Hair Mineral Testing

[Little Bluestem]

I am back and have been trying to get caught up on things. The two labs that I know of that are reliable are Trace Elements, Inc and Analytical Research Labs. This is based on some rather old research, so there may be others now.

 

[Elisa]

Hi all,

I had a hair mineral test (Doctor's Data) recently and found that I have extremely elevated Silver - 113 x times the highest normal. My level is 16 and the normal is < 0.15. I do NOT take colloidal silver, swim in pools, use hot tubs, work in a photography studio or other silver related industry. I do highlight my hair on top and sides - but not in area the hair was taken from. Any ideas where such a high silver exposure is coming from?

Could it be a lab error? Should I retest? Should I use the same lab or a different one? Ideas on best labs for hair mineral testing (both essential minerals and toxic)?

Thanks so much for any help or insight - just stumped and bit upset over this...

Elisabeth

 

[Little Bluestem]

@Elisa - I think a retest might be in order. Two labs that were found to be good in a test many years are are Analytical Research Labs and Trace Elements, Inc. I use TEI and they do not test for silver. Since the test I am quoting is old, there may be other dependable labs.

 

[ChrisD]

Hi @Little Bluestem , I had a HTMA from Analytical Research Labs Inc. AZ but in Edinburgh UK...

This was one year ago in early 2016 when I first had Fibromyalgia/Arthritis symptoms and mild CFS. I now have less Fibro and more ME/CFS and will get another HTMA test soon...

Calcium - 88.0 (32.0-64.0)
Magnesium - 3.0 (4.0-10.0)
Sodium - 5.0 (18.0-35.0)
Potassium - 4.0 (7.0-15.0)
Iron - 0.8 (2.1-4.2)
Copper - 5.9 (1.5-3.0)
Manganese - 0.009 (0.025-0.06)
Zinc - 18.0 (16.0 - 24.0)
Chromium - 0.07 (0.09 - 0.15)
Selenium 0.037 (0.12-0.21)
Phosphorus - 12.0 (13.0 - 20.0 Approx)

TOXIC METALS
Mercury - 0.038
Aluminium - 0.60

ADDITIONAL MINERALS
Nickel - 0.01 (0.07-0.15)
Cobalt - 0.001 (0.03-0.06)
Molybdenum - 0.003 (0.08 - 0.15 approx)
Lithium - 0.01 (0.125 - 0.29)

MINERAL RATIOS:-
CA/MG (Ideal - 6.67) - 29.33
CA/K (Ideal - 4.0) - 22.00
NA/MG (Ideal 4.17) - 1.67
NA/K (Ideal 2,50) - 1.25
Zn/Cu (Ideal 8.00) - 3.05
CA/P (2.50) - 7.33

Let me know if you need any more info or any of that better translated

 

[Little Bluestem]

@CJdaniells - Do you have any health care person to advise you on these results? I am not trained in hair mineral test interpretation. I know only what I have learned from Dog Person on this site and my dietitian.

If you have no other help, I might be able to make some comments. However, tonight is not a good night for me.

 

[ChrisD]

@CJdaniells - Do you have any health care person to advise you on these results? I am not trained in hair mineral test interpretation. I know only what I have learned from Dog Person on this site and my dietitian.

If you have no other help, I might be able to make some comments. However, tonight is not a good night for me.

Hi, I did have a nutritionist who guided me on how to supplement appropriately but I think that I will need a retest as that was a year ago. However I thought the test data might be useful for @dogperson but his tag doesn't seem to work properly so I decided to tag you @Little Bluestem as you seemed to be actively involved.

Are you noticing correlations in patient data? Chris

 

[Little Bluestem]

Chris, dogperson is no longer here. I have not been looking for correlations in the little data posted here.

If you are thinking about doing the active Bs or methylation restart protocols, be sure your potassium, now low, is adequate. B12 has caused low potassium symptom in a number of people here. This can range from painful to dangerous.

If taking iron supplements does not bring your iron level up, you might want to check out anemia of chronic disease. This is basically what dogperson was talking about.

A retest would probably be useful after a year. Your nutritionist is you best source of information.

 

[Jigsaw]

Lab: Trace Elements, Inc.
Reference type: milligram percent (mg%). "<<" means below the calibration limit.

- - - - - - - - - Apr10 - - - May11 - - - Dec11
Calcium - - - - - 54 - - - - - - 37 - - - - - 34 > > supplementing at first test; stopped.
Magnesium - - - 4.7 - - - - - 3.3 - - - - - 3.2 > > supplementing at first test; continued.
Sodium - - - - - 5 - - - - - - 4 - - - - - - 6 > > began supplementing after first test.
Potassium - - - << - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - 1 > > began supplementing after first test.
Iron - - - - - - - 0.8 - - - - - 0.7 - - - - - 0.5
Copper - - - - - 1.2 - - - - - 1.5 - - - - - 1.3 > > supplementing at first test; continued.
Zinc - - - - - - 16 - - - - - - 16 - - - - - - 12 > > supplementing at first test; continued.
Manganese - - .011 - - - - .007 - - - - - .016
Selenium - - - - 0.09 - - - 0.09 - - - - - 0.08 > > supplementing at first test; continued.
Chromium - - - 0.05 - - - - 0.03 - - - - - 0.04 > > began supplementing after second test.
Molybdenum - - << - - - - .001 - - - - - .005 > > supplementing at first test; increased; decreased after third test.
Lithium - - - - - .007 - - - .001 - - - - - .001
Cobalt - - - - - - << - - - .001 - - - - - .001 > > supplementing methylB12 at first test; continued.
Phosphorus - - 18 - - - - - 17 - - - - - - 16

Lead - - - - - - 0.1 - - - - 0.1 - - - - - - 0.2
Mercury - - - - 0.01 - - - 0.01 - - - - - 0.02
Cadmium - - - .001 - - - - .001 - - - - - .005
Arsenic - - - - .004 - - - .004 - - - - - .005
Aluminum - - - 0.3 - - - - 0.3 - - - - - - 0.6
Nickel - - - - - .01 - - - - .01 - - - - - - .01

I inadvertently decreased my zinc and copper dose by half for at least one bottle between the second and third tests, which I think is the reason for the drop at the third test.

Hi, @Little Bluestem

I note that there is no value given for iodine.

Was that not tested?

 

[Little Bluestem]

@Jigsaw - No, iodine was not tested. I wish it was. I have low thyroid and would probably benefit from some iodine, but too much can be a bad thing.

 

[Jigsaw]

@Jigsaw - No, iodine was not tested. I wish it was. I have low thyroid and would probably benefit from some iodine, but too much can be a bad thing.

Hi @Little Bluestem,

Suggest you read Lynne Farrow's The Iodine Crisis, and the research done by Drs Flechas, Brownstein, and Abraham. There are a bunch of research papers on Abraham's Optimox website. If you Google the Iodine Crisis book, there are free pdfs of it online.

I can put some links up for you if you like.

Thyroid holds 50MG of iodine. That's a tiny 3.3% of the total body iodine store, which is aroud 1500mg. Iodine and iodide do an astonishingly enormous range of things.

I've got loads of iodine posts on here atm. Feel free to have a shufty through them

I think I'm probably going to do a blog post about it, because it's exhausting writing out the same info over and over, but I was able to reduce my T3 by 20mcg once I hit 50mg Lugol's, and also my adrenal steroids by (currently) 30mg.

I have NEVER been able to reduce my T3, not in the 10 plus years I've been in it, and reducing my adrenal steroids has always been problematic even at 2.5mg. I quite naturally found that I'd forgotten my last dose of the day, so I must be doing something right!

I'm taking 100-150mg at the moment. The 150mg shifts a lot more bromine, evidenced by my urine turning quite dark (Dr Flechas reports that his son's urine showed a "thick layer of brown sludge at the bottom" when he was being studied as one of Flechas' first subjects, and they traced it to the high levels of bromide in the Mountain Dew drinks readily available in his school's vending machines. Other iodine users have reported brown, orange, and even chartreuse green urine on high dose iodine).

Let me know if you want any help with this - I am of course taking the appropriate companion nutrients, too.

Off to sleep now.....

 

[Little Bluestem]

Thanks, @Jigsaw. I would appreciate a few links, although I cannot say when I will get to them. I sometimes have difficulty keeping up with this site.

My doctor won't give me more than 10 mg T3/day, despite my telling her that I think I need more, at least on days when I need to be more active.

I cannot find Lugol's iodine. I bought some "Liqui-Kelp", thinking I could put that on my skin. The directions say to swallow it - four drops/day. If I take even 1 drop/day, I get "rush for the bathroom" diarrhea. I need to leave the house most days, so cannot take that on a regular basis. Am kind of stuck at the moment.

 

[Jigsaw]

Thanks, @Jigsaw. I would appreciate a few links, although I cannot say when I will get to them. I sometimes have difficulty keeping up with this site.

My doctor won't give me more than 10 mg T3/day, despite my telling her that I think I need more, at least on days when I need to be more active.

I cannot find Lugol's iodine. I bought some "Liqui-Kelp", thinking I could put that on my skin. The directions say to swallow it - four drops/day. If I take even 1 drop/day, I get "rush for the bathroom" diarrhea. I need to leave the house most days, so cannot take that on a regular basis. Am kind of stuck at the moment.

Hi, what else is in the Liqui-Kelp?

Do you have a pharmacy that could order Lugol's for you, if you can't get it from Amazon or, I believe places like Walmarts?

 

[Little Bluestem]

@Jigsaw - The Liqui-Kelp also contains potassium iodide and potassium benzoate.

I hadn't thought of asking the pharmacy if they could order it.

 

[Jigsaw]

@Jigsaw - The Liqui-Kelp also contains potassium iodide and potassium benzoate.

I hadn't thought of asking the pharmacy if they could order it.

Lol, I've seen other Lugol's users posting that they got a pharmacy to order it, or a compounding pharmacy to make it up for them in the States

We don't have any compounding pharmacies left in the UK, they're all just dispensaries these days

Hope you manage to get some - is there none on Amazon? There's tons of different makes, inc Crow's, on Amazon UK - I know you have a law there that says Lugol's can't be stronger than 2% in bottles over 30ml, but you should be able to get either a stronger version in less than 30ml, or the 2% in whatever size you want.

Or make it yourself That's my current plan!

 

[Little Bluestem]

@Jigsaw, I am one of the 'less young' member here and do not highly trust technology. While I have had credit cards in the past, with modern hacking capability I consider them an invitation to identity theft. So Amazon is out for me.

If my local pharmacy/dispensary cannot get it for me, there is a compounding pharmacy in the region.

I am intrigued by the idea of making it. How do you do that?

 

[Jigsaw]

@Jigsaw, I am one of the 'less young' member here and do not highly trust technology. While I have had credit cards in the past, with modern hacking capability I consider them an invitation to identity theft. So Amazon is out for me.

If my local pharmacy/dispensary cannot get it for me, there is a compounding pharmacy in the region.

I am intrigued by the idea of making it. How do you do that?

I'll PM you later, rushing out to see the nurse now.

 

[drob31]

Where do you get these hair tests from?

 

[drob31]

Hi @Little Bluestem,

Suggest you read Lynne Farrow's The Iodine Crisis, and the research done by Drs Flechas, Brownstein, and Abraham. There are a bunch of research papers on Abraham's Optimox website. If you Google the Iodine Crisis book, there are free pdfs of it online.

I can put some links up for you if you like.

Thyroid holds 50MG of iodine. That's a tiny 3.3% of the total body iodine store, which is aroud 1500mg. Iodine and iodide do an astonishingly enormous range of things.

I've got loads of iodine posts on here atm. Feel free to have a shufty through them

I think I'm probably going to do a blog post about it, because it's exhausting writing out the same info over and over, but I was able to reduce my T3 by 20mcg once I hit 50mg Lugol's, and also my adrenal steroids by (currently) 30mg.

I have NEVER been able to reduce my T3, not in the 10 plus years I've been in it, and reducing my adrenal steroids has always been problematic even at 2.5mg. I quite naturally found that I'd forgotten my last dose of the day, so I must be doing something right!

I'm taking 100-150mg at the moment. The 150mg shifts a lot more bromine, evidenced by my urine turning quite dark (Dr Flechas reports that his son's urine showed a "thick layer of brown sludge at the bottom" when he was being studied as one of Flechas' first subjects, and they traced it to the high levels of bromide in the Mountain Dew drinks readily available in his school's vending machines. Other iodine users have reported brown, orange, and even chartreuse green urine on high dose iodine).

Let me know if you want any help with this - I am of course taking the appropriate companion nutrients, too.

Off to sleep now.....

I want to believe in the iodine cure, but I had mixed results. It worked really well for a few days then it crashed me hard. Some say it's because the adrenals couldn't keep up. I have no idea, but I think it made me go hypo.

 

[Little Bluestem]

@drob31 - I get mine from a dietician who my doctor recommended.

 

[pamojja]

Where do you get these hair tests from?

Always ordered it from this site:

https://www.the-natural-choice.co.uk/Hair-Tissue-Mineral-Analysis-Profile-1.html
They use Trace Mineral Inc., comes without Iodine.