No, I don’t mean throwing out your old Brett Michaels/Poison cd’s (is
that Heavy Metal or Hair Metal ?.. never mind, I don’t want to know
that much about it), I mean removing toxic heavy metals from our
bodies. As in, does anyone have a good/successful experience with a
particular supplement/product for doing this?. It’s not a question of
if I have metals, but one of how much and what kind. Certainly lead,
cadmium, silver, copper… and now I find that the whey protein I’ve
been guzzling has elevated mercury, cadmium, and lead, plus a dash of
arsenic, for seasoning, perhaps. I know garlic is supposed to work to
some degree, but I feel it’s time for a more comprehensive approach,
and seeing as how it’s a holiday… I think, therefore I ask.
There are medical treatments for removing some metals from your
system. The process is called chelation, certain organic compounds
will bind with metals and then allow them to be excreted. This is
tricky business and should be done under a doctors care.
Chinese medicine: chelation therapy is what it’s called. I underwent
a form of this with a person trained in Chinese medicine. The
medication if one can call it that was tea steeped from a bundle of
herbs plus medication that I got from a health food store on the
recommendation of the practitioner. Six weeks into the program I
felt a major physical and mental change
I am a person who believes that I am in charge of my own health care.
Doctors, practitioners, whatever are those I agree to pay to give me
’expert’ advice and the I make the decisions. So far It has worked.
Approximately 20 years ago I had to get a physical to be included in
my wife’s health plan. I did and was told that my cholesterol was
critical and that I had to enter a program. I didn’t. Anyhow this is
becoming a rant?
I’m a skeptic but I don’t want to publicly go further.
If you can find a practitioner of chinese medicine that you trust
that’s the way I would go. I was living in the San Francisco area at
the time of my experience so there were more resources available.
Not from personal experience but from observation:
I once visited a dental office in Colorado Springs and saw the most
unusual thing I had ever seen: dental patients walking around with IV
poles and an EDTA drip. The idea was to chelate Mercury from the
toxic silver/mercury filling. A few years later after a loud outcry,
he had his license pulled. Be careful of what you do. I do not know
what really works.
certain organic compounds will bind with metals and then allow them
to be excreted
let me say duh cause this is all over the internet, and there are
many things you can do to shed mercury, comes from fish, animals,
amalgam fillings, water, you take chorella, modified citrus pectin,
and all the other herbs that relate to detox, google it
I believe you’re talking about Chelation, an infusion therapy. There
are Naturopaths & MD’s certified to do this. From what little I know
about it, it’s a last resort when you’ve got dangerously significant
amounts of metal & mercury in your system. It can be pretty tough on
the liver. Do you recall the big hooray over the actor & sushi a few
years back?
I take far infrared saunas & a supplement called Recancostat, a
reduced Glutathione: Glutathione is a thiol-containing tripeptide
found in the cells of almost all living organisms. It has been
described as the primary molecule responsible for maintaining healthy
cellular metabolism and regulation. Glutathione can exist in either a
reduced (GSH) or an oxidized (GSSG) state, but it is the reduced
state in which virtually all of the vital biological functions of
glutathione are carried out. When cells are functioning optimally,
oxidized glutathione is quickly recycled back to the reduced state.
Reduced glutathione (GSH) is a powerful antioxidant, a vital factor
in detoxification processes, and a critical component helping to
maintain a reduced biochemical state (“redox” balance) in cells.
Reduced glutathione also plays an essential role in immune system
health, through its involvement in DNA synthesis and repair and the
regulation of cellular proliferation.
There are labs throughout the states that will test hair samples
specifically to find out whether you have excess metals in your
system.
Thanks for the input, everyone ; we have everything from
(paraphrasing) ’ yeah just google it and do whatever, dumbass’ to
the other extreme (some offline, more paraphrasing) of ’ be very
careful, get a baseline test, consult your doctor(s), etc.'. For me,
the prudent thing to do is get a test, since I had already discussed
that with my (holistic M.D.) doc last year. My inclination is to self
-medicate, but in this situation, I don’t think it’s wise.
I do know that I’ve ingested fair amounts of metals over the years,
I just don’t know how much has been eliminated. Some of the fun ways
I’ve taken in toxic metals are as follows. Burning lines in food
cans with a fine-pointed, oxidizing flame on an oxy-acet torch. I
made boatloads of tin-can candleholders with the torch I got for my
14th B-day. The solder on the cans was probably tin but may have
been lead back in the early 70’s for all I know. Cutting and welding
galvanized pipe, vaporizing and inhaling zinc fumes in the process.
Melting and handling lead, used as malleable dapping blocks at home
and work (working for the jeweler that 14th summer).
Never mind the copious use of flaky asbestos as soldering pads well
into the late 70’s; that’s another thread. Using cadmium-bearing
silver solder with no ventilation at a couple of sweat shops I worked
in. The kind of place --very common in the NM jewery manufacturing
industry around that time – that didn’t particularly know,care, or
do anything about toxic work environments. Most of these nefarious
adventures happened while I was a much younger, much more self
-destructive person, less informed and less concerned about long
term effects of anything.
Anyway, that’s some of the how-and-why… now that I’ve lived well
past what I used to think I’d even want to, I suppose it might be
time to look further into what’s lurking around inside. I’ve done a
whole lot of cleaning up of the wreckage of my former (so-called)
life (drug,alcohol,& tobacco -free for 20 years) but it seems that
there’s always something more to do !.
Your doctor should be able to do a blood test for heavy metals and
help develop a course of treatment (if necessary). My aunt was
having health problems, and she ended up having high levels of heavy
metals. Do not clearly know why, but could have been related to where
she lives or food she ate, like fish. She did not work with metals or
have a direct source of exposure.
I remember getting a warning about not over eating cilantro or
coriander because it has chelating qualities. It is great in small
quantities, but I think it can also strip needed minerals and
vitamins in your diet. I do not have proof of this, but someone told
me to be careful because my kids love to eat cilantro.