The wrath of mercury

Have you ever done strenuous exercise or hard manual labor and felt afterwards like you couldn't function, but never really connected the two?  I have always been one to become exhausted after vigorous physical exertion and just thought being tired afterwards was a normal part of the process.  Well, it's not.

Today I tried to de-thatch the yard with my husband which involves rigorous raking to loosen the packed down grass, exposing the soil in patches where it didn't grow.  You have to use a lot of elbow to really pull the grass up and rough up the soil.  I felt fine while doing it, which is usually the case, but shortly afterwards, I felt like I couldn't even keep my head up.  I went upstairs to take a short nap and was woken by Gavin two and a half hours later!!  Not a small nap, nor did I feel refreshed.  Instead, I had a headache, felt nauseas, ringing in my left ear and unable to cope with anything much, including my kids' voices.  Ironically, this is how I felt post round the other day.  I recall reading things in the past from mercury-toxic people having a hard time recovering from exercise, so I went out on the hunt for more information.  One experience I read about reminded me of myself, but I had no idea it was related.  I used to get burning lungs after strenuous workouts or biking.  Again, I thought this was normal, that everyone experienced it.  Although I was totally wiped after today's hard work, I noticed that I finally did NOT get this burning in my lungs.  I've read that it is something experienced by people when they still have their fillings, the result of releasing more mercury and that it disappears after the amalgams are replaced.

I found NUMEROUS reports of people who couldn't function after working out.  Why?  Well, for one, it releases free radicals so taking antioxidants can help, but the best explanation I could find is in Andy Cutler's words, from his book, Amalgam Illness.

"Exercise mobilizes mercury and needs to be done in MODERATION.  It is NOT always good for you.  Exercise is STRESS, and there is a particular physiological response to stress that is messed up in most mercury toxic people - cortisol goes DOWN instead of UP like it's supposed to.  So you can release adrenaline and feel really good WHILE you are active but then crash afterwards and take a long time to recover.  Depending on how sick you are this can be from hours to days.  Moderation is doing exercise is small enough bits that you don't get this "crash" after it.  No hours of sitting and doing nothing.  No inability to think.  No being woozy with allergy symptoms."


So, that just about sums it up.  It's obvious that I haven't been imagining things.  All I can say is OUCH and more ouch.  Epsom salt baths are suggested for detoxing and de-stressing, looks like there is a bath in my forecast.