HI Pgm, sorry to hear you've had a rough time of it. I know how that is <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Wishing things to get better for you.

yeah it's much more safe to check responses first by going slow and low, even on seemingly harmless antioxidants like vitamin C...which maybe harmless in and of themselves, but may in a really toxic person encourage an eruption of symptoms further (as they did intially with me)...over time it actually helped though! As did vitamin E and selenium. I did not get this on typical chewy tablets of Vitamin C from a healthfood shop. I got it from the more potent and quality powder from a laboratory here in my country. That REALLY encouraged some detox symptoms.

I am glad that person on the candida forum is "still alive". Oh yeah I can relate to that in my mercury days. I remember a plate of vegetables (sulfur ones like cabbage, broccoli), could bring on worse symptoms also, simply mobilising the metals around and made me feel ill. Anything like onions, eggs, etc. So definitely you sound similar to how I was. Reaching a point where it didn't take much to set things off further. Talk about healing crisis reactions, I'd go into one at the drop of a hat. Although I consider that good in a way that my body was asserting itself against the toxins inside and making big efforts and taking any opportunity it could to get them out, it could be frightening too and lead to being bedridden quite often. However usually the bedridden point came after using much more powerful stuff in ways that didn't suit me.

alpha lipoic acid is a very strong/direct mercury chelator. It is not just a powerful antioxidant and it also crosses the blood brain barrier. So if you are loaded with mercury or still have a pretty high blood level of it, it can escort this straight into the brain and other areas. So I personally feel that is definitely a bigger concern than vitamin C, E and selenium because of that alone.

NAC is another one that can REALLY mobilise mercury, I never took that If I recall, and kind of glad I didn't in retrospect. THough I was game then to try anything.

Pgm, it's great you are not backfiring from ALA, but you are using it every 3 hours.....(cutler style). Which is the entire point of his protocol. HIs method is to cut down or even remove the risks of backfire (redistribution). That may well by why you are not noticing a problem. It depends how mercury toxic you are though. If you took higher doses intermittently, when you felt like it, then you may have more issues.

If a person is not mercury toxic at all, they wouldn't need to take ALA every 3 hours. Because there would be no risks attached to redistribution. They could take it simply as an antioxidant or for the heart in any dose specified on the bottle or from their physician.

I know everybody is different and I know a lady who detoxed her body/blood of mercury, but had stubborn symptoms related to brain mercury. So she opted to give ALA a go. She did not follow Cutler, she took high doses of ALA about 3 times a day and she reckoned it was ok, it worked for her. But some get really very bad effects from doing this and do ok on his.

For me, I trust frequent dose due to how it works on me and others on here and elsewhere and I've had enough long term effects from backfires in my life to learn not to mess around too much. I would probably put up with the inconvenience of the dosing times for extra assurance, unless I found out that mercury was just no longer an issue for me.

Then I'd probably opt to take the stuff for the fact it's a powerful antioxidant anyway..

I've just ordered vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium and may get zinc (with B6 and magnesium). It's pretty simple and I may need more than that, but it's a start I guess. I just don't like overdoing the supplement side of things, so I can understand where Kriminal is coming from. I also wonder how effective it really is for me these days.

It used to be VERY effective, but only when I was already able to detox easier and had more healing crisis before the virus. And I think it depends on the quality of the supplements, because I didn't get much out of other stuff unless I got the lab brands.

However, these days I'm a bit like a dead fish in my responses to stuff. I could take anything and not a lot seems to happen. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shiftyeyes.gif" alt="" /> But here's hoping.