The Mercury Chelation Controversy – Part 2 This is a continuation of a hypothetical conversation / argument over chelation:
Everyone is going to excrete harmful metals with these chelators. That doesn’ t really prove anything!
DMPS and DMSA are too dangerous to be used even in low concentrations spread throughout the day and night. These drugs also remove other minerals, especially zinc. They interact with copper to make it more harmful. Other physiological effects can cause harm too. See http://www.dmpsbackfire.com for stories of people who became very ill after having used DMPS.
Should we just use MSM to remove mercury? That sounds safe.
No, don’ t do that! MSM is not a true chelator. It will just move the mercury around and cause damage. MSM doesn’ t grip the mercury tightly enough. If you need more sulfur in your body, try sulfates.
Wait two to three months after all the fillings have been replaced before attempting any chelation. This gives the body a chance to clear the more mobile mercury before additional mercury is dumped into the bloodstream by the chelation therapy.
No. You want to use a small amount of a chelator like EDTA or DMSA to mop up the exposure to mercury. In fact, use these on the day you see the dentist.
Any chelator is going to show up in the saliva and remove mercury from the fillings. This will make you sick. DMPS has the worst reputation for this, but the others aren’ t perfectly safe either.
Shelley: The controversy is widespread on the Internet; it is actually a world-wide medical / dental issue. One of the biggest problems, in some people’ s point-of-view, is that there have been no large scale controlled studies on the whole topic.
Polly: What would they study? There are such different results with each person, and we don’ t understand why.
Marilyn in Seattle: I have found a lot of the advice on mercury removal ignores the larger picture of an individual’ s health. For example, all the books say do not use DMSA in those with poor renal (kidney) function (one of the reasons I got so full of mercury in the first place, I am positive). They say to correct zinc deficiencies before using the DMSA. Everyone agrees mercury will not come out of the system if you are mineral deficient. Well, I have never managed to get my zinc levels up to normal, or any of my minerals for that matter. A catch-22. So statements like the above tend to ignore all the subsets of mercury removal therapy. For instance, what are a person’ s mineral stores? If they are ungodly low, why are they ungodly low (poor stomach acid, candida, malabsorption syndrome…)? You cannot pump people full of chelators without addressing their initial health profiles. I gave up reading the amalgam lists as it seemed so un-gestalt…
Polly: Mineral balance is certainly part of the general health picture that needs to be addressed before, during and after treatment. Sulfur aminos and chelators can disturb the body’ s mineral balance. One of the reasons for the break in the chelation campaigns is to give the body a chance to renormalize its mineral status. Yet I’m sure you could find someone to disagree on this idea too. No one seems to agree on anything!
Marilyn in Seattle: I found most information on the amalgam lists so contradictory that I threw my hands up and decided each person was going to react differently and there are no “ rules” to follow. I figure it is all going to be a matter of test/retest and see what happens. Now that my amalgams have been out since June/98, I am reacting totally different to things like MSM than I did before removal. Prior to removal, MSM made me kind of nauseous but did not create that unbearable leg pain. Now I am reacting to zinc. I would never take DMPS again, but once again this is where individuality enters the picture and reactions are unpredictable. Some do well on DMPS, yet it flattened me. You can only selfexperiment and hope that you are not doing irreparable damage.
Polly: DMPS is probably the most dangerous of the chelators. I don’ t think it is worth the risk. However, there are so many unknowns. Which minerals should be supported? Sometimes glutathione IVs can reduce reactions, and at other times glutathione seems to cause a reaction. Vitamin C seems helpful. What else must be present to mitigate any harm done? Under what circumstances are the chelators safe? Can you use homeopathics or amino acid supplements to prepare the body to release the mercury?
Marilyn in Seattle: All of these questions cannot be answered for any given individual. I think this is one of the reasons Huggins is so adamant about the detox process being a matter of years and not months … that most people can only handle a slower detox. I think there are problems with this approach also because as long as mercury is in the body, it continues to do its harm…rocks and hard places….I personally have concluded there are no “ experts” in mercury removal.