Chelation puts a hold to my personal development

[Ima Freeman]

Hello everyone,

At the moment I'm very hesitant about continuing new rounds, because the after-effects of them are really debilitating for me.
I am chelating for almost two and a half years, doing 83 rounds and using 5-7mg of chelators (ALA or DMPS) at the moment.

This spring, it felt like the dump phase finally started to lift, but in the summer my condition slowly got worse again.
Over all some pre-chelation symptoms did reduce ore even recede, so I have some progress.

Because of a bad ALA round, I took a break of one month in August. After some time, I was feeling stable enough to have a decent quality of life.

Because of the especially nasty mental side effects of using ALA, I stopped it for now.
But even with DMPS I feel bad when I do regular rounds.

Eventually I want to complete chelation and detox all the mercury left in my brain. But right now I want to be somewhat productive in my life and continue to improve like in the spring. For example I'm in the midst of the Life Purpose Course.
The aftermaths of the chelation rounds put a hold to my productivity. I feel mentally troubled after them.
I feel agitated, restless and depressed. These symptoms are like jamming frequencies, that stop me from being motivated, inspired and concentrated.

What are your opinions. Should I stop chelating and work on my life?
Or should I concentrate on chelating until this debilitation ceases and I can work effectively on myself?

This all sounds really desperate because I'm really agitated right now (day 3 of a DMPS round)

[The0Self]

After 83 rounds you’re only using 5-7mg? Interesting. I use 100mg DMSA + 250mg ALA every 3 hours for a 5 day round once every couple years to retain progress from the chelation I did years ago.

[Leo Gura]

Sounds a bit odd. Are you sure you don't have metal fillings or the like in your body?

Yes, you can take breaks.

Or maybe try DMSA instead.

After a certain point you do have to listen to your body. Maybe some of these chemicals are not right for you.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Leo Gura

[The0Self]

Btw, I would advise against using ALA alone — use it with DMPS or DMSA in your system, meaning: take the non-ALA for one dose, then take the ALA+other e3h (every 90min is better) for at least 72 hours (2 weeks is best but these days I usually cave at about day 5-10), then take one final dose of the non-ALA chelator. So that whenever ALA is in your system, either DMSA or DMPS is also in your system, at all times. This is to ensure that more free mercury is bound (made not free) on the outside of the blood brain barrier than on the inside (ALA binds equally on both sides, but DMSA/DMPS only binds on the outside), so there is a more pronounced downhill concentration gradient flowing out of the brain, with respect to mercury.

Also, it’s possible that only DMSA will chelate lead. I’ve seen evidence that DMPS does as well, but it’s not conclusive. ALA certainly will not though — it seems to primarily chelate mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. DMSA chelates lead and mercury, and also tin, bismuth, thallium, tungsten, and antimony (and to some degree even chromium and potassium). But mercury will not come out of the brain without ALA e3h for 72+ hrs, most preferably with either DMPS or DMSA in your system that whole time.

Edited October 31, 2022 by The0Self

[mmKay]

@Ima Freeman Are you supporting properly with the required minimal doses of the core 4? 

ACC Facebook group recommends to also support your adrenals, liver and even thyroid if needed. Sounds like you critically need some of this. 

I did some personal science at my own risk and I did a whole round with just the core 4 ( vit C, magnesium, zinc and vit E) .

I pushed through but I felt miserable  and my poop went yellow ( which points to lack of liver support) . 

After that I took ACE ( adrenal cortex extract ) and just one pill made significant improvement. 

I also take taurine, milk thistle exact and artichoke extract for liver support

Also iodine and l-thyrosine helps out the thyroid aparently but i have not feeling the difference that directly. 

Everyone is different to surprisingly large extents. I advise you to chelate in a way that makes it as affordable as possible but perhaps you are one of those who needs a lot of specific organ support.

Trial and error what works for you and throw out the rest. 

 

PD : check out the andy cutler chelation facebook group. There is a 123 step by step guide to follow and it sounds that something is really wrong in your case that you should ask experienced people to help you troubleshoot. 

[Michael569]

What is the rest of your lifestyle like? Is your diet optimal? Sleep? Exercise routine? Alcohol & stimulants?

All of those or lack thereof can give you symptoms that one would associate with detox and which might have nothing to do with it but everything to do with lifestyle induced fatigue and mental fog.

Also consider that perhaps the acc may not be the answer. 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Michael569

[Ima Freeman]

14 hours ago, The0Self said:

After 83 rounds you’re only using 5-7mg? Interesting. I use 100mg DMSA + 250mg ALA every 3 hours for a 5 day round once every couple years to retain progress from the chelation I did years ago.

I started one month post amalgam removal with 15mg DMPS which was too much for me. That was in summer 2020.
I thought that would be a conservative starting dose. After a few rounds it came down to 5mg.
It was more manageable, but I still had many side effects, mainly mental ones.
Today I think, I should have gone even further down to 3mg maybe.

Three months in I started ALA and half a year after starting I used 7mg (5mg ALA, 2mg DMPS). 
But then last year's summer I had a regression and slowly reduced dose to 1mg ALA. Even that was hardly bearable for me.
I jumped back to 5mg without many problems and stayed there until this spring when I went up to 7mg again.
This dose I managed relatively good until this summer my symptoms got worse again.

[Ima Freeman]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Sounds a bit odd. Are you sure you don't have metal fillings or the like in your body?

Yes, you can take breaks.

Or maybe try DMSA instead.

After a certain point you do have to listen to your body. Maybe some of these chemicals are not right for you.

I was extremely anxious about having amalgam specks left after removal, so I checked two times with bitewing x-rays. 
One time they were checked by a qualified dentist in the ACC FB group who said everything was fine.

I did couple of breaks already, two weeks here one month there.
Sometimes I feel a bit better, like the last break I did, sometimes symptoms persist.

 

[Ima Freeman]

9 hours ago, The0Self said:

Btw, I would advise against using ALA alone — use it with DMPS or DMSA in your system, meaning: take the non-ALA for one dose, then take the ALA+other e3h (every 90min is better) for at least 72 hours (2 weeks is best but these days I usually cave at about day 5-10), then take one final dose of the non-ALA chelator. So that whenever ALA is in your system, either DMSA or DMPS is also in your system, at all times. This is to ensure that more free mercury is bound (made not free) on the outside of the blood brain barrier than on the inside (ALA binds equally on both sides, but DMSA/DMPS only binds on the outside), so there is a more pronounced downhill concentration gradient flowing out of the brain, with respect to mercury.

Also, it’s possible that only DMSA will chelate lead. I’ve seen evidence that DMPS does as well, but it’s not conclusive. ALA certainly will not though — it seems to primarily chelate mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. DMSA chelates lead and mercury, and also tin, bismuth, thallium, tungsten, and antimony (and to some degree even chromium and potassium). But mercury will not come out of the brain without ALA e3h for 72+ hrs, most preferably with either DMPS or DMSA in your system that whole time.

My plan was to chelate lead after I detoxed mercury.

I believe I changed my minimum round length after I read your recommendation on this forum 
Often times I had to struggle big time to even come to Cutler's recommended 64 hours.

The reason for not using both chelators combined is, that I suspect that doses under 5mg produce two low of a concentration in the blood to effectively do the protocol

[Ima Freeman]

2 hours ago, mmKay said:

@Ima Freeman Are you supporting properly with the required minimal doses of the core 4? 

ACC Facebook group recommends to also support your adrenals, liver and even thyroid if needed. Sounds like you critically need some of this. 

I did some personal science at my own risk and I did a whole round with just the core 4 ( vit C, magnesium, zinc and vit E) .

I pushed through but I felt miserable  and my poop went yellow ( which points to lack of liver support) . 

After that I took ACE ( adrenal cortex extract ) and just one pill made significant improvement. 

I also take taurine, milk thistle exact and artichoke extract for liver support

Also iodine and l-thyrosine helps out the thyroid aparently but i have not feeling the difference that directly. 

Everyone is different to surprisingly large extents. I advise you to chelate in a way that makes it as affordable as possible but perhaps you are one of those who needs a lot of specific organ support.

Trial and error what works for you and throw out the rest. 

 

PD : check out the andy cutler chelation facebook group. There is a 123 step by step guide to follow and it sounds that something is really wrong in your case that you should ask experienced people to help you troubleshoot. 

I used the core 4 from the start almost constantly even in breaks.

To combat symptoms and to support my body I tried countless supplements already.

Adrenal Cortex, 5-HTP, high dose vitamin C, lecithin, milk thistle and some antimicrobial herbs for dysbiosis where the only ones which produced noticable effects.

My symptoms are so prominent and up and down that it is hard to figure out what helps, what doesn't and what makes matters worse


I started with support from the FB group. After I left FB for good I went to this forum - https://andy-cutler-chelation.com/

[Ima Freeman]

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

What is the rest of your lifestyle like? Is your diet optimal? Sleep? Exercise routine? Alcohol & stimulants?

All of those or lack thereof can give you symptoms that one would associate with detox and which might have nothing to do with it but everything to do with lifestyle induced fatigue and mental fog.

Also consider that perhaps the acc may not be the answer. 

My diet is almost exclusively organic. I eat mainly sardines (I know fish contains mercury), beef, eggs, tofu, fruit, peppers, millet, nuts, seeds.
Gluten and dairy I almost never eat since doing a exclusion diet and found out I do not react really well to them.
I have little problems with digestion animal protein. From too much cooked vegetables I get bloated.

My sleep is fine. Sometimes I sleep too long (10+ hours).
I'm quite sedentary at the moment. But lifting weights or cardio didn't change much in the past.
Jogging does have some good effects, so I do it occasionally.

My main vise is an addiction to alcohol, which I consume regularly.
But it did not make much difference in the past, if I drank daily or I did not for months.
Eventually I want to stop, but my main mental health problems ADHD, anxiety and restlessness are much more bearable with it.
The alternative, subscriptions benzos are not an option I want to take, because I find alcohol healthier and benzo withdrawal sounds awful.


Btw, I'm seeing improvements from the protocol.
It is not that I only suffer and nothing happens. 
For example insomnia episodes subsided and social anxiety is far better.

I do other health protocols too besides ACC, like some for gut health or parasite cleansing.

But I'm still eying other heavy metal detox protocols at the moment, because the pace is sooo slow and side effects still hard.
 

[The0Self]

3 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

My plan was to chelate lead after I detoxed mercury.

I believe I changed my minimum round length after I read your recommendation on this forum 
Often times I had to struggle big time to even come to Cutler's recommended 64 hours.

The reason for not using both chelators combined is, that I suspect that doses under 5mg produce two low of a concentration in the blood to effectively do the protocol

Awesome! ? 

Use them (ALA + either DMSA or DMPS; and preferably DMSA, btw; never DMSA and DMPS at the same time) at the same time (with one lone straggler dose of DMSA/DMPS both before and after, but most importantly after, the main ALA+DMSA/DMPS portion, so that ALA is never anywhere close to being the sole chelator in your system).

EDIT: ^^^ I fully explain why to do so, somewhere in this ultra-long comment ? 

There could be low sulfate (one remedy is magnesium sulfate) or high sulphur (thiol) issues and such causing your issues — glycine (and preferably glutamine with it) may help high thiol symptoms. Thiol restriction may help. Sucks that onibasu is down because it had remedies listed for just about any issue you could think of. It only went down a month ago so hopefully it’s temporary. I don’t remember all the potential issues and their remedies but I know about many of them.

Or you can first do DMPS by itself for a long time to reduce body mercury burden if you’re still quite toxic. Maybe start with 5mg every 8 hours and work up to 25mg every 8hr or even 25mg every 4 hours (and since its half life is 6-9hr you can get away with just taking 50mg before the pre-bed dose so you can get a full night’s rest for the duration of the round — DMPS is very convenient that way. Once you can handle that DMPS dose, body mercury is probably quite a bit lower than the brain and you can safely start ALA+DMSA 5mg each e3h.

One thing I heard directly from Cutler on his once-active forum: Sometimes when people can’t handle 10mg DMSA every 4 hours, they can handle 100mg DMSA every 60 minutes — that’s how much frequency matters. So maybe try taking 2.5mg ALA+DMSA every 90 minutes and just for the night/sleep doses take 5mg every 3h so you can at least get some sleep. If you keep the frequency on point you will probably miss out on sleep but this is okay for short periods — Just make damn sure you never get less than 4-4.5h sleep on even any one day, as you don’t enter your first slow wave sleep cycle until just before 4h total sleep time for the day; if you miss that cycle, your detox reserves are highly deranged at least until you sleep again and don’t fully recover until after getting 3 nights of >4-4.5 hrs (preferably 6+ hrs) sleep. You can train yourself to sleep less, but no one can thrive on less than 4h — the body simply can’t do it. Optimal sleep time varies widely on an individual basis but it is always 4<x<9.5 hours (in absolutely every single case, and it’s only above 9h in periods of extreme physical stress).

5mg isn’t even that low — as long as it eclipses the amount of mercury in the body, it’s perfectly sufficient to chelate effectively. It’s just low for having done over 50 rounds... 0.25-1.0 mg is low.

Cutler’s minimum is 72 hours, not 64 — 60-64 minimum is for children with different metabolisms, and certainly not for ALA-only rounds. And longer is better (up to about 2 weeks, and in some cases 19 days). DMSA+ALA can be slightly shorter than ALA-only to get break-even mercury concentration in brain (which itself would of course not even be good, it just wouldn’t be bad, but it’d be a waste of time), but it should still be at least 72 hours. The reason for the minimum length of 72h is the fact that mercury has higher affinity for brain than body, and there will be net flow into the brain if the round is significantly less than 72 hours. Might as well do it as long as literally possible. If it’s going to be just 72 hours, it definitely should not be an ALA-only round.

Believe me I get it, it’s hard making it to 72h with e3h dosing. I still do a round every year or so for maintenance (100mg DMSA + 250mg ALA e3h for >5d) and I aim for a 11-12 day round (a bottle of 90 ALA and 2x50 DMSA caps) but rarely get past 5-6 (I always make it to 5 though). But I was never bothered by side effects so I’d imagine it’s harder for you — just make sure to get to 72h.

DMSA (or DMPS) can reduce ALA side-effects considerably (and vice-versa, they’re synergistic).

DMSA is also synergistic with ALA via somewhat preventing zinc and copper retention — you still MUST take zinc while on ALA though (again, before meals), otherwise copper will rise very quickly, and copper toxicity is much worse than zinc toxicity.

And make sure you don’t have a thiamine deficiency — matter of fact it’s probably best to take b vitamins on round (very hard to suggest which type though as methylation capacities vary with genetics) — as this will slow chelation down, especially of cadmium:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11204555/

 

*** And in case you aren’t clear on this already: the zinc (and preferably molybdenum too!) 4x/d means before meals — that’s the entire point of taking it; to reduce copper absorption from meals. Otherwise it’s a waste, as the zinc is basically just a necessary evil, since ALA itself will eventually cause zinc toxicity too, so use it (the zinc) very wisely (i.e. only before meals).

The knowledge base required to truly do safe chelation is far more extensive than most people realize. For instance, the vast majority of people chelating incorrectly think that ALA has an elimination half-life of 3 hours… they never even bothered to do the research to get the real number, which is about 30 minutes — and it’s very easy to find, and well-researched. You do NOT want the only chelator in your system to be THAT fast-acting. For the love of god, take it with DMSA or DMPS… unless you plan on taking it around the clock every 30 minutes, for 72 hours, including night doses (? glwt)… but there are additional reasons why ALA should not be the sole chelator anyway! So the way I see it, it’s basically required that ALA be taken with either DMSA or DMPS, unless there is some kind of allergic reaction to those other two chelators, in which case ALA should probably be taken every hour during the day, with 1-2 night doses at 3x that dose taken at an obligatory (for sleep) e3h frequency… again for >72 hours running.

Edited October 31, 2022 by The0Self

[Michael569]

21 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

My main vise is an addiction to alcohol, which I consume regularly.
But it did not make much difference in the past, if I drank daily or I did not for months.

I have someone in the family who is heavily drinking alcohol and I can tell in a millisecond whether they've had a drink or not over the past month. It affects the body more than just on those obvious levels. It's like the energy around the person changes, they are in darker place - mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Energy levels are severely impacted days and weeks after and it may take the body years to completely reverse the damage of alcohol. I've seen a few men in my clinic as well who drink regularly and it is nearly always the major factor behind their depression, anxieties, pains and fatigue. It's like healing a wound by cutting yourself elsewhere to take the pain away. 

Not meaning to shame you Ima or anything like that. It is brave for you to share this. I'd say to maximise the results of the chelation therapy, you should ideally do everything possible in your power to remove that alcohol 100% , it takes too much away and gives too little in exchange. Not to mention chelation is a heavy liver-demanding process and if the liver is busy turning alcohol to aldehydes it may impact the effectiveness of the chelation protocol

Also, I'm wondering if you wouldn't;t benefit from more plants heavy and fewer animal foods in the diet. Plants provide many phytonutrients and fibre which aids removal of heavy metals from the gastrointestinal system where a lower-fibre diet may cause the reabsorption of toxins through the intestinal walls. I'd say a split of 80% plants and 20% lean animal products like small oily fish would work very well. Not to mention things like beef are associated with a worse mental state in the nutritional epidemiology. 

But that's just a minor suggestion. 

All the best on your healing tourney. 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Michael569

[Leo Gura]

@Ima Freeman Since you had amalgams removed, you probably have a lot of mercury to detox. So just take it slow and be gentle and patient with yourself.

[The0Self]

I would certainly not drink during chelation. Who knows, maybe it changes the affinity of the brain vs body to mercury, and it’s luck of the draw whether it’s in the good direction or the other.

[Ima Freeman]

@Michael569 @The0Self

Of course I know that alcohol is a hard on the liver. And that it's not at all smart to drink, while detoxing the most toxic non-radiactive substance.
There are two reasons why I still drink.
Firstly as a recreation to make music, movies, etc more enjoyable
Secondly, when I'm in a super irritated, maniac, restless mode, in which I was often in the last 28 months I now chelate, it is the only tool I know that works to calm me down. It feels like a miracle, one drink is most often enough.
I tried other things like taking GABA instead to calm me down, but nothing works that well like alcohol for me.

Now I do not allow myself to get to places where I feel that bad anymore, but in the past I tolerated a lot of pain through this therapy.
In ACC circles it is sometimes said to 'just chelate through it'. I should have increased my standard for quality of life sooner, then I would have paused chelating when I was suffering heavily and changed some ancillary things. Hindsight is easier than foresight.

[Ima Freeman]

On 1.11.2022 at 0:31 PM, Michael569 said:

Also, I'm wondering if you wouldn't;t benefit from more plants heavy and fewer animal foods in the diet. Plants provide many phytonutrients and fibre which aids removal of heavy metals from the gastrointestinal system where a lower-fibre diet may cause the reabsorption of toxins through the intestinal walls. I'd say a split of 80% plants and 20% lean animal products like small oily fish would work very well. Not to mention things like beef are associated with a worse mental state in the nutritional epidemiology. 

But that's just a minor suggestion. 

All the best on your healing tourney. 

 

I am actually going in this direction at the moment, allowing myself to have more vegetarian and vegan meals and eating more vegetables as a side dish. 
 

[The0Self]

@Ima Freeman You could be doing more harm than good with ALA-only cycles plus alcohol. Even if most likely it will work, there’s an intolerably high risk that it’s actually dangerous. I wouldn’t even take ALA-alone without alcohol, and certainly not with it. I would highly advise against taking ALA without DMSA (or DMPS), and that goes 10x for your situation, wherein you’ll probably consume some alcohol. And make sure you take the DMSA+ALA every 3 hours at the absolute least frequent, for at least 72 hours straight. And with alcohol involved, the zinc, vitamin c and e, and magnesium become even more important, though they’re already required for safe chelation anyway.

Edited November 3, 2022 by The0Self

[Mada_]

What are you doing for adrenal support?

[Ima Freeman]

@Mada_ 400 mg Adrenal Cortex divided in two doses per day, one in the morning, the other at noon to early afternoon