Amalgam Tooth Fillings cause of ME ?

I just saw a show featuring Graeme & Lilian Munro-Hall and they were discussing the dangers of amalgam fillings, and specifically the illness they cause
if they enter the body.
The illness almost always includes chronic fatigue, and apparently attaches itself to the thyroid gland.
Now, im not suggesting it's the cause of all ME cases, but how many of us out there have been made ill with this poisonous fillings.
Graeme & Lilian Munro-Hall claim that 80% of people who have amalgam fillings removed experience total remission from the various
illnesses they suffered from, including chronic fatigue.
Here's a link to the two holistic dentists i saw in the show ;

http://www.imperfectlynatural.com/_webapp_1150731/Natural_Alternatives_-_Toxic_Dentistry

Thats just the first link i found, but im sure there's more info on the subject in general terms.
I was wondering if this is something that's been mentioned or looked at in detail before ?

It usually comes back in fashion every 10 years or so, that means it is about due for another publicity bash. Gets discussed and then forgotten again for a while.


I had no amalgam fillings when ME struck. Over the decades I've known a few patients who have had theirs removed. Some were worse after and some better. I've never met anyone who has been cured but given the huge range of people being dx'ed with CFS there must be some around.

I think there's been quite a bit of discussion on this on other threads.

I had all my 19 or so amalgams out 2 or 3 years ago, but had no improvement. Some say there's no point getting them out if you don't then do some kind of chelation so I've also been doing Andy Cutler's alpha lipoic acid protocol for 6 months or so. But again, no improvement. Didn't get worse though.

Jenny

I personally just don't by the amalgam fillings theory. I'm sure that they can cause a reaction in some and that reaction can be Chronic Fatigue. Chronic Fatigue even with other symptoms involved isn't ME, CFS, ME/CFS, CFS/ME, CFIDS or whatever other name you want to call our retched disorder.

that was my take on it. i do have amalgam fillings, but i had them many years before i fell ill.
im just trying to get as much info on why we fall ill. the retro virus case was made very well
in Oslers Web, YET there are people who go into remission and lead sex lives unprotected with
life partners, and dont pass this illness on, so im not completely sold on it being a retro virus.
The Methylation Cycle looks promising.
I tried it and felt improvement but it made me feel deathly poorly, which i could have lived through had that
not included increased tightness in breathing, and the info is very clear to point that symptom out as being
potentially serious, so i stopped. i do intend to try and re-tailor that treatment in some way as i do know
that the de-tox elements were working, i got a feeling like i had Flu and got weaker and more aches and pain, and then
slow improvement.
So, the general ME patients with much more experience living with this illness (ive had this for 18 months now), is the
amalgam idea potentially just false hope?

Andrew, I don't know enough about it, but if you can afford it, I would try it.

I definitely subscribe to the theory that generally the body can heal itself, and in the absence of a magic bullet, we have to support it doing so. You could have ME caused by a retrovirus, but taking off the extra 'stress' of mercury poisoning could allow your body to heal some/all of the damage caused by mercury and ME. worth a try id say, but talk to others who've done it. i've heard you should go to a dentist who is experienced in doing it, a regular dentist will just poison you when taking it out by not taking the proper precautions.

I think genetics do play a role in suseptibility, so it could theoretically be a retrovirus, but even if you are exposed to it you may have to be genetically suseptible to it to get ME. This would account for what you were saying about sex partners not getting it.

I had a bad dentist when I was a child. He drilled on baby teeth and teeth that just came in. He put full mercury fillings deep in my gums. I have no doubt that over time, it has affected my health. And when I had some removed, I was told that all fillings, even the white ones have bad stuff in them. Nothing is really safe that is placed in your body and meant to stay there for long periods of time. It all leaks into you eventually. Just another part of our toxic world.

I do get a bad reaction to the shots they give. I don't do well from the adrenaline, and I end up with severe muscle twitches all over my body for months after those shots. God only knows what's really in that junk. It's all poison.

Andrew,

I've had ME for nearly 30 years plus been a member of both support groups on the internet since they started and support groups who meet in real life.

Not seen any data to support the idea that amalgam fillings can cause the disease. Never met anyone in real life cured. However I have met with people who say that their health either improved or got worse. One of Dr Cheney's patients said that Dr C's heart problems may have been caused by having his fillings removed.

My advice would be to look at all "cures" and assess your own situation to see how appicable and practical this is to you

i.e.

do you have many fillings

could you afford any tests to help determine if that is a problem

can you relate your fillings to downturns or changes in health

do you react badly to dental treatment (i.e. could you cope with the "cure")

do you have access to a dentist who could carry out the removals using safe methods

can you afford to pay for this

Unless I had investigated these possibilities I'd not be considering this option. With so many "cures" to chose from it helps me to have some plan or criteria for chosing what to do next.

What works for me is to try and work with what is available to me now that I can afford to do.

Also I try and find patients with the same profile as me and find out what they do (or did to improve). If someone had the same type of history as yourself and the same onset and symptoms then I would brainstorm and learn from them. Just an idea.

Hope this ramble helps.

I'm sorry but you've been duped, "holistic dentistry" is bogus. There is no evidence that amalgam fillings are harmful at all, let alone the cause of this illness. I've heard of several ME patients who had all their amalgam fillings removed and it didn't make a scrap of difference, why didn't they look into it before they took such a drastic measure?

This summarises rather well why it's all nonsense: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html

Horrendous advice, I honestly hope nobody takes this seriously. How about providing some evidence for your claims?

I've heard of *one* such case, a film producer who was able to keep working but would be wiped out after work, had to take a long break between projects, rely on his wife for help etc etc. It turned out he had an allergic reaction to his fillings, after the fillings came out he improved dramatically.

Note that this is not the same disease as ME/CFID, but presented with some of the same core symptoms. It was, if the 3rd hand information I have is correct, an unusual allergy.

Chances are that something else is your problem. Before yanking out many fillings I would test for unusual sensitivity to mercury. Amalgam fillings are a common scare story and sorta like a stopped clock. 99.99% of the time a quackery-pusher is wrong. Occassionally, by accident, they land on Boardwalk. Don't confuse random chance with correct information.

Most people I know who have had amalgams removed safely and correctly have reported small improvement, usually just a subtle gain, like noticing that they feel a tiny bit better. But if mercury causes CFS, there is probably no reliable way to get that out of us since we tend to be poor metal detoxifiers. Anyway, I'm skeptical because I have a control/treatment comparison for amalgams with similar genetics. Namely, I have several amalgams and have CFS, and my daughter has never had any amalgams and she also has CFS, and our cases are very similar. Of interest is that I also have a sister who has some energy problems, but not CFS, and she had her amalgams removed and did think she felt a little better, but after a few months I would rate that if anything she is more worn down now.

But even if there is no real connection, I would never let a dentist put in another amalgam, and I have made sure that my children never had any amalgams. Also, I suspect that there are some complicating factors involved in some cases where there were improvements, people have different biochemistries, different acid levels in the saliva, etc. There might be people who can benefit from chelating metals. If anyone is curious, probably the cheapest and safest way to explore this is taking EDTA capsules. But I would read up on the topic first, go slowly, etc.

I had strep throats 3-4 times every year for 15 years after I started having mercury amalgams put in my teeth in my pre- & early teens. One strep infection was so embedded that antibiotics couldn't even reach it, and I had to have the tonsils removed. After that the strep was gone, but I then almost overnight developed severe allergies.

After exposure to a toxic carpet & leaky gas stove a few years later, I crashed with severe fatigue, MCS, near death, etc. I could barely get out of bed, was sleeping 18-20 hrs a day for months, severe fatigue, head ringing like I just got hit by a bus, with almost no improvement for months. With nothing much left to lose, I had all the amalgams removed one day by a mercury-aware dentist who I was referred to by a mercury-aware MD with whom I had been consulting for several weeks.

Within 36 hrs. of having the fillings removed, I was back to sleeping a normal 8 hr night, energy was vastly improved, brain fog started clearing up, and most remarkably, all the allergies that I'd suffered with for almost a decade were basically totally gone. They never came back until a few years later when I got Lyme disease and developed full-blown ME/CFS, but even then they've never been as severe as before having the amalgams out, and some never came back.

After having the amalgams out and seeing such an incredible overnight improvement, I bought an IR sauna and did 6 weeks of sauna, which removed even more mercury & toxins from my system. I felt better after that than I had for years before having the amalgams out.

Anyone who says mercury amalgams are safe is totally and woefully ignorant. Mercury is one of the most toxic substances to the human body, damaging the brain and neurology, immune system, detoxification systems, cellular energy metabolism, and probably more. Run, don't walk from any such person, and if at all possible consider having amalgams removed. Whether they directly cause ME/CFS or not, in many cases they undoubtedly contribute, and imo there is really no sense in wanting something that's a known bio- and neurotoxin in your body anyway.

Hmm. I had a post removed when I tried to "debunk" something that was even more ridiculous at its base than holistic dentistry (which does propose some seriously invasive treatments on very shaky evidence). Apparently, you are not allowed to say that anyone's treatment is "bogus" if someone thinks well of it, even if it involves aliens. Unless it's Lightning Process or CBT/GET. Sorry, I am a little bitter.

If you experienced a dramatic over-night improvement then it can't have been having the fillings removed that helped you, because mercury levels actually increase temporarily after having amalgam fillings removed. Most likely what you experienced was placebo effect, I'm sorry but scaring people into having invasive and often harmful procedures based on no evidence is disgraceful and should be worth an infraction on a science-based message board. Also please provide evidence that amalgam fillings are unsafe.

I think that's really bad if true, ME patients are an easy target for alternative medicine quacks and it pains me to see how many people in their desperation for answers turn to frauds and charlatans like homeopaths, reflexologists, chiropractors and the like, we need to educate people about the dangers of this pseudo-science and explain that just because science hasn't found the answer yet doesn't mean we need to contribute to scams like holistic dentistry.

Amalgams are not toxic, you should all be concerned about the competence of dentists who are installing them and the staff's sterilization techniques. Same goes for roots canals. I worked for an Endodontist and have seen many improperly installed amalgams and root canals that caused major infections and complications.

After doing a lot of research before having my amalgams removed, it seemed to me that the evidence for amalgams being harmful was inconclusive. What tipped me over into the decision to get mine removed though was the finding that I had a genetic polymorphism which meant I was likely to have problems detoxing mercury. If I didn't have that I probably wouldn't have done it.

Some seem to be have sensitivity to mercury too, which can be tested for.

So again it's one of those things that some have problems with and some don't.

Jenny

Nope, no placebo effect. Had allergy injections, steroid nasal sprays, antihistamines, and every allergy treatment under the sun for years. After amalgams removed, no more shots, no more sprays, no more pills, and no more allergies.

In fact you are wrong about overnight effects, because some people have an actual allergy to mercury, some people have electrical effects, and some people have problems with urinary porphyrins that are corrected upon mercury removal, restoring energy again. Any or all of those factors can play a part in dramatic improvement upon removal, which not only I but others have also experienced.

This is far from a "science-based message board," Lol, are you serious. Give me a freaking break. What I stated is actual evidence. You need an infraction for your discounting of treatment modalities that have helped people. That's against the rules. In fact, I'm going to report you now.

What have you put in instead? Composite materials (containing Bis-GMA etc) are believed to be toxic as well.

Not sure if you're asking me - I know they are supposed to be toxic - not sure how true this is. But yes composites were put in. I was tested at Biolab, London for sensitivity to 3 different composites. Not sensitive to any of them and dentist chose the one he thought was best.

I think it's all a bit hit and miss - who knows whether I'm getting more problems from the composites than from the amalgams! But I don't feel any worse.

Jenny

Oh, my bad, was asking you and Mr.Kite and just about everybody else)

Do they test for allergic reactions or toxic as well at Biolab?