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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Sigismund on May 27, 2009, at 3:03:50
There's nothing alternative about this but at least the thread will last here.
I had a hair test done some time ago which suggested my mercury levels were 5 times above some upper limit.
I then had a DMPS challenge test where you give a urine specimen before, and for 24 hours after, an IV dose of DMPS (which, I am told, is similar to DMSA).
(Interestingly, I felt quite good after IV DMPS, almost chatty, though that may conceivably have given way to worse feelings.)
This confirmed the hair test almost exactly.
The urine test pre IV DMPS was, as expected, negative for mercury.
Creatinine was measured as a general test of kidney function to ensure that the result is as valid as it looks, so I don't include that.
The relevant bits read (with the 'acceptable' levels bracketed)....
U-Mercury Excr............800 nmol/d (0-75)
U-Mercury/Creat...........51 nmol/d (0-6)The doctor said that I was poisoned (more or less) and that it wasn't my fault (which was very nice to hear), and that this was the highest level he had seen in a practice that concentrates on this sort of thing.
Posted by Sigismund on May 27, 2009, at 3:16:26
In reply to Mercury, posted by Sigismund on May 27, 2009, at 3:03:50
I mistransposed. It should read....
The relevant bits read (with the 'acceptable' levels bracketed)....
U-Mercury Excr............800 nmol/d (0-75)
U-Mercury/Creat...........51 nmol/mmol(0-6)
Posted by bleauberry on May 28, 2009, at 19:29:50
In reply to Mercury, posted by Sigismund on May 27, 2009, at 3:03:50
It is not uncommon to feel better while taking a chelator like DMSA or DMPS. Some do well on one, poorly on the other. Varies.
The absolute best antidepressant action I have ever felt is on day 2 through day 4 of a low dose frequent dose round of DMSA. After that I start feeling worse. I am pretty sure it is a combination of two things:
-Yeast loves sulfur and mercury...as chelation goes on, yeasts overgrowth occurs rapidly unless efforts are taken to prevent it, and yeast feels really bad, worse than the depression you started with. But until that happens, removal of mercury feels like 20 years younger before depression even hit.
-The body gets so backed up trying to clean out all these toxins in a short time. Thus the need for breaks and an excellent detox support protocol. But until it gets blocked up, it feels good to feel normalish.I would suggest studying the methods of PHd Andrew Cutler's Amalgam Illness protocol. It is basically:
Low dose oral DMSA or DMPS, every 4 hours around the clock for DMSA, every 8 hours around the clock for DMPS (in respect of their half lives to keep a steady blood level and avoid redumping of stirred up mercury). After a couple months, add low dose Alpha Lipoic Acid which is dosed every 3 hours around the clock.3 days on, 4 days break, 5 days on, 7 days break, 2 days on, 2 days break...whatever, the length of rounds and breaks has to be determined by how you feel.
Absolutely do not do IV chelation. That has created numerous scary complications due to redumping of huge amounts of mercury when the halflife of the med expires. Permanent neurological damage and worsened condition prior to starting is not uncommon. Very risky.
There is good evidence with Cilantro and Chlorella combination. But no one is sure of dosing timing or sizes.
I wonder where the mercury came from? Amalgams? Ate a lot of fish? Lived near an industrial area? If none of those, did your mother have amalgams?
The mercury atoms screw up so many biological functions it is ridiculous. You couldn't even count them all. Not to mention clogging up receptor sites where serotonin, dopamine, magnesium, thyroid, and everything else, are supposed to go. It is no wonder I feel a profound antidepressant effect when mercury is removed. As you briefly experienced yourself.
If chelation is in your future, as it should be, feel free to ask questions any time. I hate to admit it, but I do know a ton about this topic. Glad to help. And get that book.
No one at pbabble likes to believe that a real illness is behind their emotions. Whether it be mercury or Lyme or immune dysfunction or intestinal dysbiosis or whatever, they just want to somehow fix serotonin or dopamine. And they wonder why none of the psyc meds work very well. Gee, go figure. You mean, Prozac isn't going to chase those mercury atoms out? :-)
Posted by Sigismund on May 28, 2009, at 22:31:16
In reply to Re: Mercury, posted by bleauberry on May 28, 2009, at 19:29:50
Apparently the New Zealanders are experts in chelation due to the practice, common in the 1950s, of using mercury fillings as a preventive for dental carries (beat that, northern hemisphere!)
In Australia people just had all their teeth out by the time they were 25.Our fish are supposed to be the least polluted in the world, but then again I eat fish every night, and have done so for years now.
I had my amalgams out as safely as possible last year.The doctor's idea is to get me acclimatised to DMSA, but he has not mentioned a temporary but even blood level of DMSA as you suggest.
He has mentioned or implied that alpha lipoic acid at this time would be (perhaps) worse than useless because of mercury reabsorption, and implied that this was an issue about treatment generally.Thanks for your post.
Posted by Sigismund on June 2, 2009, at 18:16:09
In reply to Re: Mercury, posted by bleauberry on May 28, 2009, at 19:29:50
You said somewhere else that DMSA stirred things up for you and made you feel sick after it made you feel better.
So far I have had these (adverse) symptoms which may be relevant
After DMSO............a fever in the middle of the night.
After DMSA............scattered, unfocused and vulnerable. Just unwell.I take it that since the mercury is so toxic, getting it out might involve a bit of weirdness.
I have all the support things in place. There's a few more bottles in the fridge.
Posted by bleauberry on June 5, 2009, at 20:37:04
In reply to Re: Mercury » bleauberry, posted by Sigismund on June 2, 2009, at 18:16:09
Followup to both of your previous posts...
I'm glad your amalgams are gone! Good move.
Your doctor's idea of getting acclimated to DMSA is a good one. But actually, it is kind of misleading the way that is stated. DMSA in a healthy person is neutral. It doesn't feel like anything. Sugar pill. It is only when it is moving metals through the body that you feel it. So, you are not getting acclimated to DMSA itself, you are removing metals. And the more your remove, the less bad you feel from DMSA, so it seems like you are getting acclimated to DMSA. In reality, metals are coming down.
As your doctor hinted at, ALA too soon is actually a bad idea. It crosses the brain barrier. Which is good. But if the body's burden of metals is high, it is bad that ALA crosses the barrier, because it will take those high levels into the brain. The strategy is to first get the body levels very low, and then introduce ALA to get the brain mercury.
Cilantro is another option. I tried it this last round and liked it a lot better than ALA. Do not ever take Cilantro without taking DMSA at the same time though. Cilantro can stir up a lot of metals, more than it can hold onto.
If the dose of DMSA is too high, or if the doses are spread too far apart, redistribution will happen. And that doesn't feel good. Your description of how you felt bad is common. For me, I had heavy fatigue, significantly worsened depression for a few days, pounding headache, and bad sleep. Unwell was a good way to describe it.
Basically, if you feel bad on DMSA or after the round, the dose has to be smaller. You are moving too many metals too fast. There will always be some distribution at the end of a round, but it can be kept to a minimum by matching the size of the dose to the size of the overall toxicity. That means real small doses to start with, and months later you will be on much larger doses comfortably, because a lot of metals are gone.
Am important thing to know is that higher doses of DMSA do not work in linear fashion. In other words, 50mg does not remove twice as much as 25mg. With each larger dose, you only remove a little bit more metal.
When I started, it was 25mg every 4 hours. Way too much. I felt like I got hit by a dumptruck. Like someone threw me out of a car going down the highway. I found in the next rounds that the highest dose I could tolerate comfortably was 3mg. Then after several of those I got up to 6mg. After several of those, 12.5mg.
Last week I finished another round of 12.5mg. It felt like a sugar pill, except that I felt good while on it. I had no bad after-effects. That tells me I have removed a lot of metals, and that very little redistribution is happening. It also tells me I am ready for a larger dose.
Mercury and lead moving through our bodies does indeed feel bad. How could it not? I mean, the second most toxic substance on the planet flowing through us? The bad stuff you feel afterwards is whatever metals didn't make it to excretion before that last dose wore off. Redistribution.
Keeping a steady blood level is extremely important. Most doctors are not aware of this strategy. The halflife of DMSA is about 4 hours. It is important for a new dose to take over when the previous dose is wearing off. That prevents redistribution.
The strategy includes waking up in the middle of the night to take the 4 hour dose. I did that maybe half of my rounds, and on others I skipped that dose. What I discovered was that in the first 8 rounds or so, I could not skip that night dose. It did indeed cause some bad feelings. But now I can skip that dose and not suffer from it. As the metals come down, redistribution is less of a problem. But in the early going it has to be taken very seriously. I had an alarm clock next to my bed, a glass of water right there, and the pill. I would open my eyes just long enough to shut off the alarm clock, swallow the pill, and and then immediately continue my sleep.
You should get good at customizing your doses. I did it by emptying out a capsule onto a plate and dividing the powder into equal size piles. For example, a 25mg capsule I cut into 2 piles, and then cut each of those into 2 piles, for 4 6.25mg doses. Then I could scoop each pile with the help of a razor blade onto a knife and slide it into a size AA large empty capsule. I believe you can also mix the powder in water, stir it well, and drink custom doses. A glass with measuring lines on it would be needed for accuracy. But it doesn't store well, so you'll need to make a new batch each day. And you want the water to be pure so the DMSA is not wasted by binding to impurities in the water.
When I spent a lot of time browsing through chelation forums, it was interesting to see how people were feeling so bad in the early days with doses as low as 6mg, but then months later they are doing 50mg and feeling good.
Nowadays I feel good on rounds. The first day feels a bit weirdish. Not bad, just kind of mildly drugged almost like a tiny dose SSRI. But day 2 and day 3 are really pretty good. Better than I have felt in a long time. I look forward to rounds just to feel that. It is an almost cured feeling. No depression, no anxiety, and I actually have interest and motivation to want to do things. It is great. Really great.
But as the round goes longer, I have gone as much as 10 days at a time, I start feeling bad again. From what I understand, that is most likely yeast. Yeast love DMSA and mercury. So as those things are moving through us, they are having a feast and they quickly multiply. That causes brain fog, fatigue, depression. So it is important to keep yeast under control. Which means during rounds, avoid sugars, and add to your daily supplements anti-yeast things such as Nystatin, Grapefruit Seed Extract, Caprylic Acid, and high dose garlic. The anti-parasite herbs with combos of Black Walnut Hull, Wormwood, and Cloves are also very handy. With some experimentation as to which herbs are best for you, they will keep you feeling good on a round without allowing the yeast to sabotage your efforts.
Many naturopaths or physicians suggest protocols such as 50mg DMSA twice a day, 3 times a day, for a few days. Or maybe 100mg once a day every other day. Stuff like that. All bad. Bigtime redistribution. Granted, if someone were to keep on those schedules for a long time, they would eventually get the metals out. But in the meantime during the journey, they caused a lot of damage that could have been avoided. They got repoisoned many times when they should not have.
The best rules to guide you are:
1) Lower the dose as much as you need to in order to tolerate the round with minimum bad effects. You will still remove a lot of metal even at tiny dose.
2) Give a great deal of respect to the halflife rule...every 4 hours.I hope this helps! You're awesome. Keep at it.
This is the end of the thread.
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