Mercury be gone!

I started my own chelation, round 1 of the Andy Cutler protocol on Friday afternoon.  It has been two full days so far and I have noticed a few random things, but so far, nothing traumatizing.  Although, I know that it can take some time to pull mercury from deep in the tissues.  It's possible I won't start seeing serious symptoms of chelation for a few rounds. Then when I add ALA (alpha lipoic acid) in three months, which is the only chelator that will cross the blood brain barrier, I'm sure things will heat up.  But for now, I am enjoying the ease of chelation.  Mood wise, I feel just slightly aloof, but no bad moods so far, thankfully!  That was the one thing I feared most, since I have to parent our two boys who are also going through chelation.  My poor husband is out numbered!  Thank goodness he's very calm and takes things in stride, without him, we wouldn't be able to keep it together with all the mood swings that often fly through our house any given day!

My mouth on the other hand, isn't handling the surgery trauma quite as well.  After a few days, the scab in the corner of my mouth was so tight I could barely open my mouth, the canker sore on the other side continued to grow in size and then to make matters worse, BOTH sides of my mouth developed huge cold sores that extend beyond my mouth!  On the right side I have the canker sore on the bottom lip with the cold sore directly above it on the top lip!  So they touch each other, which is lovely at night, it's like they literally try to heal together and I wake up with my lips feeling sewn shut.  This is definitely the worst part of the procedure, by far.  I think my stitches will heal up long before this mess is cleared up!  And talk about painful!!  So far the two bottom stitches have fallen out (dissolved) and chewing is increasingly becoming easier.  The part I expected to be painful hasn't been painful in the least!  I will still need to avoid crunchy foods for 7 more weeks.  I find myself learning the hard way which foods are considered crunchy.  I mean, it's obvious a carrot is crunchy, but a pancake, when it's toasted a tad too long, becomes a painful little "crunchy" item to chew. That is the only time I feel sensitivity in my teeth. 

As for symptoms during chelation, they are minimal and fleeting, but interesting to say the least...

• Bone pain on the outside of my left wrist/forearm area, very distinct feeling like my bone was bruised, sensitive to the touch, but I didn't bang it.  About 20-30 minutes into this feeling, it started traveling up to my elbow and then it disappeared as fast as it came on.
• Shortly after the forearm pain went away, I began to feel a throbbing deep sensation in the lower left side of my back, near my hip, but on my back not my side.  I immediately took some artichoke extract and the pain went away.  This happened again briefly today.
• Immediately after my third dose on the first day, I got a few waves of dizziness, enough to make me feel like I could lose my balance, if it stuck around, but it didn't.
• That first night, I had a LOT of sweating, enough to make me cold and wet!
• Swollen glands under my jaw popped up after chelation started.
• The numb/tingling sensation I was feeling in my left foot has returned full force today and, in fact, the right foot had a touch of tingling in it too!  I've never felt it in my right foot before.  The left foot was definitely much worse though, a lot like it was pre-surgery.  That pain had gone away since the day after I had the fillings removed and the cavitation cleaned.  It only returned when I started chelation, which I actually expected, since I am mobilizing metals.
• Today I noticed that a large purple varicose vein that I have had inside my left knee since I was pregnant with Gavin is fading enough to be just a faded spot.  The vein itself isn't showing anymore, at all.
• I also noticed that my left forearm, which had a very strange texture to the skin (almost like it was wrinkled along the entire forearm, as if I had been holding Gavin for hours and there was an imprint on the skin) is gone.  This is something I always thought was weird and again, has been there since I had Gavin.  When I first noticed it, I actually thought it WAS from holding Gavin too much, but it never went away, until now!  I tried lotions and hydration, nothing effected it.  I know it was there just two weeks ago.  I'm still surprised it's gone and keep looking at my arm to see if it returned.

Do you notice a trend with my symptoms above?  Dose anything in particular stand out?  Let me give you a hint, it involves my: forearm, foot/toes, wrist, vein, and hip/back.  Yup, that is just about every symptom.  They are all on the left side of my body!!  For years I also had issues with my left ear having pain and occasional tinnitus, which is now gone, so far anyway.  What I find interesting about this trend is that my largest filling (large enough to have been a root canal, but the dentist saved the nerve) was on the bottom left side of my jaw.  I also think the worst cavitation was the bottom left, the same side as that filling, not sure if that is just coincidental or if one had to do with the other.  That area where my wisdom tooth was removed had often become inflamed and irritated and it seemed to happen regularly.  I used to say it felt like I actually still had a tooth trying to come through the gums, that pressure you feel with a new tooth that makes you want to poke at and bite on the gum.  It was very strange, but I have since learned that this is a sign of infection.  This same location had problems immediately after my wisdom teeth were removed also.  A large shard of bone that was left in the jaw worked it's way to the surface and came through my gums.  It wasn't a fun experience at the time, it was shaped like a fish hook!!  Having dead bone in a wisdom tooth site is a sure way to end up with necrosis and infection!  My mouth in general had become a problem over the past year.  I was having a lot of swollen gum problems, although the dentist always told me that my gums were great and my teeth were the cleanest they have ever seen, so I couldn't make sense of this phenomenon.  Now, I get it!  And hopefully I will never experience this again, since the source is gone!  Cavitations and mercury!!

This is a very hopeful time in my life.  I've always felt good knowing I am helping my children become healthier, but my own health was always on the back burner.  I never had the time or energy for me.  Now, I am putting me on the front burner with the help of my supportive husband and I couldn't be happier about that!!

Biological dental exam for yours truly

If there is anything I have learned from my children, it's that my own health is being effected by my 7 amalgam fillings (and one composite with metal, just because it's white doesn't mean it's metal-free) and there is more to come, if I don't have them replaced properly.  I have spent the last 2 years helping my boys heal, and now it's time for me.  Nursing our younger son for 16 months prevented me from even considering any dental work, let alone chelation until more recently.  I am finally pursuing a full dental revision with a Huggins Alliance dentist.  Today was my first appointment with Dr. Blanche Grube.  This appointment is intended to educate us both on the condition of not only my teeth, but my overall health, before putting a significant strain on my body with the procedure.  Huggin's Alliance dentists conduct extensive testing prior to the replacement of the fillings in order to prepare the body beforehand.

I am still reeling from my exam today.  I had to drive an hour and a half and then sat through three hours of testing and discussions about my health, then took that hour and a half drive back home again.  When I arrived home, I didn't realize how much the experienced drained me, but I was so exhausted, I literally had to lay down in bed for a while!

Some information energized me with hope, some downright scared me!  I will walk you through my experience as best as I can recall, considering it was like speed reading from a medical book the whole time I was there!  I really wish I brought a tape recorder with me!

The first item on the agenda was getting a handle on my mouth, by taking pictures and x-rays.  They already had the results of my blood testing along with my hair test so we were just closing the loop on the whole picture.  The dental assistant and the doctor both commented on the impeccable cleanliness of my teeth and gums, saying it was probably the cleanest mouth they have ever seen and considering the crowding I have with my bottom front teeth, that says a lot about our diet and care with fluoride-free toothpaste.  So if anyone doubts you can clean your mouth without fluoride, I can honestly say that since we removed it from our house and changed our diets, neither my husband nor myself has ever had any plague on our teeth during dental visits.  His last appointment with the dentist was well over a year overdue too!  Dr. Weston A. Price has studies saying this very situation is true with the proper diet, and we are living proof!

So on to the appointment, the first thing we did was measure the mercury in my mouth before and after chewing for ten minutes.  The EPA uses 1 mcg/m as the maximum allowable limit for air in a public building or for air in your home. Almost everyone, who has silver fillings in their teeth, will show levels of mercury vapor in their mouth above that limit.  My reading in my mouth before chewing = 0, after = 8 mcg/m.  That means my mouth is putting out EIGHT times the safe level of mercury every time I chew and that doesn't count brushing my teeth and drinking hot fluids like tea and coffee which I do daily.  Gee, I wonder how much a day that all works out to....no, maybe I don't!

Then, after all the pictures of varying kinds (including 18 painfully uncomfortable traditional x-rays) were taken, the dentist came in to review my testing and pictures.  As suspected, my hair test is suggestive of retaining mercury, she called me a "poor excreter of mercury".  I have high arsenic and we tried to figure out the source of the arsenic to no avail initially, so we moved on thinking perhaps the mercury was the cause, although even Dr. Grube who had high mercury, didn't have elevated arsenic.  We addressed a few deficiencies, which I already had supplements on board for.  She was impressed with my knowledge and that I had already taken the steps to get my nutrition in line.

The blood tests are where the plot thickens.  Below are the details that require action of some sort:

• Cholesterol is too low 
• Blood sugar is too high
• Poor protein digestion
• I am eating too much protein for my body type
• Sodium is too low

On this note, if I could break here to say that this is where we discovered my source of arsenic.  I shared with Dr. Grube that I am using Himalayan sea salt in our reverse osmosis water to replenish lost minerals and to replace the lack of sodium.  This is when the light bulb went off!  Dr. Grube told me that they sent multiple samples of salt out to an independent lab (Doctor's Data) for testing and it was determined that Himalayan sea salt was the highest of all salts in guess what?  ARSENIC! So she suggested the top three with no fillers or contamination (Real Salt from the mountains of Colorado, I think, Morton's canning and pickling salt or Diamond Kosher Crystal salt).

• Phosphorous is low
• Thyroid is sluggish - I had already begun adding iodine this past week! 
• I've even learned that the one white colored filling I have contains metals and needs replacing
• and lastly, my red blood count is low, platlets are low and my MCV (size of cells) is high

I should explain what this last detail means.  As she was reading my test results, she stopped here and said there is a big problem, she paused like she didn't want to say it, but she did....there are two possibilities associated with this combination, one being a long-standing infection and the other, cancer.  My body went numb!  Literally.  I have actually heard that the high MCV can mean chronic infection, because Grayson also has this, but his platelets are not low, they are high and his red blood count isn't low either.  What this means is that my bone marrow is putting out immature, very large blood cells and not enough of them.  So Dr. Grube stopped everything and brought her chiropractor husband in to do some muscle testing.  I've read about this for finding cancer and/or infections.  A book I read, called "Healing Cancer Peacefully" was actually a chiropractor who healed her own cancer using natural methods and one of the methods of detection that she used to track the rate of her cancer growth and death was muscle testing.  It was effective and always mirrored the allopathic test results. So I was already prepared for this.  He worked quickly and quietly, listing out his findings as he went, working from the top down:

• Staph infection  from FOUR cavitations are effecting the areas listed below (which is probably why I get a chronic need to clear my throat if I don't take GSE and OLE two to three times a day):
• Inner ear  - this is recurrent with me, pain and ringing
• Throat
• Esophagus
• and to add to this, Dr. Grube found a swollen gland under my left jaw and an irritated and slightly swollen left tonsil, coincidentally, this is also the side with a VERY large filling and it's the same side that I frequently experience gum swelling (you guessed it, at the cavitation site!).
• He found mercury to be settling in the following body parts:
• eyeballs - oddly, the past few days I have had a strange symptom with my eyes since adding iodine to my supplements (iodine encourages natural detox), my eyes have been cloudy, for lack of a better word.  They aren't blurry, but they are very tired, scratchy and cloudy with a decreased peripheral vision.  I had mentioned this to both my husband and my best friend just yesterday.
• Throat
• Thyroid - which is also enlarged
• Esophagus
• Right breast - I actually had continuous trouble nursing on this side, had a decreased milk supply and have had bloody discharge in the past

In addition to the above, he found something to be going on with my gallbladder, although mild, it wasn't specified.  I was asked, if I have trouble with digestion, not significantly, although I can tell that things have been changing for me recently so it's possible.  It was also determined that I have a mold issue!  I lived for years in a home with mold in the basement and then our current home recently had a fairly small mold problem that was re-mediated only a few months ago.  So I don't know the source, but it's obvious that one of our homes had a lasting effect on me.  I would never have guessed this!

This man found a multitude of things that I have had problems with in the past, with no discussion of them previously!

A physical exam resulted in the finding of various bite problems as well and they mostly stemmed from an "infantile tongue thrust reflex" that I never lost.  Approximately 20% of the population has this.  I have exercises that are intended to help normalize my bite imbalances.  I have significant TMJ, which is basically something I just have to live with, I am merely one of the lucky ones, most likely genetically passed on.  And not surprisingly, considering both my hair test and blood test pointed to thyroid problems, she also found an enlarged thyroid.

Adding the four cavitations more than doubles the cost of this procedure....so it's clear to me that I have a decision on my plate.

UPDATE February 27th - Since my appointment, I found myself constantly questioning the fact that I need four cavitations surgically cleaned out and considering the price of each one, the idea of doing all four  makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.  I just needed better confirmation, especially since Dr. Grube herself told me that the muscle testing is usually about 80% correct.  So I sent her a brief e-mail with my concerns and even though it was the weekend, she rapidly responded assuring me that we will use the cavitat machine for confirmation the morning of my appointment.  I feel so relieved!!  If I can save myself even ONE cavitation, I will be thrilled, if not, at least I will know with 100% certainty that I needed the surgery.  The cavitat machine is actually an ultrasound that looks for infection by detecting cavitational porosity in the jawbone.  I am now ready for my appointment, well, except for the blood draw I need for the biocompatibility test.  Doing that tomorrow.  The hotel is booked and our list of what to bring with us is started...moving forward!

ANOTHER UPDATE! - Well over a month past my dental revision, I received test results from an independent lab...I had no idea to even expect this.  Apparently, they sent necrotic tissue and bone from my cavitation sites to be identified, probably to look for cancer too.  Guess what they found?!  STAPH!!  Dr. Grube's chiropractor husband was absolutely dead on!  I had a staph infection in three of the four cavitation sites!

To see my Post dental revision blog entry, click here.