How I am detoxing mercury from amalgam fillings
by Ask a Healer
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BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER, IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor. I am not a detox specialist. I have studied natural remedies, holistic health and spiritual aspects of wellness for several decades now. I am, literally, a human test subject. I've tried so many things by this lusciously ripe age of 60 that I couldn't name them all.
I've made some wellness mistakes but have been willing to take the risk that way, rather than take the risk of prescription drug reactions, side effects and toxicity dangers. I can count on one hand the times I have taken prescription medications and I can only think of a couple of times they actually were worth that risk to me.
What is on this page is an introduction to my own experiences after getting amalgam fillings. When you travel from this page, you'll be going into what I'm doing about it. Always remember, this is a personal journey and I am not suggesting that anyone take the path I'm taking. I'm providing information. Make your own informed choices. I suggest, if you do decide to go the natural detox route, that you get testing so that you know the degree of toxicity and that you have a natural detox specialist on your team. I did not get tested and I do not have such a specialist. My choice, my consequences.
My Personal Experiences With Mercury Toxicity:
I had three amalgam fillings put in, way back in the late 70's. For months afterward, I literally felt as if I were crazy. I felt as if I had gone insane. For years later, I suffered depressed moods. Since I had a tough childhood that included incest and poverty, I just figured my life had finally broken me. I never thought to connect the dots back then. I'd never heard of mercury poisoning so I just figured I'd lost my mind. I drank WAY too much and made some really bad decisions. Funny thing ... decades later, I found an online reference that talks about how alcohol inhibits mercury vapor absorbtion. Maybe, in some instinctive way, I was self-medicating even then albeit not in the best way. It would have been a lot better to have been drinking organic alcohol but I didn't know about that either back then. I do find it interesting that a lot of people who have trouble with alcohol consumption report that they don't crave it after mercury detox.
A few decades after the painful results of my fillings had lessened, I became very interested in health and wellness. As a wellness counselor, I naturally explored all aspects and came in contact with a lot more information on prescription drugs than I could find on holistic health alternatives. The more I read, the more I realized I did not identify with western medicine treatments at all.
The side effects, potentially dangerous, plus the low success rate on so many and the recalls for drugs that ended up killing people all added up to a risk I wasn't willing to take with my own life. I started to study holistic health and it wasn't long til I looked at detoxing for health. Since then, I've detoxed regularly but never specifically for mercury because, back then, I didn't realize it was a very specific cleanse with different rules than a general detox. I thought I'd done my job and gotten rid of the gunk. Detox became less of a priority.
Recently, I came across mercury toxicity information again and, looking at the symptoms, I realized I had a lot of them now and had most of them back then. A mercury detox seemed well in order. But how to do it? It didn't take long to become confused about that. There is a ton of information online. Unfortunately, a lot of it is personal experience (useful but since each person's situation and chemistry is different, it does not follow that what worked for one person will work for another) and not the result of double-blind studies. That is to be expected when modern medicine still doesn't take the threat seriously enough to study it except for Advocates for Safer Dentistry and there aren't too many such organizations yet.
Even the information from doctors on how to best detox heavy metals varies and is, in some cases, conflicting. Some doctors recommend DMPS and EDTA while others, like Dr. Cutler, say no to those and say ALA (alpha lipoic acid) and DMSA are best. Dr. Andy Cutler also says to never chelate while you still have amalgams in your mouth. I have chosen to do so because at this point, I cannot safely negotiate removal of the amalgams.
I have absolutely no doubt that these fillings I received so long ago have resulted in accumulated mercury in my brain and around my eyes, and that they have impacted my health ever since. The crazy feelings decreased over time but I have continued to have, in lesser degree, for at least two years, irrational mood swings and bouts of depression. The other weird symptom is hard to describe but it felt as if something were blocking my mental process. Hard to explain. I didn't seem capable of following a train of thought. It was as if it would hit a wall in my brain and then, I'd not know what it was I was trying to think. It was an incredibly frustrating period of my life and I had no idea what was causing it.
Other Health Issues Potentially Linked to Mercury Toxicity:
I started having fibromyalgia symptoms about that time but did not connect the dots. I didn't know about detoxing heavy metals like mercury back then;
didn't even know it mattered. The fibro symptoms went away. Looking back, this was around the time I started learning about detoxing in general and
doing some detoxing. Of course, I also learned that emotional stress and spiritual disconnection were factors in any chronic condition in my body so I
took steps to reconnect with the God of my knowing and to handle stress better during that same period of time.
Since then, I've had periodic and recurring trouble with inflammation around joints and weird pimples that have kept popping up around my chin, exactly
where the fillings are in the jaw behind my chin. I have fillings on both sides and these weird bumps are always in the same place, over and over.
So, over time, my fibro symptoms went away. However, other chronic health issues continued. These were all associated directly with the head and neck
region of my body and included eye and sinus allergies, white spots on my skin (a sign of mercury in the body) and periodic stiff neck and shoulders. I
also had periodic times of irrational mood swings, depression, unexplained irritability, etc though never as bad as that first few months after getting
the fillings put in.
Decades of Toxicity
It was decades later that I began to understand the comprehensive damage that mercury leakage could do over time. I had detoxed when I first learned of mercury toxicity but thought a general detox would do it. I didn't realize the mercury continually leaked and was worse with chewing or hot beverages or that detoxing mercury required a lot more attention than a general detox. There wasn't a lot of information available on this until a lot later. By then, I had sort of forgotten about it til I chipped a tooth with a filling, which made the symptoms come back strong. I had read that all the mercury leaches out of the fillings within 20 years. It's been longer than that since I had the fillings put in so I'm not sure if maybe the chip affected some mercury stored in the surrounding gum tissues or what, but the symptoms definitely flared when that happened. Recently, I came across new information that suggests amalgams may leak for a lifetime. My new understanding, which is at layman/idiot level, is that the metal filings that are used are held together by liquid mercury in the center. So ... as long as the filling is still in place and hasn't crumbled, it is still leaking mercury every day.
I started researching whether or not this mercury toxicity could be removed from the body and whether there was a way to release the accumulated oral toxicity. I think this is so important for folks with newer fillings. They may be able to contain the continualy leakage until they can find a dentist specializing in amalgam removal. Education is absolutely vital because doing this the wrong way may cause liver or kidney damage or may end up depositing enough mercury in the brain (it has an affinity for brain tissues) to cause very serious mental health issues.
Even though most if not all of the mercury in my fillings has either exited my body or gotten deposited in tissues and organs, I still plan on having the fillings removed when I have funds for the specialized removal process but first, I have to get over my intense phobia of dentists!
Anyway, I digress. When I chipped the filling and the symptoms flared up near the end of last year, I started searching once again for mercury detox information. I found a lot more information in 2015 than I'd been able to find in the late 70's or even 80's or 90's. However, some of it was contradictory, hardly any of it was conclusive and there were so many factors that could influence success. That meant I had to be willing to explore and experiment. One of the clearest explanations on what makes this a complicated process is this one on Heavy Metal Detoxification.
Eye problems from mercury - I didn't put it together til recently but it was also around the time I got the amalgam fillings that I had to get my first set of glasses. I tried to wear contacts but my eyes were too dry, another symptom of mercury poisoning. I've experienced periodic double vision, blurry vision, swollen eyes. Recently, I believe as a result of a chipped tooth around a filling, I have developed night blindness as well as an increase in all the above issues. Mercury and Your Eyesight.
Toward better eye health in general, I recommend reading about Carnosine Eye Drops. If detoxing mercury from the mouth and head ends up irritating your eyes, you may find the drops soothing. They also provide antioxidant support for you eyes whether detoxing or not. They are working well for me, to ease computer strain and my eyes feel better.
Detoxing and Cleansing Health Disclaimer:
Because so many of the symptoms of mercury toxicity may also be symptoms of several other health challenges, testing and evaluation is vital. As far as I am concerned, having a cluster of the symptoms of mercury overload AND having amalgam fillings is enough of a combination to at least get tested for mercury poisoning.
