I've been chelating with DMSA for several months now. I worked up from 25 mg to 75 mg every four hours. I've also just finished my first cycle of chelation with ALA (50 mg with no DMSA) every three hours, and would like to offer a few comments.

I felt great for the first two-and-a-half days of ALA, and then began to gradually exhibit symptoms of mercury-on-the-brain. For me this is primarily irritability. I stopped the ALA at day four, whereupon I began to feel increasingly better. Over the weekend, however, I've gradually been feeling more and more mercury-in-the-body, which for me is cold feet, pain in side, and lack of fine motor control (the last presumably because mercury in the body can affect the hypothalamus, a portion of which lies outside of the blood-brain barrier).

Here's my take on what happened. The months of DMSA had sufficiently cleared my body of mercury that the concentration of mercury in the body was lower than that of the brain. When I added ALA, I began to successfully dump mercury from the brain to the body, but as mercury began to overload my body's ability to clear mercury, the correct concentration gradient began to abate, and I began to feel it.

If this is what happened, it suggests a modification to Cutler's protocol. Here's the gist of it: Begin a chelation cycle with DMSA and ALA, then drop the ALA and continue DMSA for a few days before going off the DMSA for several days in order to allow copper to dump from the kidneys. This should keep the concentration gradient steep enough to prevent mercury from returning to the brain as the body clears the current ALA-induced load of mercury.

Any thoughts?

I have been thinking along similar lines myself. You could post this on the autism site on yahoo where andy posts a lot to see what he thinks.

I see what you're getting at and it seems actually very logical. But ALA is not used just for the brain, it chelates both the body organs and brain.

DMSA, is actually to reduce the blood/tissue levels of mercury intially before bringing ALA onboard. Though the body can do this on its own, DMSA can help it go faster and sometimes makes the process easier for some people.

But I do see what you are saying also. IT's an interesting suggestion. If you feel the ALA is allowing the mercury from the brain to pass back into the body areas, then perhaps finishing off a chelation round by dropping the ALA and continuing with DMSA on it's own for a few days might do a good finishing job on each round, if the mercury has suddenly become more available in the blood again.

So I can see your point. That makes sense. Even though ALA does chelate both brain and body, by finishing off a round with just DMSA, you better your chances of reducing some free floating mercury without risking it going back across into the brain again.... and the repeat this same procedure on each subsequent round. DMSA with ALA for a few days, drop the ALA, continue with the DMSA to clear any sudden free floating blood mercury from the ALA that has pulled it out of the brain/organs.

Hmmmm, if this works for you? You should tell Andy Cutler about it. It's a very very interesting concept. I like the sound of it actually.