Strange reaction to Alpha lipoic acid vs high thiol foods

[Cricketsof]

Hi all,
I just wonder if anyone has any insight here. I have mercury toxicity and cannot tolerate thiol foods. I started chelating last Friday and the first pill I took I did not have any thiol symptoms. I finished my round and still nothing. Thiols give me immediate headaches and flu like symptoms. I thought I had cleared my sulphur (silly me) and ate TWO bites of a high thiol food today. Within 30 seconds a headache came on that I have not had in 6 months.

I asked over at FDC and they gave me a chemistry answer. I'm not being rude I just don't understand diagrams and such. They are saying that the ala has two thiols and the foods have one, which I knew that.

The foods redistribute, but I still can't really get a answer as to why the ala did not affect me the same way. It's high thiol as well.

Can someone explain in layman's terms?

Thanks,
CO

 

[Johnmac]

No. I flunked chem too.

If you comb the archives of FDC, you will find that once I began Cutler chelation I had the worst thiol symptoms of anyone in recorded history. I was bedridden after accidentally swallowing a drop or two of onion juice.

I began the Simplified Methylation Protocol (SMP) and the problem evaporated in a few days. It hasn't returned.

I'm on the Freddd Protocol these days. Still no thiol problems, even tho my ALA dosage has gone up from 50 to 250mg, and my rounds last up to 10 days.

I'm guessing the methylfolate has somehow fixed it, as there is no mB12 in the SMP.

 

[Cricketsof]

Hi John,
Thanks for replying. Yes, I have read somewhere about you. This is truly a blessing for you. Has anyone else had any success with folate and thiol clearance that you know of? If your up to that high of a dose of ala, do you feel you are almost through with chelation? Thanks again.

 

[Johnmac]

@stridor was having a rough time of chelation (not entirely thiols as I recall - a rough time generally) till he began a methylation protocol. That fixed the problem.

Other than that, I haven't heard of any cases - tho I'd guess there would be some if you looked hard enough.

The answer to your second question would have been "Yes" a year ago. I was doing up to 13-day rounds of two-hourly doses of 250mg, and no sfx. I was preparing to end the campaign.

Then I broke a CFL lightbulb, presumably inhaled some of the mercury vapor, & immediately got ulcers in my mouth & screaming tinnitus. Both are symptoms I got a lot during my tumultuous first year of chelation, but which had died away since. So I re-poisoned myself.

I just did my first ALA round for a year last week (3 days, 185 mg), and whilst there were no sfx on-round, the post-round redistribution put me in bed for 2 days. It was one of the worst yet.

So it appears I will be chelating for a while yet. Needles to say I am replacing all my CFL lightbulbs with LEDs. If you had told me the effects from the bulb breakage would be that severe, I wouldn't have believed you.

I don't think I'm back to square 1 by any means - maybe back to the two-thirds mark, at a guess.

 

[Johnmac]

BTW, ALA never affected me badly even in the midst of my worst thiol reactions. I would order a salad, scrape the onion off the top of it, and the remaining juice would make me nauseous for hours. But I could take ALA okay. Don't know why, & I'm not sure I care much. I'll never be a chemist, so need to be an empiricist.

 

[Cricketsof]

Geez, John I am really sorry to hear that happened to you.
I really don't want to appear to be stupid, but I am going to anyway. How can you tell the difference between a CFL bulb and one free of Mercury. I use just the normal 75 watts. I just looked and it doesn't have that on there.

It was explained to me later that the food had one bond that redistributes and the ALA has two bonds that pull it out. Right after my first round I thought I had beat the thiols (lol) because ALA was not bothering me in that way. I took ONE bite of something that had garlic and I was down.

I had to back down from 5 mg. to 2.5 this 4th round. Sometimes it makes me feel tipsy if you will. Getting dizzy, etc. So they suggested to cut the dose. I have no idea why I feel tipsy on it. I thought it was the break down of acetaldehydes because ALA does that. Haven't had a drink in over a year. I don't know.

 

[Johnmac]

Yeah, dizziness was one of my thiol symptoms too (tho not tipsiness).

Have you begun a methylation protocol?

My dosages when thiols were affecting me were also getting very low.

A CFL bulb is the very common bulb that has now largely replaced the old incandescent bulbs in most western countries. They each contain 3-5mg of mercury vapor. Break the bulb & the vapor enters the air you are breathing.

A safer alternative is the newer & more expensive LED bulb. (LEDs were once only used for digital clocks, stereo system displays etc - but are now being produced for general lighting.) LED lights contain arsenic & lead, but so far as I can discover not in vapor form. So if you dispose of it carefully when it breaks you should be okay.

 

[Cricketsof]

Well mb12 made me rage and I got really scared. It also made me feel like my body was going to explode . I took such a tiny amount , So no I have not started

Do you mean the regular light bulbs that you buy at the grocery store like by Westinghouse are cfl? Should it state it on there?
What the heck does mercury do for a light bulb?

 

[Johnmac]

Yes, just the lightbulbs everybody uses these days - like this. I don't know why they put Hg in them.

I think Freddd says that the bigger the reaction (to a given nutrient), the bigger the deficiency.

Carnitine is the one that knocks my socks off. I'm having to start again with tiny titrations of carnitine, then will work up from there. I'm not sure if you should do the same with mB12 - you'd better ask @Freddd.

 

[Cricketsof]

Thanks John for talking to me and showing me. I appreciate it.
Good health to you on this chelation!

 

[David Hammond]

Single thiols hold on to mercury well enough to move them around the body, but do not remove them from the body. They continually pick them up and drop them. Chelators such as ALA, with two thiols can hold on to them well enough to escort them out of the body.

 

[David Hammond]

Have you tried taking glutamine and glycine to reduce your thiol sensitivity? These will combine with cysteine to form glutathione.