Hi Nicola, When I was mercury toxic and used the DMSA cutler style. I had good rounds and tougher rounds, but each time I seemed to be improving over time. No process of mercury chelation/detox is fast! I know, I've tried them and no matter what I did, the process was slow and my improvements were slow too. IN attempting to speed things up by over zealous chelation, you can wind up backfiring and then taking ages to recover, thus actually slowing down the healing process in the long run. I did that MANY times and it is not worth it. The body can only handle so much at a time, especially when ill and weak.

Cutler says DMSA is not essential and is only helpful with extra cellular mercury. It can help symptoms somewhat in the early stages of mercury poisoning (if taken frequently to keep enough in the blood continually), because it grabs hold of the mercury that is bothering you and if there is another back up dose, it keeps this up. So you can feel better with taking it sometimes. Other times I found it still caused plenty of detox symptoms, but not the total insane ones. I usually found that symptoms would increase the longer I was on the round and I would push it for an entire week. In hindsight, I only needed to chelate for 3 days or so, which would have made it much easier. So nearing the end of the week I would be aching, very very tired and sickly. The break helped me recover.

Either way, it's not a race and it's a slow process. Nothing can make this go much faster than what the body can handle or keep up with. Cutler does not consider it essential, but when I look back? For me? It was powerful and valuable, but horrible if not used in the way he prescribed.