IV Chelation or other treatment for heavy metal po

• By kzippe
• Posted January 18, 2008 at 11:27 pm
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Go to mycareclinic.com and call a doctor to discuss your symtoms. Heavy metal poisoning causes all the symptoms you listed. Also, you are not going to get any support from an AMA (American Medical Assoc.) traditional doctor. Not only are they not trained in nutrition and alternative medicine, they could lose their license if they recommend it.

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• By Amyrosenberg
• Posted December 5, 2008 at 9:10 am
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We have an obsession with nutrition and sometimes go overboard. Removing heavy metals is the first step. Trying not to be dosed with heavy metals again is the real problem. When you drink tap water, you are ingesting metals. What do you think makes the bathtub brown. Heavy metals are in the cereal, bread, and many other items that we normally eat. Even if we eat very little food and live in the USA, we could possibly have heavy metal poisioning. Here is the root of your real problem.

Another problem is that we all have a somewhat differing genetic profile. I think MDs do not take this into account in modern medicine. Some northern European natives have a tendency to reserve heavy metals in their system. These folks sometimes need to give blood weekly to remain healthy. I often wonder what happens to people who have one genetic trait for this problem and the problem is not obvious enough to be noticed. Maybe these people suffer more subtle symptoms and go on to just suffer and eventually die earlier than necessary
.
I have found that it is important to eat a mostly natural vegetarian diet and to take B12 and other vitamins as I need tham. I stay away from any food containing heavy metals. I do not take vitamins with heavy metals in them. I use mostly distilled water. This is how I stay away from most metals. It is not easy.

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• By missmatic
• Posted December 6, 2008 at 3:35 pm
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You didn't say what kind of heavy metals but you're taking the right approach. Not all AMA doctors are against the diagnosis of heavy metals. I was referred by a board certified nephrologist to an endocrinologist for primarily mercury testing. I tested very high for it using dmps or dmsa challenge, such as is offered by Doctor's Data and King James Labs. I too had a variety of multi-system challenging symptoms including immune compromise and unexplained kidney dysfunction.

Unfortunately I suffered permanent injuries as a result of misadvised chelation by a third doctor who specializes in chelation. Don't ask me why he was so negligent as to prescribe oral chelation to a person with amalgams still in place. I had a very bad reaction within a month resulting in what appears to be permanent brain and CNS injuries.

At least one other board certified doctor recently agreed that my symptoms could be those of mercury poisoning, at least some of them. The problem is not the doctors so much as the insurance companies and the CDC, which refuse to recognize the chronic form of mercury poisoning. The straight, unchallenged urine test they require makes no distinction between acute, recent exposure and chronic or past acute exposure for diagnosis (misdiagnosis) of toxicity. Doctors aren't allowed to make a diagnosis of mercury toxicity if the test that the insurance company requires says there isn't any. At least that's my understanding of insurance rules.

People who are sensitive to levels of heavy metals that other people might find tolerable may have problems metabolizing and eliminating it. Chelation isn't going to change that and could potentially enhance the problem. I can't answer that.

I don't know whether IV therapy is good or bad for any individual, but if you have no amalgams in place you're already safer with chelation than someone who does. My understanding is that mineral losses need to be monitored and replaced. I would want to know whether I was already deficient in any important mineral or already having a problem with absorbing one or another. I might want to get some other tests to see why I wasn't able to eliminate the heavy metals that showed up on the test or tests in the first place. Possibly genetic and metabolic tests would reveal some other means of addressing symptoms. Possibly a two or three-pronged approach would help.

When in doubt, don't, until you feel comfortable that you've investigated all sources of your illness and understand the processes of toxic build-up and chelation. There are all kinds of experts, and AMA doctors and even researchers can and do have diametrically opposed views depending on self-interest, personal experience, etc.

My own CFS symptoms began as a viral event. There are a number of new tests - PCR tests for chronic viruses, other kinds of immune function tests, genetic tests, organic acids and other metabolic function tests. Some of these can be self- purchased if you live in certain states that allow it and can find a lab nearby that processes the order. If you have doctors willing to order them that's even better.

If you have a doctor who is willing to do more than the usual kinds of blood and urine and other tests, that would be very helpful. Doctors hate ordering unnecessary tests. There can even be penalties for it. If they don't offer, your job is to convince them that you need certain tests. Large clinics such as Mayo and others typically order more non-standard tests from the start. I had the experience myself of having had a particular enzyme found in a substantially higher than normal range than is almost ever seen in a person without high blood pressure. My regular doctors only ordered that test for patients with high blood pressure, so an important clue was being missed. At the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean what it typically means when a person has that but doesn't have high blood pressure, because it turns out that there's an association between it and heavy metals, an association that few doctors are aware of.

I strongly urge you to research and get as much lab information as possible. When enough tests are ordered something usually starts to show up that can be followed to more clues. What the cause and effect relationship is I don't know, but with heavy metal toxicity you're likely to find malfunctioning processes that can be identified with the right tests. At the very least, you might be able to prepare the ground for chelation should you decide it's something you want to try.

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• By luckeeluke
• Posted December 6, 2008 at 10:47 pm
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dealsmjd1-

I know from my reading about Lyme disease, mercury tends to build up in the body. Whether it comes from fillings, environmental exposures, or the fact that the Lyme bacteria may inhibit the processes or enzymes or methods by which the body can filter out or properly dispose of mercury or other heavy metals. I also remotely think that the lack of magnesium that most Lyme disease people have, may also play a role in effecting the processing of heavy metals.

So I guess my point is sometimes with autoimmune or neurological disease, I want to believe that heavy metal poisoning can be a direct result of these issues or even that heavy metal poisoning can cause issues of it's own and add to the whole spectrum of symptoms and health problems. Sometimes these things are all packaged together in a nice, crappy, little package.

My chronic fatigue, joint aches, fibroyialgia, gluten intolerance, multiple chemical sensitivity, etc. turned out to be Lyme disease. It's difficult to understand how all those things can be caused by one bacteria, in my case. However, Lyme made me sensitive to many stimuli in my environment.

In any event I never got tested for heavy metals so I really can't comment on my experiences with that. I don't know much about heavy metal chelation either. What I do know is that you have to be very careful when you attempt something like that In terms of the appropriate supervision/decisions by a qualified doctor or holistic doctor. I suppose it's just a matter of finding a doc that will work with you and listen to you and that you trust.

There is young woman on the Celiac.com forum with the username Rachel--24 . You might want to talk with her over there through a private message or a posting of some sort. I know I have read some stuff in the past where she has talked about heavy metal chelation and the like. She might be able to provide some information for you that would be helpful.

Good luck
-Luke

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• By ex_hacker202
• Posted March 17, 2009 at 10:20 pm
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"My chronic fatigue, joint aches, fibroyialgia, gluten intolerance, multiple chemical sensitivity, etc. turned out to be Lyme disease. <snip> However, Lyme made me sensitive to many stimuli in my environment.
"
My lyme infection also has caused me to develop MCS, with solvent vapors being the worst. I've also developed a severe sensitivity to mold. All of this occurred more than a year AFTER I was diagnosed with Lyme and started treatment!

"In any event I never got tested for heavy metals so I really can't comment on my experiences with that. I don't know much about heavy metal chelation either."

I've been doing chelation therapy to remove lyme toxins from my body using an old cholesterol drug called CSM. Last month, on a certain suspicion I had, I got tested for heavy metal poisoning and turned up positive for lead, nickel, aluminum, and mercury (those had the highest levels, I also tested positive for other nasties). CSM can also be used to treat heavy metal toxins, so I thought I was good to go.

Today, while researching something entirely unrelated, I stumbled upon the heavy metal chelation drug DMSA. Upon further investigation, I discovered that DMSA cannot cross the blood/brain barrier, and I suspect that CSM cannot do it either. Apparently, you have to take alpha-lipoic acid while undergoing chelation therapy to remove toxins from the brain, which is my main health problem (brain fog). The acid penetrates the cells, releases the metals, then the chelating agent binds to the toxin and eliminates it from the body.

I got REALLY lucky today, I had assumed that the CSM treatment alone would cure all that ailed me, but now I know differently. Luckily, both DMSA and lipoic acid are available OTC. I'm going to start taking lipoic acid tomorrow to assist the CSM, and next week when I see my doc we'll discuss adding DMSA to my treatment.

Like you mentioned, chelation therapy can be very dangerous if not done in a controlled fashion -- you can release more toxins than the chelation drugs have the capacity to remove, allowing them to move from, say in the instance of lead (which is stored mainly in your bones), to your brain, which is the exact opposite of what you're trying to accomplish!

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• By HealthyPrism
• Posted March 18, 2009 at 9:10 am
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There is a company called Extreme Health that has an oral Chelation process that may be able to help you and be less evasive.

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• By Caroljune
• Posted July 10, 2009 at 12:33 am
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I sure hope you went through with the IV chelation. Four or five years ago both my husband and I took a series of IV chelation. It wasn't for fibro-myalgia but I talked with several people taking treatment for it. It was highly successful for them. Took one woman from bed to working 50 hours a week with no pain,

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• By INSEARCHOFANSWERS
• Posted November 1, 2009 at 11:51 am
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I, for one would advise caution in having chelation therapy. My father [aged 83] was having syncope attacks and mild confusion. He had worked up until the age of 81 as a watchmaker. We took him to a clinic that 8 years previously had successfully treated my mother [who had been diagnosed with vasculitis] with immuno therapy to remove chemicals she had been exposed to during years as a hairdresser.
We suspected my father may also have had exposure to chemicals via the watch making cleaning fluid he used daily. However we were shocked when this doctor [who had previously treated my mother successfully and who I held in high esteem because of this] said after a 20 minute consult ' Are you aware your father has Parkinson's Disease?
Suddenly we were agreeing to thousands of pounds worth of tests. Various results came back, one of which revealed that he had 'the highest lead level the Doctor had ever seen'. IV chelation therapy was recommended.
My father started the chelation therapy and almost immediately his symptoms of confusion became MUCH worse, to the point that he wandered off on the way home on the last day of treatment [when we said 'enough is enough - this is not working' ]. This was about 3 months ago, since when he has been hospitalized twice.
I feel that my father should NEVER have had chelation therapy. I have read some posts saying that if there is a lot of lead that the chelating agent might no catch it all and that some lead might pass through the blood /brain barrier.
Can anyone give me any information on this? I would be so grateful.
Had it not been for the doctor saying my father had Parkinson's disease, we would not have agreed to the thousands of pounds worth of tests as we had come for him to have the much more simple immuno-therapy rather than the much more invasive chelation therapy we were persuaded that he have in order to prevent the Parkinson's developing into full blown syptoms.
AS it turns out, none of the otrher doctors he has seen think he has Parkinson's.
So, I would urge you to take care before embarking on chelation. Look into it very carefully.
I would be most grateful to anyone who has any info that could be of help to me. Specifically does anyone have any info on lead removal via chelation and whether if there is a lot of lead that some of it might not be attached to the chelating agent and end up in the brain ?

Thanking you in advance

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