Some people take up to 200 mg (I think even 300 mg in some cases). I recall Andy's book mentions 200 mg as well, so it's a dose that one can certainly work up to. But working your way up to such a high dose is another story and is not worth rushing into as Sunshine has wisely pointed out.
You can actually take up to 200 mg of ALA every 3 hours for 2 weeks if one wishes, but again it is about working up to tolerance before doing anything like this. And 2 weeks is a long time to be waking every 3 hours and other effects that could occur because of it (increases copper uptake etc). Unwise to take any supplements containing copper and zinc during ALA chelation if I'm not mistaken....Loss of sleep, broken sleep is not desirable or health promoting either. I would personally not go past a week. I usually found that I could not get past about 4-5 in chelation because the effects would intensify as the round wore on and by that point I knew it was time to break! I felt repulsive actually, though I was getting better at the sametime (this was just with DMSA alone).
50 mg is a really good dose. I know many people who are on TINY doses of the stuff. Even 1 mg can set some people off. E.g. 6 - 12.5 mg is a typical dose for those who simply cannot handle bigger doses. and this would be more than enough for them if they are getting symptoms. The process is happening either way. For some it may take a higher dose to get such symptoms.
That is your best indication. Symptoms. If you are handling 50 mg relatively well and it's too hard to get to 75 mg, then you must make the decision whether you feel that you can handle doubling the dose or not.....I have made such decisions in the past myself and sometimes the symptoms can catch up with you unexpectedly! So you gotta watch out for that one and not increase until you've done about 4-5 rounds on a certain dose before upping it. Usually my symptoms intensified as the round continued too. I started off not really noticing much (which can lead a person into a false sense of security) but as time wore on, they would worsen until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to stop the round and take a break. That is not a bad thing necessarily because the more toxic a person is with mercury, then the more symptoms there usually are and symptoms at least show something is happening.
Some people actually feel BETTER during a round! Some feel worse. Either way, it shows something is happening. So long as those symptoms are not frightening/intolerable. I never really got away with feeling better during chelation as such. Only occassionally did some symptoms improve during chelation. Most of the time I was well aware I was detoxing and would feel pretty awful. Sometimes I would cry and feel depressed, but there was usually an improvement of my condition at the end of it and usually in the very areas that had become worse during chelation. Though strangely enough, if I had a horrible backlash (redistribution) from following another protocol or taking stuff that mobilised the mercury into worse areas, I often found Andy's protocol would help improve/reverse the situation. So it corrected things for me sometimes also.
Anyway, keep on going and doing what you're doing. Sounds like you're well on your way to removing this horrible poison from your system. And Andy's protocol is an excellent choice to do it with. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twothumbsup.gif" alt="" />
You can handle garlic and MSM? It's funny that some mercury toxic people do really well on sulfur foods and supplements and others feel horrible on them. The extra sulfur for some people serves to mobilise too much mercury at times, so they have to be careful. Again you are the best judge of that and if you do well on sulfur, then go for it. I did better on sulfur as I became more detoxed of mercury and could handle it. But when I was highly toxic with mercury, sulfur moved it around too much...I'm sure bits came out because of it, but it was unpleasant to say the least at times. I would eat some of it, but I knew what to expect. I didn't give it up completely as I felt sulfur was still necessary for me and hair testing showed I needed more of it too. But because mercury tends to compete with it, replacing it tends to then displace the mercury or the extra sulfur serves to move it around more (Not sure exactly what happens, these are just things I've heard and seem to have experienced myself).
