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#125 - 11/14/06 04:55 PM
Mercury Poisoning: Not a Simple Topic
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BryanRosner
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Registered: 11/08/06
Posts: 264
Loc: Mountains of Northern CA
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There are as many ways to treat mercury poisoning as there are different types of cars to buy. Unfortunately, unlike cars, in my opinion, there's only one safe way, and that is the method discovered by Andrew Cutler, Ph.D., who wrote a book about how to get rid of mercury poisoning: http://www.lymebook.com/mercury .
The subject of mercury toxicity is very complicated. It becomes even more complicated when Lyme Disease is added to the mix. Anything that can be said about this topic must be fairly extensive and comprehensive in order to facilitate complete understanding. So, below I will post a chapter from my book that explains my viewpoints on mercury poisoning. I'm definitely open to discussion and critique. If you have comments, please let me know by posting a reply to this message.
Excerpt from the book When Antibiotics Fail: Lyme Disease and Rife Machines, with Critical Evaluation of Leading Alternative Therapies
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MERCURY POISONING: COMPANION OF CHRONIC LYME DISEASE
Although not everyone with Lyme Disease has mercury toxicity, evidence has repeatedly shown that having Lyme Disease increases the likelihood of becoming mercury toxic. This is the case even when a significant mercury exposure is not present. Thus, chronic Lyme Disease sufferers often have mercury toxicity to some degree.
Mercury is one of the most harmful toxins on the planet and is a catalyst to infections. Mercury is directly immunosuppressive. It is one of the most common, dangerous toxins to accumulate in the body, although modern conventional medicine has not acknowledged it yet. Mercury poisoning is a BIG problem, not a small problem. Once mercury is in the body it is very difficult to remove because it binds very strongly to human tissues.
Let’s examine possible reasons why people with Lyme Disease are particularly susceptible to mercury poisoning.
Why does mercury poisoning often accompany Lyme Disease?
All people (sick or healthy) are exposed to mercury. Some exposure occurs naturally because mercury is a part of our environment, some occurs through direct contact with mercury products (such as mercury amalgam dental fillings) and some occurs via inadvertent contact with mercury-contaminated locations or objects. Even if a person is careful to avoid mercury products and contaminated areas, mercury is still everywhere in the environment in small amounts: In the air, water, food and all around us.
So mercury toxicity is not always a question of if you were exposed to mercury. It can be a question of how well your body eliminates the mercury it comes in contact with on a daily basis. Some people have the genetic ability to easily detoxify mercury out of the body, while others are genetically susceptible to mercury accumulation even from low-level, everyday exposure.
Mercury catalyzes infections and severely weakens the immune system, so it is not a big leap to accept that people with mercury poisoning would be more susceptible to chronic Lyme Disease. Conversely, Lyme Disease severely weakens the body’s ability to detoxify poisons, so people with Lyme Disease are more susceptible to accumulating mercury (even from miniscule, everyday exposure.) But in people with both Lyme Disease and mercury poisoning, which came first? Did the mercury come first, which eventually allowed the infection to thrive, or did the infection come first, which weakened the body enough to cause dysfunction in the mercury detoxification process? If mercury toxicity did come first, how and why did the person become mercury toxic?
Here are a few possible scenarios that explain why mercury toxicity and Lyme Disease are often companions:
1. A person who does not have Lyme Disease may have a genetic susceptibility to becoming mercury toxic because of a deficiency in liver function (for example). If this person becomes mercury toxic, they will also develop a suppressed immune system, and infections will become established with greater ease. Therefore, if this person is exposed to the Lyme disease bacteria the person would be more likely to develop full blown, chronic Lyme Disease in comparison with an individual who is not mercury toxic. This is an example of how a person could become mercury toxic before the Lyme Disease infection.
2. Or, the converse situation may happen: A completely healthy person, with no genetic predisposition to becoming mercury toxic, may get Lyme Disease. The infection might weaken their body, including their mercury detoxification abilities. The person’s body would then no longer be capable of removing the mercury to which they are exposed on a daily basis. This is an example of how a person could become mercury toxic after they get infected with Lyme Disease.
3. Another possibility is that the Lyme Disease organism itself, as part of its lifecycle and survival mechanism, accumulates mercury. Many researchers have hypothesized that some infective organisms, once established inside the human body, store or use mercury to create a living environment, or niche within the body, inside which the body’s defenses are compromised and weakened due to the presence of mercury. Because mercury is an immunosuppressant, it is feasible that the Lyme Disease spirochete sequesters mercury in the body as a tool for continued survival in the host environment. The spirochete would do this by grabbing onto miniscule amounts of mercury circulating in a person’s body due to a person’s regular (small) daily mercury exposure. After time, the Lyme Disease organisms would store up more than just a miniscule amount. Significantly increased body burden of mercury would result.
4. Yet another possibility would be if a person unknowingly got exposed to a large amount of mercury (such as mercury from an old thermometer or use of old, banned mercury products). This could cause mercury toxicity and thus allow a chronic Lyme Disease infection to become more easily established due to the immunosuppressive effects of mercury poisoning.
Once a person discovers they have Chronic Lyme Disease and mercury toxicity, it is nearly impossible to identify which came first and unravel the mystery. Regardless of how it happens, mercury toxicity often accompanies Chronic Lyme Disease.
Most people who do have mercury toxicity and Lyme Disease do not experience significant improvement in their symptoms until the mercury is removed.
Testing for and treating mercury toxicity: where to get help
How do you know if you have mercury poisoning and how do you get rid of it?
Dozens of books are written about these controversial subjects. Mercury “experts” vehemently shout all kinds of contradictory information at each other on a regular basis.
Testing for mercury toxicity is one of the complicated and controversial aspects and many different testing methods are advocated. Most common methods do not actually provide useful information about how mercury toxic someone is. Urine, stool and blood tests do not give an accurate indication of the total body burden of mercury, because these methods only measure “shallow” body pools of mercury. The most reliable method is hair testing, because it measures a much longer mercury excretion period. However, even hair testing is not completely accurate. Sometimes normal, or low mercury in the hair may not indicate that a person is mercury free, but instead that a person is poisoned so severely that their body can no longer get rid of mercury through the hair. Interpreting hair tests is also a skill most health care practitioners do not have. For these reasons, mercury toxicity should not be ruled out even if a person has one or several tests showing safe mercury levels. People who do not have positive mercury tests but suspect mercury poisoning can try a mercury removal program to see if their symptoms improve.
Mercury removal is no less complicated or controversial than testing. Most techniques actually do more harm than good, and result in worsening of symptoms and minimal mercury excretion. This is because mercury is very difficult to remove from the body. Most substances and protocols claiming to remove mercury actually just stir it up and redistribute it. It often gets redistributed to critical areas where it can do a lot of damage, like the brain and liver. Using a mercury removal protocol that has a high propensity for redistribution is a very bad idea.
There are three main problems occurring in most common mercury chelation protocols. Here are the problems as well as the solutions:
1. The first problem that renders chelators nonproductive and dangerous is that the chelator used does not bond strongly enough with mercury to remove it. Instead, the mercury is just dislodged from its resting place in the body and sent into circulation, where it quickly bonds to tissue somewhere else. This is called mercury redistribution, and can have serious damaging effects as well as increase symptoms dramatically. Body tissues themselves have a high affinity for mercury so if the chelator used only creates a weak bond, the mercury will want to grab onto body tissues on its way out of the body. An ideal mercury protocol minimizes redistribution. Substances that do not qualify as strong (appropriate) chelators include cilantro, chlorella and MSM, to name a few. These substances are not acceptable mercury removal agents and they often do more damage than good! DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid), DMPS (dimercaptopropane-1-sulfonic acid) , and ALA (alpha lipoic acid) are three proper mercury chelators that create a strong enough bond with mercury to actually usher it out of the body and not just redistribute it.
2. Another problem seen in improper mercury removal protocols is that the chelator is not dosed frequently enough to ensure that a consistent supply of it is available in the blood to “sop up” the mercury knocked loose by the last dose of chelator. Because even proper mercury chelators (DMSA, DMPS and ALA) do not create perfect bonds with mercury, they sometimes drop the mercury as it is on its way out of the body. Thus it is essential to have a constant, fresh supply of chelator in the blood to pick up the dropped mercury and usher it the rest of the way out of the body. Most (proper and improper) mercury chelating substances have a short ½ life in the blood so successful mercury removal programs require chelators to be dosed frequently (sometimes requiring waking in the night to take a dose). Improper and inappropriate dosing includes:
a. Schedules where a large dose of chelator is taken infrequently, such as a DMPS injection once every week or month.
b. Schedules where a full dose of chelator is taken every day or every other day (a valid schedule requires dosing several times per day).
c. Schedules in which mercury chelators are taken on an inconsistent basis, such that there is no consistent dosing pattern.
3. Even if a proper chelator is used appropriately, a mistake often made by mercury “experts” is using too large a dose. It is not uncommon for mercury chelation protocols to use doses that are 10 times too high. The reason for using very low doses of chelator is that the eliminatory system of the body can only handle a small amount of mercury at a time. Mercury is highly toxic and as you remove it you must ensure that the body only has to deal with very small portions. If you take large doses of chelator, lots of mercury gets mobilized, but only a small amount gets excreted. The rest gets redistributed and attaches to other tissue in the body, causing damage and increased symptoms. Larger doses do not get the mercury out faster, they just make you more miserable during the process. A proper chelation protocol uses a small dose of chelator so the amount of mercury knocked loose is easily handled by the eliminatory system instead of being redistributed throughout the body.
To summarize, productive and helpful chelation protocols use small doses of proper chelators dosed frequently. Dangerous protocols use large doses of improper chelators taken infrequently.
Productive chelation campaigns result in mercury removal and symptoms improving. Improper, dangerous protocols result in mercury redistribution and damage to the body, and very little mercury removal or symptom improvement.
These principles of mercury chelation were discovered by Andrew Cutler, Ph.D. and his book is the appropriate source to learn about how to safely remove mercury from the body. His approach to mercury testing and removal relies on sound science and has been used successfully by dozens of Lyme Disease sufferers. His book explains exactly how to remove mercury safely:
Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment
By Andrew Cutler Ph.D.
The book is available at:
http://www.lymebook.com/mercury
The methods described in Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment are not only effective in removing mercury from the body and reducing side effects during the process but also are fairly affordable and can be used at home with minimal help from a doctor. Anyone considering mercury detoxification should read the book before decisions are made. Even your trusted alternative doctor, whom you see for all your needs, is probably wrong about mercury chelation. Mercury chelation is one of the riskiest and most complicated medical therapies you can undertake. Mistakes can cause serious suffering and sometimes permanent damage. Talk to a few people who used Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment and then talk to a few people who used other methods, to compare results.
Before I found and used Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment, I made mercury chelation mistakes that worsened my condition for more than a year. These mistakes were made under the care of a “mercury expert”. Not only did Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment help me get back to where I was before the chelation mistakes, it also eliminated my mercury problems completely.
Lyme Disease sufferers also need to be aware that having mercury poisoning and Lyme Disease at the same time can be a confusing, frustrating, scary experience.
The confusing experience of concurrent mercury toxicity and Lyme Disease
Although Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment will help a person remove mercury from the body, the mercury removal process can take months or years. Thus a person needs to know what to do, and what it feels like, in the meantime.
As mentioned, there is evidence that the Lyme Disease organism intentionally stores and sequesters mercury. This results in increased mercury concentrations in, and near, Lyme Disease colonies – mercury and Lyme Disease are together in close quarters. When a person is afflicted with both mercury toxicity and Lyme Disease the experience can be a frightening roller coaster ride. The following factors contribute to the experience:
1. Mercury symptoms can be very similar to Lyme Disease symptoms. Sometimes a person with Lyme Disease may not know they have mercury poisoning and thus assume all of their symptoms are Lyme Disease symptoms, when in fact some of them are mercury symptoms. If a person is fortunate enough to find out that they have mercury toxicity in addition to Lyme Disease, the next challenge is to separate and identify which symptoms are caused by each problem. Because Lyme Disease and mercury typically occupy the same places in the body, the symptoms of each problem are difficult to separate.
2. The experience is compounded further by the fact that, as mercury chelation agents mobilize mercury, the Lyme Disease organism reacts. The presence of mercury in the living environment of the bacteria is advantageous to the bacteria. So, as the mercury-rich environment is altered, the infection responds with changed activities. This means that a person undertaking chelation would not only experience the symptoms and side effects of mercury mobilization and removal, they would also experience changes in their Lyme Disease symptoms.
3. To make matters even more complicated, when Lyme Disease organisms are being killed or attacked, mercury symptoms may respond and change as well. As you alter the Lyme Disease living environment and kill Lyme Disease organisms, mercury is mobilized and released. Sometimes, mercury is stored inside a spirochete or bacterial colony. When that colony is disrupted or eradicated (with antibiotics or rife machines), mercury is released. This situation would result in symptoms of a herx reaction and symptoms of mercury mobilization. As a matter of fact, many herx symptoms commonly experienced by Lyme Disease sufferers can actually be symptoms of mercury mobilization. Because dying Lyme Disease organisms can release mercury, it is important to use a mercury detoxification protocol while undertaking anti-Lyme therapy to sop up the mercury that is released during the killing of Lyme Disease bacteria.
4. Mercury is a very strong immuno-suppressant and so the presence of mercury in the body may mask some inflammatory Lyme Disease symptoms. A person may feel that their Lyme Disease symptoms are somehow better when they are mercury poisoned because the inflammatory response to Lyme Disease is reduced. When mercury is removed and the immune system starts working again, a person may experience increased Lyme Disease symptoms and herx reactions because the body starts fighting again and the immune system starts working again.
These are just a few of the confusing elements involved in experiencing mercury toxicity and Lyme Disease (and the treatment of both) simultaneously. Further details are beyond the scope of this book, but knowing that the whole subject can be complicated, and treating it with respect is the first step to figuring out what is taking place in your own body and what you can do about it.
If you have specific questions about mercury detoxification and how it relates to Lyme Disease, the Lyme-and-rife online discussion group is an excellent place to seek support.
Does rife therapy cause mercury mobilization?
People with mercury toxicity should be concerned about inadvertently “stirring up” mercury in the body. Although there are protocols for safely removing mercury, such as is discussed in Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment, there are also ways to cause mercury redistribution and worsening of mercury problems. For example, as you can read at http://www.dmpsbackfire.com , DMPS taken as an injection can cause extreme mercury redistribution that results in long term damage.
So, the question of whether rife machines uncontrollably mobilize and redistribute mercury is an important one. If they do this, they would not be suitable for use by a Lyme Disease sufferer who is mercury toxic.
Because mercury is a metal and electromagnetic fields (like those produced by rife machines) can affect metals, people often believe that rife machines can mobilize mercury. However, mercury is not a magnetic metal (iron is an example of a magnetic metal), meaning that it is not significantly affected by magnetic fields. So, while rife machines may affect other metals, they do not affect or mobilize mercury.
As you’ve read, Lyme Disease organisms themselves can store mercury, so in killing them rife machines can indirectly cause mercury to enter circulation. However, this can happen with any effective anti-Lyme therapy (like use of antibiotics, before bacterial resistance). This is an inevitable obstacle that must be dealt with during healing, and rife machines do not cause mercury release from dying organisms any more than antibiotics, herbs, or other treatments do.
Therefore, rife machines and other electromagnetic treatments are generally safe for mercury toxic people.
Summary and additional resources
Every Lyme Disease sufferer should carefully consider the possibility that they may have mercury poisoning, and that stagnation in their healing progress may be, at least partially, a result of the presence of mercury in the body. Because most cases of Lyme Disease will not show satisfactory improvement unless mercury toxicity is addressed, regardless of which anti-Lyme therapies are used, it is important to first find out if mercury is a problem, and second decide how to get rid of it. In this way mercury detoxification therapy is similar to magnesium supplementation therapy: Lyme Disease will not improve, regardless of anti-Lyme therapies, if a person is low in magnesium or is mercury toxic.
Edited by theskyking (11/14/06 04:58 PM)
_________________________
Bryan Rosner
DISCLAIMER: Bryan Rosner is a journalist, not a healthcare provider or doctor.
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#191 - 11/20/06 04:46 AM
Re: Mercury Poisoning: Not a Simple Topic
[Re: BryanRosner]
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rinne
New Researcher
Registered: 11/20/06
Posts: 7
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Thank you for sharing this information, I found it very helpful although a little overwhelming.
Mercury does not seem to be a major issue for me but if I am understanding this correctly it could be once the treatment I am on begins to have an effect on the bacteria, yes?
Edited by rinne (11/20/06 04:50 AM)
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#363 - 12/02/06 05:20 PM
Re: Mercury Poisoning: Not a Simple Topic
[Re: rinne]
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earthwalker
Active Participant
Registered: 12/02/06
Posts: 14
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It's interesting, but mercury was the first layer that I discovered and so I got my amalgams removed and did Cutler's chelation protocol for 2 years starting back in 9/02. I used low dose DMPS and ALA. Toward the end of the 2 years I developed Chemical Sensitivity and Mold Illness. Then I finally got a Lyme dx this past year. I'm so glad I did the 2 years of chelation already. I'm sure I still have a lot of mercury to chelate but I definitely improved a lot of cognitive issues with the chelation.
Julie
http://www.PlanetThrive.com
Edited by earthwalker (12/02/06 05:21 PM)
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#5650 - 01/02/11 03:11 AM
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[Re: BryanRosner]
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Anonymous
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