itself. The diet is not just about yeast, but about immunity as well.

If a person is bad enough with candida, they may also need to eliminate or restrict even the "healthy" carb foods like fruit, and high carb vegetables like potatoes/corn/carrots/beans/peas etc, plus all grains (even non gluten). and milk and cheese. Some are able to handle those things, just so long as they exclude the obvious stuff I mentioned. Also sugar lowers immuntiy and does many other things inside the body that is very bad. Wheat apparently is treated with mercury fungicide. Yeast can aggravate your yeast problems.

These things are usually essential to rid yourself of. Outside of that? You can then figure out what other foods may also be causing issues with yeast. It's very individual.

I hope this helps. I'm sure you already know all this, but sometimes people like to know what's helped others and may not always be aware of the yeast side of it as much. It is extremely important. Check candida out on the internet and the symptoms, it can often cause many of the problems attributed to mercury. They both poison and both cause many symptoms in and of themselves.

hi rogert291: before using ala on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being excellent how good did the dmsa make you feel while on a higher dose ?

if I ever try ala again I will only use a very low dosage maybe about 2-5 mg every 3 hours for the first day and the rest of the round will be dmsa ,after how sensitive i seen that my body was to it I am going to be very careful with it the next time, I'm going to treat it like a rattle snake so it doesn't bite me again

Thanks again Bex for your ideas!

I've been taking 2mg of ALA and 12.5mg of DMSA every 2 hours. At first I was taking it every 2 1/2 hours but the symptoms were worse. I think I'm going to cut the ALA down to 1mg and keep the DMSA the same and see how that works out.
I have been taking the supplements that Andy recommends. I do watch my diet, no grains and I take caprylic acid and oil of oregano to keep the candida under control.

Mikey,

When I was taking just DMSA I felt great! It's only when I started taking ALA that I started having allot of symptoms. Be very careful with ALA, start with a very low dose and stay there for a while before you very slowly start increasing the dose. I don't recommend that you chelate with ALA for only one day during each round like you mentioned, Andy says that it is not safe to do that, he says you need take it for at least 3 days to prevent redistribution.