This will be short and sweet.  I saw my doctor last week to get the results of my most recent toxic elements testing after three months on DMSA for mercury chelation.  My mercury levels did not budge, and remain at 13 roughly (within normal limits is 2.19).  My lead level dropped significantly, but is still high, and now I’m also testing high for platinum.  My understanding from the test results was that platinum can show up in connection with the DMSA that I was taking, so he was not overly concerned.

Anyhow, here’s what the results look like…fascinating, I know. 🙂  I’ve been testing through my doctor/Genova Diagnostics:

I quit taking my DMSA with my doctor’s blessing a couple weeks ago.  I was taking 500 mg Monday/Wednesday/Friday.   Because I’m also on the GAPS Diet and am already chelating by virtue of the diet, I can only speculate that it was just “too much” and my system couldn’t handle it.  I had a resurgence of candida which caused a yeast infection of the sinuses, mystery rashes, headaches, recurrent chiropractic problems in my neck, extreme lethargy and brain fog, gut problems, a massive flare of joint and muscle pain/fibro symptoms.  If you’re taking DMSA – I’m not implying you should quit.  It simply did not work for me.  Always consult your doctor before doing anything drastic or changing protocols.  However, a good reference if you are on the GAPS Diet is page 300 in the GAPS book where Dr. Natasha talks about DMSA and DMPS.  Food for thought…

Because of the range of problems I was having, I decided to go back on GAPS intro a week and a half ago and am glad I did.  Many of those issues subsided within a few days.  Doing intro by myself (and not with 3-5 people) is much less daunting!  I also got a script for Diflucan (antifungal) yesterday and I’m hopeful that this sinus infection will go away shortly.

So now, my new protocol through my integrative physician is to continue GAPS, juice daily, and start eating cilantro daily as well as taking chlorella.  I hope that this works and starts to budge this stuff soon…  I love it though when I can go to the doctor and fill at least part of my script at the grocery store :-).

I’ve also done some other researching in the past few weeks and came across other chelation information by Dr. Andrew Cutler and Dr. Lawrence Wilson’s Nutritional Balancing protocols.  Both have different protocols and there are things about each that I find interesting.  I am not a doctor, and am simply giving links to other resources.  Please consult with your physician.  I’d be interested if anyone has other protocols, so please feel free to share in the comments section.

This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesdays; Intentionally Domestic’s Traditional Tuesdays; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays;