This is a lot of food for thought Claythrow. Thanks. I've been taking Algin, and I do plan to take ALA too, but I think it would be safer to wait a few months first. I seem to be OK with the DMSA now. Maybe I started at too high a dose and it was a shock to my system. Thanks to the advice here, though, I persisted at a lower dose and it hasn't been a problem. It was wonderful to actually feel a bit better this morning.

You know, there's so much contrary advice out there. Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe. I have put a lot of trust in my naturopath, she has a great deal of knowledge and has helped many people stop taking poisonous drugs and rebuild their lives. I take seriously anything she says. But Bex also said that while mercury damages, chelation heals. Now that I've gone half a round with a dose of DMSA I can handle, I'm beginning to think I'm doing OK for myself so far.

But is it mercury? This is the big question. Many people who come to that drugs list have suffered depression and worse. Many find their depression lifts when they clean up their diet and take appropriate supplements. The power of these things to heal is immense. Nutritional deficiencies lie at the heart of many illnesses. Sometimes people need to dig a bit more deeply. Life situations, and ways people react to them, can also cause depression.

Let's not forget that in the past several decades, the standard Western diet has deteriorated further. Cheap processed junk is more common and widely available than ever before. These foods are full of white flour, sugar, and chemicals such as MSG, to name just a few. We are sold pasteurised homogenised milk to drink, which has been denatured by these very processes. Most American meat comes from animals raised on feedlots, fed unnatural diets and pumped full of hormones. Plenty of foods still contain hydrogenated vegetable fats, which are deadly and should be banned. If these are not used, then the next choice is usually polyunsaturated oils, which easily go rancid, are unstable in cooking, and severely imbalanced in their omega fats ratio. Now, more than ever, people need their fruit and veg, but even these are losing their nutrients due to intensive farming.

Hm, sorry got on a soapbox there, this is one of my pet subjects. But it does stand to reason that if people go through a lifetime of eating this way, the vast majority of them will eventually become ill. Mental illness is a very common symptom. Yes mercury can cause depression, but so can a hundred other things, and I think it's worth taking a hard look at one's life and overall state of health before jumping to conclusions. The first conclusion I jumped to, myself, was SAD. All the symptoms were there. I did light therapy to death, as if my very life depended on it. It was a long road I took in coming here, and I'm honestly not yet convinced that I've found the answers. I think all I might need is a job, with all the things that entails -- getting out of the house, adult contact, personal satisfaction, intellectual stimulation, money.

But I'm also willing to carry on pursuing chelation just in case. If I round a corner and it begins to seem obvious that the chelation is really helping me to improve, I will come here and say <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Linda.