I developed vertigo after my second dose of DMSA treatment for lead chelation. For the next four weeks I had trouble moving quickly, standing up, going down stairs, etc., with no signs of it abating.
Eventually I happened upon a comment on a heavy metal detox forum (on Yahoo, where untold gazillabytes of valuable information are inaccessible due to craptastic design) indicating that some people can’t process sulfur due to insufficient body stores of molybdenum. Most approaches to lead detox involve sulfur, and DMSA is a walloping dose of sulfur. In fact, one study I found says that eating a whole lotta garlic can chelate lead. So I took 2,000 mcgs (2 mgs) of Mo the next day and the vertigo was gone the following evening.
More notes on molybdenum:
- It is used to reduce copper in the brain, which is a problem in some mental illnesses.
- It is used to break down acetaldehyde produced by candida and which causes brain fog, fatigue, malaise, etc. For about 18 months I used it regularly for that. I later ran across a few self-experimenters who’d discovered that once they got to a certain place in their heavy metal detox treatments, their longstanding candida issues disappeared.
- Resist the urge to call it “molly”, the street name for MDMA aka Ecstasy. Those of us on the supplement-popping path are fighting enough suspicion and misperception as it is.
Thanks!
Thanks! Im going to check out the tincture. Did you take tincture or capsule?
Oh forgot to answer your questions about fulvic minerals..
yes I have tried them and everytime they cause me mineral imbalances. Cant sleep, skin gets really dry, lips crack and peel. Something in them is not for me.
I have only taken lymph cleansers in the form of tinctures. When burbur disappeared I switched to rotating among cleavers, red root, and various manufacturers’ lymph-cleansing combos. They seem to work fine.
Opps forgot to ask to be notified of responses, otherwise I forget. thanks!
Hey, Ing — just want to clarify that you checked the appropriate boxes on the comment window. I can’t process the notifications myself on this end.
Thank you SO VERY MUCH for the roundup of possible ideas for my cysts.
I think I will try the burbur. Can you tell me which supplement/brand you recommend?
I react to even small amount of veggies (like three asparagus stalks) so Im not sure if this is a cleansing reaction but Im willing to try.
I have tried/looked into the othe aspects..no luck.
Have you tried fasting for clearing your issues. Im getting desperate to try a long fast.
The only burbur I found was by Nutramedix, and it is hard to find now. I just saw a combo burbur and pinella tincture on Amazon for $42.00. Lyme patients seem to be using it. That’s more than I remember paying…. I would love to do a weeklong fast, and have been doing 12-hour ones for more than a decade, but haven’t arranged it yet.
Glad to see you are making progress on your journey! Im happy that you are still posting your adventures for others to learn by. Im pretty sure I need help clearing heavy metals as well so I hope you continue posting your progress.
(I so agree with your opinion of the inaccessible valuable information lost due to craptstic design- sad!).
I’ve recently discovered that my horrible acne cysts (the kind that can linger for weeks/month) stem from “vitamin C” or foods that are high in vitamin C, The list of foods has become quite depressing..tomatoes, oranges, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, any mineral chelated with citrate…more on my list but basically my veggies are limited to a few tablespoons before I get a cyst a few hours later. Carrots are on my list as well although they are not high in vitamin C so prehaps there is something else at play?) If I eliminate all veggies, fruits and citrate no acne..at all!
I’ve tried sulfur which is supposed to counteract citrate allergy with no luck.
Im wondering if you have heard of this or know of a cure or even why these healthy foods are causing me monster cysts? My health has taken a dive since Ive been eliminating veggies/fruits but to be free of the cysts after 40yrs is amazing. Any ideas?
Thanks and good luck with your chelating!
Thank you for the kind words! I have been procrastinating on the metal detox thing and really need to get off my arse. It seems a wee bit more dangerous than your average self-experiment.
Re: cysts… Off the top of my head…
— Maybe the vegetables and fruit help to clean your lymph system so well it gets really backed up? That happened to me with boswellin, an anti-inflammatory herbs. Swept up a ton of inflammatory goo, which then got stuck — splitting headaches, jaw pain, facial swelling. I took burbur (lymph cleanser) for three weeks and after that no longer reacted badly to the boswellin. I find that such skin reactions follow the lines of the vessels under the skin, e.g., down the side of the neck below the ear. I still take lymph cleanser tinctures a lot, and my minimum dose is twice what’s on the label. Again, not sure how citrate would fit in that theory.
— My friend controlled hers with big doses of flaxseed oil, as in twelve big horse pills a day. Prior to that discovery, her dermatologist treated them with cortisol ?? shots a few times a year. She eventually had (and recovered from) an aneurism, which made me wonder if it had something to do with EFAs’ tendency to thin artery walls in large doses.
— I developed cysts when taking big doses of iron, which I figured was lowering my zinc levels way too low. 90 mgs of zinc for several days would get rid of them, and I only had to do that on maybe three occasions, tops, but I also resumed taking small amounts of zinc daily. Perhaps different vegetables compete with zinc in different ways? Not sure how citrate would fit in. I know vitamin C and zinc can be antagonists.
— I assume you looked at the oxalate angle? And histamine?
— I recall the Low Histamine Chef mentioning that citric acid, from which citrate is made I think?, is often made from corn of dubious quality which many people felt they reacted badly to. The only brand that did not was TwinLab? and recently purchased by another huge company.
— I’ve gone off vegetables and have been wondering if it’s because they’re so often doused in Roundup. I believe the US has a problem with even organic crops being exposed to Roundup that’s blown over from other fields. I keep meaning to try fulvic acid or similar.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
Forgot to check the “notify me of follow-up comments” box.
DMSA is also a chelator for mercury. If you take a large dose of DMSA, it stirs up a lot of mercury (and lead) that may have been out of the way, causing minimal harm (relatively speaking). The DMSA leaves your body much faster than mercury or lead, because the liver/kidneys/sweat glands can only process heavy metals a little at a time. This leaves a lot of mercury/lead to settle out and deposit in new locations. It might settle someplace where it can do new damage.
The solution to this is to take DMSA in small, frequent doses (say 25mg every 4 hours) around the clock for a few days. This keeps a small amount of lead/mercury in circulation long enough to be excreted, without causing a lot of new damage. This is repeated every week or so (3 days on, 4 days off) as long as needed. If you have only lead and no mercury this can be done once a month, because lead comes out more slowly.
The best description of how this works came from Andrew Hall Cutler, who is a Chemistry PhD. I’ve been using his protocol to clear my system of mercury (primarily) and lead for a few years. He recommends DMSA and alpha lipoic acid (ALA) for mercury and DMSA for lead. The first time I tried DMSA I did 100mg every 4 hours for 3 days, and I was nearly incapacitated for 4 days afterward. Now I take it in much lower doses. Note that ALA should also be taken in low, frequent doses. I messed myself up pretty badly taking 250mg ALA once per day for 8 months.
Cutler recommends taking magnesium, zinc, C, and E to repair the damage caused by heavy metals, and perhaps something to support the liver such as milk thistle. I don’t tolerate milk thistle, so I don’t take it. Other supplements may be useful, such as lithium orotate, B vitamins, molybdenum, etc. There are several web sites that outline the Cutler protocol, so the information is free. They’re a bit disorganized (to my eye), but then so is his book. Let me know if you’d like to know more about my experiences.
Thank you for the info. I was following the Cutler protocol at the time, using mostly the Yahoo group as guidance. I think I also had two of his books. I did two 3-day sessions of DMSA and then decided I needed to get out of mold exposure before anything else. I do need to revisit eventually because I lived in buildings with lead plumbing for at least five years. I could not tolerate ALA at all.