Hi Ghost,

I'm sorry for your situation and have heard similar from many other members. I think you are playing it safe by waiting until you feel in a stronger position to go through with the removal. As you know, the exposure during removal is unavoidable, though a good biologic dentist will do his/her best to limit this by providing you with as much protection as possible. However, the vapor exposure is still substantially increased.

When I had amalgams, the only thing I did was change my diet. I did not know at that time about amalgam toxicity, but I knew I was being poisoned by something. I was very very ill, both from mercury and candida I believe. So all I did at that point was treat the candida and that helped me a great deal. Because in reducing candida, and improving immunity with the diet, my body was stronger against the mercury. I would not advise antifungals as such because they can increase the release of toxins ten fold by splitting alot of yeast open at once. Yeast can also absorb/contain mercury so in killing yeast too aggressively, you can be exposed to the metals in one shot.

The way for me to go about it was the diet. I removed ALL sugar from my diet (imperative), all wheat and any wheat containing products (absolutely essential too) (wheat is treated wtih mercury fungicide, which might explain why I would develop more mercury symptoms after eating it). It is also a gluten grain and gluten messes up the gut in mercury and/or candida. I avoided all gluten containing grains. So I only ate basically rice, or corn at that stage. They are still high carbs though and some people find they still feed their candida, but I was ok with them back then. I only had mercury, I did not have anything much else wrong other than yeast. So long as I avoided sugar and wheat and yeast, I was able to include other things.

I avoided coffee, as that too would worsen by toxic symptoms (some say it contain cadmium?, plus it's high in caffeine and bad for adrenals). Black tea was ok for me then, though I'd advise sticking to herbal tea personally.

I was lucky then I could still have some dairy like milk (but only in cereal and tea). I couldn't drink much of it without experiencing symptoms. I could also have some fruit, but not much. I ate about 2-3 pieces a day and that helped with my sugar cravings. I was also able to eat potatoe chips soon after too, but they are still high in carbs and can still feed candida. So some people cannot eat any fruit or potatoes or any grain at all.

These days I cannot eat grains, fruits, or any high carbs (potatoes, corn, peas, beans, etc). Because I have a much worse case of yeast etc, due to viral infection etc. So my immunity is much worse than it used to be. I have had to adjust my diet accordingly.

However, going back to when it was mercury? I could get away with the natural carb foods and could still have healthy treats like carob and potatoe chips etc (so long as the potatoe chips were not flavoured with grain products).

After a few weeks of doing this (excluding sugars and gluten/wheat and yeast), I improved dramatically. I was still poisoned yes, but my health had improved, my depression had lifted and anxiety also improved. Though I admit that the early stages of the diet caused detoxification symptoms. I felt worse going through it and headaches erupted and crying etc, as the toxins were erupting out of me. It was worth it though because after a few weeks I was feeling so much better. Skin, hair, eyes everything improved.

Amalgam toxicity? That stayed because the source was still there. But I recommend to you, if you have not already, to change your diet. Supplements can also be an aid in this and for me, the ones that helped my mercury toxicity were vitamin C (powder), vitamin E, halibut oil (for vitamin A and D), B complex, milk thistle (for liver), zinc, selenium, magnesium, iodine, flaxseed oil (for essential fatty acids omega 3 etc - 1-2 tablespoons a day mixed in with plain sugar free acidophilus yoghurt or cottage cheese, if you can handle cheese). Also getting a general multi vitamin/mineral mix powder supplement can be a good base to work from. The others can be extra additions, because mercury interfers with them.

Making sure you have enough healthy fats and protein in your diet! Hal Huggins recommends this particularly for those suffering from mercury and things like eggs, meat and butter etc are very good. Making sure you have enough salt is necessary for adrenals too (celtic sea salt). You can even add it to your vitamin drinks, just quarter teaspoon 2-3 times a day. As well as food, but you must make sure you get iodine and sea salt does not usually contain enough of it. As well as the fact mercury blocks the action of iodine and displaces it. So I use lugol's iodine for that, though mine is a diluted form of it.

The healthy oils/fats are butter, extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, lard, fish oil (mercury free), etc. I would steer clear of hardened vegetable oils like canola oil etc. Animal fats are far better, you should read the studies of DR Weston Price online.

Diet is very important, I think of it as the foundation of everything else. The body will detox a certain amount when you eliminate the bad and consume the food. Cheating on this diet is pointless, becuase most of the time it takes you back to square one. You may get away with a looser diet later on as you improve. It is imperative not to cheat in the early stages until you feel strong enough that you "might" be able to handle "some" cheats. Though I'd recommend finding healthy alternatives instead. You may never want to go back to your old diet, once you get a better one in place, if you notice big improvements.

The two books I think are excellent in this illness are Hal Huggins "It's all in your head" and "amalgam Illness, Diagnosis and Treatment" by Andrew Hall Cutler. These two books I believe are almost essential to have in mercury toxicity.

I hope this helps a bit. Mercury causes so many things to go wrong inside the body and yeast/pathogens are a big part of the symptom profile, and often you may not know what is doing what. This is why treating pathogens can be very important for any symptom relief, with amalgams or even after they have been removed. It takes a long time to heal. Hal Huggins believes that diet destroys more recoveries than anything else, OR overdoing it too soon.