Hi Toxic,

Chelation experiences vary from person to person. Some people do really really well on things like chlorella, cilantro, msm etc. Others can find their symptoms go haywire and are far too intolerable to handle....I would probably be wary, though they are natural and healthy, they can mobilise mercury and may not move/remove it in a way that your body can handle. Chlorella, MSM, garlic, etc, are very much mobilising agents too and it depends on how well your elimination systems are working to whether they will efficiently be able to remove what has been stirred up in your system.

Over mobilisation of mercury can cause a wild movement of it, which may cause mercury to wind up in more sensitive areas and cause a worsening of symptoms. Though you will remove some mercury during that process, you do not want to do it to the point of causing insane symptoms or damage either. You will really have to decide for yourself what works/suits you, but just be aware of the risks.

These agents are not dangerous in and of themselves, but it's the nature and movement of mercury that is. Mercury is the problem, not the agents. And there are many many chelation/detox protocols out there, but so many individual responses. THe one I would be very very careful of is - alpha lipoic acid. Though it's a great chelator, very powerful, it should NEVER be used early on in the programme. As the other poster has said, it must be used later on, after blood/body levels have reduced, which takes about 3 months or more following amalgam removal (same with cilantro, though some use it with/without amalgam, early or late and find it helps them a lot). Just be cautious though. Both are brain chelating agents, and therefore have the ability to move MORE mercury INTO the brain if the body levels are still high. Simply because they can pass over the blood brain barrier. If you have reduced blood/body levels, then the risk is reduced greatly.

In the early stages of detox (the first 3 months or so), you would look at reducing blood/tissue/body levels of mercury. This is up to you how you want to go about doing that, but I would highly recommend the Andrew Hall Cutler protocol. I would also highly recommend his book "amalgam illness, Diagnosis and Treatment", one of the best and informative books on mercury toxicity, what to take, and how to chelate it SAFELY out of your tissues/organs. It was the only protocol that I could tolerate when I was mercury toxic and it really did work. Everything else just stirred things up too much and drove me almost insane with symptoms. Cutler's protocol did not for good reason.

His protocol works by taking a chelating agent - DMSA (Or oral DMPS) in frequent time periods. E.g. DMSA every 4 hours around the clock for a few days on and then a break of a few days and repeat again over and over until blood/body levels are reduced. THis is safe to use in the early stages after amalgam removal, as both of these agents do not cross the blood brain barrier to any clinical degree. Some say they do, however the testing done was done on rats not humans (rats have a much more permeable blood brain barrier than humans, so it's not overly valid).

It is not a very convenient protocol, it is annoying because it means setting an alarm and waking during the night to take a dose. However, this is the way that tends to keep symptoms to a minimum and reduce the bouncing around of mercury. The reason is, the chelating agent (e.g. DMSA) is kept at even levels in the blood stream by taking it frequently. Thereby the movement of mercury remains more even and consistent. If it is taken less often / infrequently, the movement of mercury becomes more unpredictable and your symptoms may skyrocket!

So Cutler knows what he's talking about. He recommends using DMSA (or DMPS) within the first 3 months or more post amalgam removal. Or you can simply wait it out during that time and let your body reduce the levels on it's own, which is slower and more painful in my opinion (far slower and far more painful). I found DMSA sped up the process of mercury removal greatly and much more thoroughly.

Brain chelating agents can be used later as already said. Alpha lipoic acid can be brought on after 3 months and again, should be used in low frequent doses like DMSA (even more frequent - every 3 hours). It can be used alone, or WITH DMSA - depending on what feels better for the person. If you use them together, both should be taken every 3 hours if possible. Together and during the night too. Whether alone or together, every 3 hours when using ALA.

This should be done until you are fully detoxed of mercury, which can take a long time. A few years in fact. It can be done a few days each week. E.g. 3 days on, 3 days off. Or 3 days on, 5 days off etc. So long as you do it for more than 2 days on and take the same amount of time (or more) as a break inbetween rounds.

The book has FAR more information in there and explains it much better than I can. I think this book is personally essential as an aid during mercury toxicity and chelation. I think "It's all in your head" by Hal Huggins is yet another one that is excellent, though his idea of mercury detox differs from cutlers. You may handle the high sulfur supplements and foods just fine, but just be aware that if they cause too many awful symptoms that become intolerable, then you may have to be careful and forget the sulfur supplements.

Diet is highly important. Hal Huggins also mentions this and it's essential if you are suffering from candida. Candida is overgrowth of yeast inside your body which happens frequently in cases of mercury toxicity and can cause many symptoms that one may think is all mercury. It depresses immunity, overloads gut and liver (which are needed for detox) and apparently makes mercury even more toxic. Treating candida was a big part of my ability to cope and improve my symptom profile. Please consider this as part of your treatment plan, it really can be that serious. Also the diet is simply very healthy and good for immunity and detox too, so it's really something I'd recommend doing regardless.

The worst culprits are sugar, wheat/gluten grains (wheat/oats/rye/barley etc). From there, you'll have to decide what else maybe causing issues. Some people have candida so badly, they even need to give up eating fruit and high carb vegetables due to the natural sugars they contain. Milk contains natural sugar in the form of lactose, that too may need to be eliminated. Caffeine is also not good (coffee especially). So either reduce or eliminate even the natural forms of sugar. But definitely exclude COMPLETELY sugar and wheat/gluten, as so often these can make mercury toxic people very ill. These products almost destroyed me and giving them up returned so much improvement and life to me! But it took a few weeks, because when you first give these things up, you can get detox symptoms and feel worse for a time and get cravings also.

Healthy foods that Hal Huggins recommends are enough protein (in the form of meat and eggs), enough fats like butter etc (olive oil, coconut oil, fish oil (mercury free) and flaxseed oil are also really great). Vegetables (and fruit if you can handle it), non wheat/gluten grain (if you can handle these carbs). Yoghurt (plain sugar free acidophilus), raw nuts and seeds are good too. Herbal tea etc.

Supplements that may help are antioxidants/minerals etc - vitamin C, vitamin E, milk thistle, selenium, B complex, magnesium/calcium, zinc etc.