Chelation update, added ALA!

Round 7 for me this weekend and today began with my first ALA + DMSA dose ever!  Since I had my fillings out in early March, I had to wait three months post-exposure to add the ALA.  I used only the DMSA for those three months to reduce the body burden first.  Now I am playing with the big guns!

ALA is the only chelator that crosses the blood brain barrier.  I don't know what I expected after taking the first dose, but considering how neurologically effected I can be by mercury and chelation, I expected something more.  So far, I feel nothing different.  I started with a very low dose (only 7.5mg) so I don't make this too hard on myself and considering how it effects our kids when we increase ALA (which we did last weekend), I was sure I would feel something, anything.  Maybe it will take time and tomorrow I will be either a basket-case or a space-cadet!  I like to keep my doses manageable, because I have to consider the fact that I am still a mom of two who need me to think clearly, plus life goes on, all around me.

Speaking of life going on around me....I have been very distracted lately, by this mold issue.  It's gotten uglier and more complicated.  We found more mold while going through our basement and cleaning everything out, so now we need more remediation.  The good news is that these two spots are superficial and very minor, but we plan to treat it like we did the leaks, with containment and safety measures all in place.  And the timing of everything is SO confusing, with a different contractor for just about every step.  Test (environmentalist), put up containment areas (mold contractor), remove building materials to reach mold (general contractor), controlled mold demolition (mold contractor), rebuild (general contractor), leave containments up, clean (us and mold contractor), test (environmentalist), take down containments (mold contractor).  Plus we need our HVAC duct work scoped and cleaned and the question of whether we clean before testing has yet to be answered.  I would think we would want to clean the duct work first though, so we can have the airflow tested again as part of our clearance sampling...which means we better figure out who is doing this part ASAP, because keeping the large HEPA filters in our home is costing $200 a WEEK!

Clearing out the basement is painful, but I am keeping our goal in mind the whole way.  It is driving me through tossing furniture, boxes for my collectibles, hair dressing chairs, jewelry I have made, shoes that were supposed to be Gavin's after Grayson grew out of them (I have a shoe thing), baby things like strollers, high chairs, bassinets, bouncy seats, cloth diapers, toys, memories, all of our Christmas ornaments, and basically anything porous or would cost less to replace than to pay a man $50 an hour to clean!  It makes sense and we don't want "stuff" to get in the way of our health, so we are just tearing through it, but MAN, what a HUGE job!!  We ordered a dumpster and have already FILLED it, but we aren't done (scratching head).....and it is hot out now so the suits, goggles, face masks and gloves are ridiculously hot!  We still have some huge furniture to lug out to the dumpster, should be interesting.

Life is never dull around here!  The boys are on Diflucan for two weeks to see, if their constant coughing is a fungal infection.  So far, all it has proven to do is bloat them enormously.  They are still coughing.  So perhaps it really is just a stubborn cold, who knows.  The saga continues...

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!!

Chelation, chelation, chelation

Another weekend, another round, the story of our lives.  I don't even remember what it is like to have a weekend full of sleeping in (getting sleep, period) and just flying by the seat of our pants.  Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled with the progress and knowing that what we are doing is going to provide our children with the opportunity for normal, healthy lives, that doesn't mean we don't sometimes look at our lives as being slightly unique.  And unique it is!

Today we started rounds 38 and 13 with our two boys and I decided to finally increase their DMSA a bit, because we were STILL at a low 2.5mg per dose!  They react so severely to any changes in their doses, so I don't increase until I am SURE they are handling the current dose.  I upped it to 3.75mg (1/2 of the current dose, which is the maximum allowable increase).  Let's just say, it was a little loopy around here today!  Grayson was not himself, he is normally very silly and happy go lucky, but today his appetite wasn't there, he was moping around talking about how his toys are all boring and he "isn't having a good day".  Gavin's usual response to chelation is crying, yelling and acting out.  He is rough on his big brother on round.  So you can imagine the circus we had today and of course I chose today to run errands like going to stock up on Grayson's school supplies, and going to the health food store for produce.  It provided some distraction for them, but it also provided entertainment for the other shoppers!  I have to admit though, they certainly are better behaved, even with all this going on, than some the kids I have encountered during my shopping sprees.  That is a salt box for an entirely different post!

So onward.  I hope to be able to ride this round out at the new higher dose without incident.  They went to bed well, so here's to hoping!

UPDATE - (sigh) unfortuantely this round was a bust.  We missed our 4am dose on Sunday morning, because we changed the dosing schedule and forgot to change the alarm schedule on the iTouch.  It went off at 5am and when you miss a dose by an hour, you need to stop and wait until the next round, because of redistribution.  That extra hour surpasses the half life of the chelator so it begins to drop the metals back into the blood stream.  It would be dangerous to continue at this stage.  On a good note, they did handle the dosing a bit better the second day, so we will try to continue with this next weekend. 

Whoops, having too much fun to blog?

Yup, things are going SO well that I have been too busy enjoying life with the kids to update the blog.  Sorry, but a mom has got to do what a mom has got to do and enjoy the kids is on top of the list when the weather is nice!  Spring is peeking in and life is good!

I am so proud to report that things have really leveled out to what I would call normal.  Between the BAX treatments and our new antimicrobial choices (LDM-100 and BioRay's Cytoflora) we are seeing really consistent and NORMAL days more often than not.  In addition to this, we are chelating every weekend now!  He is handling that absolutely phenomenallly!!  I was thinking about the improvements we have seen since starting the BioVeda BAX3000 treatments and just can't believe how impressive this stuff is.  It's so impressive that I even started treatment for myself.  I tested for items in Procedure 1 and the following came up as reactive for me: citric acid, B6, sodium chloride mix, thyrotropin (thyroid hormone known as TSH), platinum (my wedding bands!), silver, white popcorn, menthol (I use mint soaps and put peppermint oil in my home made cleaning products), and chalone.  The last two are in the phenols group.  Considering I struggle with adult acne, badly, the thyroid hormone and the sodium chloride are particularly interesting to me.  With my testing, my first treatment was a brain balancing treatment.  I walked in the office feeling fine and within an hour of my treatment, I was suddenly congested in the nose, had burning in my eyes and nose and my head was pounding bad enough to almost be a migraine.  Needless to say, they were all gone the next morning. 

And to just recap the things that have improved for Grayson since starting treatment:
- The foods he was reacting severely to that he can now eat with NO problems - egg and corn
- Vitamins that he once reacted to with aggression and/or irritation he can now tolerate - B vitamins and calcium
- We have had to give him No Fenol (an enzyme) to address high fenol foods and many of his antimicrobials that are also very high phenol, because he was getting red ears and responding with hyperactivity which is a common phenol sensitivity reaction.  Well, he has not been given a single No Fenol enzyme since his last phenol treatment! 
- Since treating for DMSA and ALA, his chelation has been going so well that we have picked up the pace and are now doing it every weekend and we have even been able to increase his ALA without incident.  His dosing has been incredibly low, because of his inability to handle it until now!  We will be going into round 23 and are so excited about how promising this is!
- His bloating has come down considerably and remains this way 90% of the time.
- And best of all, his moods have been much more consistent than ever before...probably because he is no longer reacting to EVERY little thing he comes into contact with.

We are at the stage of testing for Procedure 2, with both boys, and I just can't WAIT!!!  We will know what foods are stressing his system and then we will, of course, treat for them.  If anyone reading this is even considering this type of treatment and you are on the fence, I say with resounding confidence, DO IT!  Don't think about it anymore, just do it!  You most definitely will not regret the decision.  Then do yourself a favor, stick to the guidelines laid out for the treatment, everyone will benefit from the follow through.

Noticing trends with BAX3000 treatment, the latest

We have been through 12 treatments with the BioVeda BAX3000 so far and I am beginning to see trends that follow our treatments. Last night Grayson was treated for yeast and he added in DMSA and ALA to help with chelation. We are SO excited to see how our next round goes. Anyway, about the trends...every time we have a treatment, the next day results in a FLAT tummy and a healthy independence that isn't there regularly. Today, Grayson actually went up to his room alone in the early part of the day. He has never done this, never! He is usually attached to me at the hip. He said he was going to have some quiet time, he politely asked for a drink of water to take and he and his Leapster 2 went upstairs!! He spent at least 30-45 minutes up there alone. Wow! Then he came down to play with Gavin and I in the playroom where he proceeded to play WITH Gavin nicely, no demands, no taking toys....interacting appropriately and so nicely! He is also responding to my requests really well, no arguing, no crying...this is big!!

We have also treated for corn and I can't wait to see how the reintroduction of corn goes. We currently don't have anything with corn in it to give him, but as soon as we do, we plan on trying it out. Dr. Herman advised us recently to go VERY slow, as in - just bites at a time, to watch for reaction. I guess we learned that the hard way when we offered a plate piled with eggs after his egg treatment, lol. We immediately saw the behavior changes that normally follow eating eggs. I thought the treatment wasn't working, as you can see from my blog that day, however, after 4 incorrectly large attempts, we saw the amazing changes, NO REACTION!! We have even given him 2-3 eggs at a time and twice in one day, still no reaction. His body officially recognizes eggs as safe!

We have also been treating our younger son who recently had a major case of eczema, all over his thighs that was spreading daily. It was red, puffy and inflamed every day, even with my attempts to use the "soak and seal" bath remedy, lotion with every diaper change, I even tried Lotrimin, thinking it might be a fungal rash. Oddly, it wasn't anywhere in his diaper area, just all around it, then it even started spreading up and around his belly, over the top of the diaper!! It seemed like there was something new every time I changed his diaper, but never IN the diaper area. When we went to a BAX treatment last week, I showed this to our doctor who added "homeopathic eczema" to the treatment, he also used the laser directly on his lesions. I kid you not, the eczema has literally begun to dry up since then!! The spots that were red and inflamed are now skin colored dry spots. They aren't all gone yet, but some of the smaller spots are and the larger areas are looking great for the first time in many weeks!! My sister even witnessed this, she saw him before, saw his treatment at the doctor's office and saw how it lightened immediately following treatment.

Chelation - round 8 - added supplements to capsules

I am so glad we stuck with the ALA. When we first added it to the DMSA, I was terrified by the results, the incredible increase in stimming and negative behaviors, but we stuck it out, used it again in smaller quantities for two more rounds and now he is doing fine on it. The last round was a little rocky, emotional, but not nearly as bad as the first ALA round. It could be that we have also been using prescription meds for the yeast and bacteria which chelation will ultimately flare up. So other than being utterly exhausted with the round the clock waking, this round is going so smoothly! He is on his last day of chelation today and we are seeing some emotional outbursts, but up to this point, he has been wonderful! NO stimming at all, no sensory seeking, and even when he gets emotional, he is recovering himself pretty well! I might be able to credit his level behaviors to the fact that I added his calming supplements into each dose of chelators. When I split his capsules, I also added an additional 250mg of vit C, vit B, 100mg of Milk Thistle, 180mg magnesium and a 1/4 of a capsule of ACE daily. The C and B help with the stress ont he body, Milk Thistle supports his liver, the magnesium is calming and necessary for the absorption of many other nutrients and the ACE addresses the adrenals which are often fatigued during chelation. So needless to say, I will continue this method of dosing going forward.

To ALA or not to ALA

Alpha Lipoic Acid....ahhhhh the joys of chelation. So, the typical protocol for chelation involves first lowering the body burden of mercury using DMSA, which is what we have been doing for 5 rounds, meaning five sleepless-emotional-yeasty weekends full of fun! ha ha We take 4 to 11 day breaks in between those weekends and lately it appears that we are best with 11 day breaks. Then comes the ALA, dun duu duu duuuun. ALA is the only known chelator to cross the blood brain barrier. This is the scary part, because mercury can get into the brain and for some reason, it gets lost or comfy in there and doesn't come back out, and then you have....yup, neurological problems and for many it's called autism! So I repeat, ALA is the only known chelator to cross the blood brain barrier, which is the very same barrier that is SUPPOSED to protect the brain. The problem with this is that it's a two way street, the ALA can help remove the mercury, but it can also usher mercury INTO the brain, if there are any current exposures to mercury going on. In other words, if you have silver fillings - AKA amalgams - DON'T TOUCH THIS STUFF WITH A TEN FOOT POLE!!! Amazingly, ALA is a supplement that many people unknowingly take without realizing that they could be causing damage, especially if they have fillings. So anyway, I could get so easily side tracked on this topic.

We added the ALA at the same dose we are using with the DMSA. That means that I am splitting a teeny tiny, itty bitty 50mg capsule THIRTY TWO ways! UGH!!! The texture is very funny too, it's like cotton candy rather than powdery, so every time I would try to split a mini pile, it would pop or jump into little shards of annoyingness! And picture this, me with my face mask on (because I have a mouth full of silver and immediately get a headache from opening the capsules) using little pieces of paper to split these teeny weeny capsules a trillion ways just to fill an enormous capsule with this pin head sized portion of cotton candy for Grayson to take. It's practically empty!! I think I might start adding his vit C, B and magnesium into these very same capsules so he doesn't have to take a different capsule for each and it would fill up the emptiness of the capsule, it's like he's swallowing a bunch of air. Here you go Grayson, it's time for your air....I mean, ALA. Gulp, burp!

Getting back to the point, yet again, the ALA, ummmm yeah! Not so sure we are ready for this. It caused a whole slew of symptoms that we were unprepared for. It's not uncommon to see some signs of yeast overgrowth during chelation, but we are now two days post chelation and he is STILL verbally stimmy. He is doing this strange random giggle that has nothing to do with anything happening at the moment. In fact, he could be just sitting and doing nothing or looking out of the window in the car and he giggles. Not even a funny ha-ha type of giggle, it's a weird gutteral giggle that sounds more like a nervous tic. So here is the list of "symptoms" we experienced this round:

- very sensitive emotionally (although this isn't unusual for him with ANY
changes to weather, diet or schedule)
- swatting at his head, overall head and face itchiness (he used to do this a
LOT before biomedical treatment and we don't see it too much in between rounds
except with yeast overgrowth)
- defiance and resistance galore (lucky us)
- he did mostly well during the middle of his round, but at times he was highly
stimmy, verbally (strange random giggles even when he was alone) and with touch
(he had to trace everything with his hands).
- when the ALA wore off, things got crazy. For example, we went out to dinner for my birthday and had ended our last two doses with just DMSA to "sop up" any free floating mercury. It was only 2 hours from our last DMSA, but about 5 hours from the last
ALA. At first, he was great at dinner, then suddenly, it was like a switch
flipped on him, he started itching like CRAZY, everywhere (legs, arms, face, ears, head
swatting), he started turning around in his seat to trace the outlines of the
chair rungs, he was whacking the chair sides with his elbows over and over,
rubbing his wrists on the table, swatting his head like crazy (this is one we
had constantly before biomedicine), and he was a ball of emotions, couldn't
handle ANY changes to his expectations (finding pine nuts in his salad threw him
over the edge). He just couldn't sit still and relax, his anxiety level seemed
through the roof! Oh and the energy, after dinner, we went out to walk around
outside and he was loud and running and running, so not like him!! He had a
hard time going to sleep also.
- then the day after ending the round, the random giggles continued, but
he is more level-headed emotionally so far.
- his first two BMs of the day so far have been one very very pale and floating
one followed by a very loose and slightly darker colored one. Both had a lot of
undigested foods in them. (Sorry if that is TMI!)

So I am researching and asking tons of questions to doctors and fellow moms who are going through this. I can't decide, if we should stick it out for another round (Lord help me, if we do) or if we should back off with the ALA for now and just continue with the DMSA until we get his body burden down more (leaning more this direction). I have been told that, if we up his yeast protocol and give doses of vit C and magnesium with each chelation dose, we might be able to help the side effects. We just haven't decided yet. Any great ideas?

What now? Mercury!!

I mentioned how we had a hair elements test done on Grayson to determine, if we are dealing with a heavy metal toxicity. The results are very confusing to decipher, because it's not clear cut. Mercury "hides" out in tissues, organs and the brain so tests are often inconclusive of ACTUAL mercury unless the test is done shortly after your encounter with this nasty stuff! So what that means is the hair elements test tells us what is going on with the mineral transport in his body. If he is normal and shows high metals then it IS pretty cut and dry, the metal being noted is high. When the minerals are derranged, skewed....it is indicitive of past mercury poisoning which never left the body. Mercury pushes the elements all around and into the hair in varrying degrees. So the jist of his report shows high metals - copper, nickel, antimony, cobalt and zirconium, chances are these ARE actually high and need to be reduced. His low elements are - calcium, sodium, andadium, molybdenum, boron, strontium, and rubidium. The result? Probably that he cannot metabolize mercury and is holding it all in his little bitty body! Mercury is the most toxic substance on this planet and it is coursing through his veins, the very veins that feed his brain! No wonder things aren't checking out completely with his health!!

I have to say that I am somewhat relieved that we found mercury to be the problem and I must say that I expected it. Why would I be relieved that our son has mercury poisoning?? Well, because it also means there is a way to cure him. It means that the food allergies, the never ending yeast problems, the SPD, the behaviors....they all have a reason and a cure!! If it was just genetic, then there wouldn't be much we could do for him other than possibly medicate for symptoms like ADHD and OCD down the road. Instead, we are going to remove the metals, be it no easy feat, and we are going to put our son back on the track to healthy and normal, if there is such a thing, ha ha.

Chelation (key-lay-shun) is the method of removal. It can be a very long (like years) process and it involves plenty of supplements (yes MORE than he is already on, like SEVEN more) dosed 4 times a day and a metal removing agent dosed every 3 hours day and NIGHT! GULP!! The good news, if there is any during this process, is that we chelate for about 3 days on and at least that many or more off, so we do get a break....but, we repeat that process until he shows no additional benefit to the protocol. Like I mentioned earlier, that can be years. Only time will tell, there is no way to even guess so I will avoid having any expectations other than to work hard at getting him healthy.

Since he has high copper (copper is synergistic with mercury) and one of the chelating agents (ALA) drives copper higher during chelation, we need to focus on bringing that down a bit first. To do that, we will need to give him: taurine, milk thistle, molybdenum, zinc and possibly glycine four times a day. He needs to avoid high copper foods like shellfish, nuts and avocado...more foods to avoid, the list is getting longer. Then we will begin the process of chelation with DMSA and possibly ALA, if there are no reactions to either, and we will add in additional supplements: vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, and mixed carotenoids all spread out about 4 doses daily since chelation can diminish antioxidants.

Soooo, wish us luck! Once we begin, I will keep you all posted. And who knew that when I began this blog that I would truly have something to post progress on besides just the diet. I am thrilled to have gotten to the bottom of it all, but weary of the process we plan to embark on. Mobilizing mercury into the blood stream is risky, but it's necessary.