Finding mercury is not cut and dry. It's only detected in the blood when the exposure was recent and the hair although one of the most telling methods of detection, isn't black and white when exposure is old. Rather than seeing elevated mercury in the hair, a person who doesn't excrete mercury will actually have extremely low levels in the hair, because they are holding onto it rather than metabolizing...excreting it.
Grayson's first hair test meets Andy Cutler's counting rules, meaning he does have mercury toxicity from a past exposure (probably my fillings in utero). As you can see, he also has high antimony as well as elevated aluminum and his nickel is super high! His essential elements were all over the place.
Grayson follow-up hair test age 5
After a year of chelation, his heavy metals are down significantly! Mercury is still too low. I am not sure what the relevance of the high titanium is other than the possibility that this is what happens to be pulling during chelation. He still meets the counting rules suggesting mercury toxicity and his essential elements are still heavily skewed. We started supplementing with lithium orotate after this test, even though meeting the counting rules typically negates the accuracy of the elements in the hair, because Andy Cutler says that virtually all mercury toxic people need lithium supplementation during chelation, especially when the test shows it to be low.
Grayson follow-up hair test age 6
He still meets the counting rules, but now it's less obvious. I hope this change is part of a trend in the right direction. It's actually good to see that his mercury excretion has increased slightly, this is a good sign that he is beginning to detox more of it! The arsenic though!! What is up with that?! If you take a look at Gavin's hair test from this same time frame (posted below, age 3), his is the same. I am thinking it could either be their shampoo, because it has sea kelp in it which I have found to be more often then not, contaminated with arsenic or the Himalayan sea salt we were using daily. At my dental revision exam, Dr. Grube informed me that Himalayan sea salt is testing as the highest of all salts, in arsenic. Redmond's is the lowest. Needless to say, we are dropping that shampoo and switching to Redmond's sea salt, then will retest as soon as his hair is long enough again! In the meantime, we tested the water and their camel milk, since they are both something they are ingesting (and bathing in) daily. Both came in at about 10+/- ppb which is about what the EPA sets the drinking water safety limit at.
Grayson additional follow-up hair test, still age 6
We chose to do a follow-up hair test two months after the last one, because we were terrified by the extremely elevated arsenic on the last test. We changed a few things: reduce rice intake, stopped using the Dessert Essence shampoo which is made with sea kelp and is notorious for being tainted with arsenic, switched to a pharmaceutical grade epsom salt, significantly reduced their intake of commercial apple and pear products and probably most importantly, we stained our chipping wood deck which they were playing on barefoot all summer!
This hair test is INCREDIBLY improved over the last tests. He does still meet counting rule number 1, but this is no surprise to us, because we are barely half way through chelation. You can see from the progression of his hair tests that we are going in a VERY GOOD direction though!! His toxicity levels are way down, but the aluminum (although not high) and mercury, haven't changed by much over time. I think as we near the end of chelation, the mercury excretion will increase a bit more and the aluminum will decrease even more. I am certainly not concerned about this level of aluminum, however, it will be a legitimate indicator that we are getting into the stored mercury!
Check out those calcium/magnesium and zinc/copper ratios!! This is the first time since we've been testing him that they are IN RANGE!! One big change I made between the last test, from only two months ago, to this one, we switched to ionic zinc. And there is no doubt in my mind that the camel milk is at play. In Gavin's last hair test below from this same time frame, he has the same change!
I can say with absolute certainty that his behavior is in alignment with his hair test!
Gavin's hair test from when he was 1 year old
Grayson follow-up hair test age 5
After a year of chelation, his heavy metals are down significantly! Mercury is still too low. I am not sure what the relevance of the high titanium is other than the possibility that this is what happens to be pulling during chelation. He still meets the counting rules suggesting mercury toxicity and his essential elements are still heavily skewed. We started supplementing with lithium orotate after this test, even though meeting the counting rules typically negates the accuracy of the elements in the hair, because Andy Cutler says that virtually all mercury toxic people need lithium supplementation during chelation, especially when the test shows it to be low.
Grayson follow-up hair test age 6
He still meets the counting rules, but now it's less obvious. I hope this change is part of a trend in the right direction. It's actually good to see that his mercury excretion has increased slightly, this is a good sign that he is beginning to detox more of it! The arsenic though!! What is up with that?! If you take a look at Gavin's hair test from this same time frame (posted below, age 3), his is the same. I am thinking it could either be their shampoo, because it has sea kelp in it which I have found to be more often then not, contaminated with arsenic or the Himalayan sea salt we were using daily. At my dental revision exam, Dr. Grube informed me that Himalayan sea salt is testing as the highest of all salts, in arsenic. Redmond's is the lowest. Needless to say, we are dropping that shampoo and switching to Redmond's sea salt, then will retest as soon as his hair is long enough again! In the meantime, we tested the water and their camel milk, since they are both something they are ingesting (and bathing in) daily. Both came in at about 10+/- ppb which is about what the EPA sets the drinking water safety limit at.
Grayson additional follow-up hair test, still age 6
We chose to do a follow-up hair test two months after the last one, because we were terrified by the extremely elevated arsenic on the last test. We changed a few things: reduce rice intake, stopped using the Dessert Essence shampoo which is made with sea kelp and is notorious for being tainted with arsenic, switched to a pharmaceutical grade epsom salt, significantly reduced their intake of commercial apple and pear products and probably most importantly, we stained our chipping wood deck which they were playing on barefoot all summer!
This hair test is INCREDIBLY improved over the last tests. He does still meet counting rule number 1, but this is no surprise to us, because we are barely half way through chelation. You can see from the progression of his hair tests that we are going in a VERY GOOD direction though!! His toxicity levels are way down, but the aluminum (although not high) and mercury, haven't changed by much over time. I think as we near the end of chelation, the mercury excretion will increase a bit more and the aluminum will decrease even more. I am certainly not concerned about this level of aluminum, however, it will be a legitimate indicator that we are getting into the stored mercury!
Check out those calcium/magnesium and zinc/copper ratios!! This is the first time since we've been testing him that they are IN RANGE!! One big change I made between the last test, from only two months ago, to this one, we switched to ionic zinc. And there is no doubt in my mind that the camel milk is at play. In Gavin's last hair test below from this same time frame, he has the same change!
I can say with absolute certainty that his behavior is in alignment with his hair test!
Gavin's hair test from when he was 1 year old
Gavin did not meet Andy Cutler's counting rules, but I suspect when we test again after doing chelation for a while, we may see some changes to this. Based on the things that are elevated and the slightly skewed essential minerals, we seem to have caught him before the heavy metal toxicity was bad enough to cause deranged essential elements. It's not uncommon to see a hair test like this, before it gets worse. You can see that his antimony is high, and that his aluminum, arsenic and tin are elevated, these metals are all synonymous with mercury poisoning and tend to be elevated when mercury is a problem.
For many, as they progress through chelation, their hair tests show all kinds of changes, until they finally come back to a place of normal. We plan to continue to follow their progress via hair tests.
Gavin follow-up after just turning 3, with a year of chelation
So in one year of chelation, he has gone from not meeting the counting rules, to meeting them by the skin of his teeth.....or hair. = ) This is not uncommon as moving heavy metals out of their stored body parts mobilizes them. In fact, it's exactly what I expected. Since he meets the counting rules, not sure much else in this test is reliable, but you can see that things have definitely changed in a year. His previously elevated antimony, tin and aluminum are down, but look at that arsenic! It's off the chart! I am still not sure, if this is a current source of arsenic causing this, since both boys have it at the same time, if it's an external contamination or if it's just that this particular metal was hidden in the past and is now being pulled/excreted as it leaves the body. Generally, seeing it on the hair test means it is being excreted, which would be good, as long as there isn't a current exposure going on.
Gavin's most recent follow-up hair test, just two months after the last!
Check out that hair test!! He amazingly no longer meets the counting rules! I don't consider his chelation completed by any means though. There are still signs that he needs to keep going, both in his behavior and in the essential elements.
One thing I want to bring attention to in BOTH boy's latest hair tests is the calcium, magnesium ratio. They are both IN RANGE for the first time! Thank you ionic zinc and camel milk!
My first hair test (and only for now)
This is my hair test before starting chelation. I had this test run prior to having my dental revision. If you look at the boys' last hair tests (from Sept 2011) and compare them to mine, we oddly all have the same representation! Most of the toxic and essential elements are moving in the same direction. I still haven't quite figured out what that means, especially since meeting the counting rules, which I didn't and they did, usually renders the test results almost useless, although even when the counting rules are met (suggesting mercury toxicity), there are still clues hidden in the overall results. I will be curious to see how things change for me over the next year or so as I work on moving metals out of my body.
