Hi Stuart,

You're welcome. Like yourself, I too would get to a certain point in the round from taking DMSA and would also look (and feel) like death. But at least I could chelate that way without going almost insane. But for sure, even the detox from that was often very strong and I had to stop rounds early quite often. I would only make it to about 3-4 days (like yourself). I tried hard to reach a week, but barely ever could. I was a mess by a few days of it. I welcomed the breaks inbetween. However, I did not chelate on a regular basis. My breaks were VERY long and I only chelated if I felt like it. I kind of regret that because I believe I could have quickened my healing from mercury substantially had I been regularly chelating. However, even the best protocol and being regular, does not always guarantee fast results. It's never a race and the body can only handle so much at once anyway. It is also about giving the body breaks and a chance to gather strength and heal a bit also. However, it's a two edged sword. Not removing mercury or enough mercury can also prevent proper healing. So chelation is necessary for most of us, unless a person isn't so poisoned and/or has a great ability to eliminate this poison.

Sounds like you are onto a good ALA and I wonder if it might be to do with the other things contained in supplements that are sometimes added? It's an unusual thing, but hey, I guess some brands we just don't tolerate as well as others.

But yeah the brain fog and slow thoughts are not fun and I used to sometimes cry a bit during it. I actually could barely stand it sometimes. And again, that was only with DMSA! So imagine what I would have been like on ALA? I really do believe that shows you are on the right track! Because though it's unpleasant to say the least, I do recall the slow improvements after going through all this. It's a case of battling on.

Eat as healthy as you can, because your body will also be trying to heal and it needs as much help as you can give it. Sugar lowers immunity and feeds candida, wheat/gluten products can act as a poison as well (in many of us who are already sick). yeast aint good either for those with candida. I felt these three foods were the worst culprits for me and without fail made me feel poisoned everytime I consumed any of them. In fact, i remember consuming wheat products and almost immediately feeling poisoned. It was strange, but somehow it either made the poisoning I already had much worse and perhaps blocked my body's ability to eliminate my daily onslaught of mercury and/or it actually added more mercury (I believe wheat is treated with mercury fungicide). and that's not even counting gluten which is something that can cause illness in people who cannot digest it properly.

Those three would be the first things I would eliminate immediately off my list. From there? I'd just work on reducing carbohydrates in case I had a bad enough candida problem. But not everybody does, so some can do just fine on them.

Anyway, keep us posted on how you do with the ALA. Because according to Cutler, this is the key chelator for reducing organ mercury, which is exactly what you want to do. DMSA is great also, but it's apparently better with reducing blood/tissue mercury (extra cellular mercury - mercury on the outside of cells). It's not so strong with intracellular mercury (mercury on the inside of cells).

However, some may argue with that. I feel personally that it's stronger than many believe. There are a number of people who have used this chelator alone and gotten well. I felt personally cured by DMSA alone (or near enough to). Though in hindsight, ALA would have been wise to do to finish off with. And certainly the ongoing symptoms DMSA kept causing was evidence it was always chelating mercury in me. Until finally I felt no more problems when using it and my improvements went along with that.