A mercurial query.

[ivorin]

Hello fellow fighters,

I am currently experiencing a rapid decline in my health that may be due to mercury toxicity. I am unable to find proper help at the moment as I live in Croatia, but I strongly believe good advice may save my life.

In short, for 6 years, I had been taking CFS supplements that contained 100mg of Alpha Lipoic Acid among other things that move mercury around. The whole time I had three amalgam fillings and a fairly large tattoo.

In the last year I started to decline in health and I noticed my hands were getting cold and painful at even the slightest decline in temperature. My CFS symptoms were also getting worse. This January, after getting two b12 injections, I got toothaches and herpes simplex (same as at my onset, 6 years ago). After that a sequence of symptoms appeared that contained: pressure in the back of my head, dizziness, sensitivity to medication (rosveratrol, acyclovir, antibiotics), numbness and tingling, nausea, abdominal pain, acid reflux, trouble standing, visual distortions, nightmares, soar throat, sinus congestion, painful gums. The worst of the symptoms are tinnitus and a sensitivity to screens, reading or writing which send me into migraine-like attacks of hypersensitivity and nerve-firing. Other than that, uncontrollable and weird panics, anxiety and paranoia happens at times.

What I noticed and what tipped me off to mercury is that l-glutamine and b12 made me feel worse. Especially the l-glutamine gave me 2 days of complete and utter panic and nightmares. I believe I am at the moment toxic enough that any movement of the mercury results in serious problems. When I tried to add spirulina, I ended up with tinnitus that hasn't stopped since then.

I had a heavy metal test done which shows increased levels in several metals including mercury. Only the hair shows the levels relating to when I was still taking the Alpha Lipoic Acid. The rest are without accidental chelation.

Help me save my life please,
how can I stop further decline? What can I do without mobilizing mercury and adding to my symptoms? Additionally, are there other things that could be happening, perhaps just my CFS getting worse from some additional exposure?

A thousand thanks dear people

Orin

 

[Mohawk1995]

@ivorin As a disclaimer, I am not a physician and cannot interpret your results for you. It is very concerning to hear what you are experiencing. Not sure I have any great answers, but here are my thoughts.

I have attached a link from the Mayo Clinic website on Mercury testing and values. From reading it and other resources, it sounds like a person could have values that are notable without having symptoms related to it and there are many factors that need to be considered to determine whether or not a person has toxic levels of mercury. So in regard to your test levels, you would need a qualified physician to give you their interpretation of the results.

What is notable though is that you are definitely reporting an increase in neurologic related symptoms. Also you have many different factors, treatments and supplements you are taking to consider in this conversation. Most important of all is that with a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (by definition a neurological disorder), you would likely have the key features that have been uncovered by research. Those being high levels of Neuro-inflamatory agents in your brain, changes in Cerebral Spinal Fluid chemistry, changes in metabolic levels (decreased) creating issues with energy, biochemistry and hormonal levels in your body as a whole and changes related to increased sensitivity to external and internal stimuli.

It could be related to mercury levels alone or ME/CFS alone or a combination of the two or something else. In our experience with our son, we basically got to the point where we were only trying one thing at a time or at least establishing a baseline prior to adding one treatment modality. My fear with many ME/CFS patients is that they are unknowingly "over-treating" themselves (either with medications, supplements, diet and even with CBT/GET or other modalities) making it difficult to assess what is going on and in my opinion more likely to amplify the Neuro-protective-immune response that is at the core of the disease.

In addition, dealing with the disease on a personal level, seeking treatment, researching for answers and going through all of the recommended strategies (that often don't help and sometimes make you worse) is exhausting. This is especially true for someone who does not have energy to begin with. Top that off, with trying to figure out whether or not to trust the medical assistance you are receiving and that in itself makes this a "toxic" situation.

Lastly, I would say don't be afraid to take a break from pursuing all of the treatment and just trying to live life as best you can. We did that periodically throughout our process with our son, usually for 4-6 weeks. We stayed with a few medications that we felt were helping but just focused on living and loving each other. We never regretted that. By all means get your questions asked, but if you feel you can give yourself a break of some kind.