30 replies to this topic

[Holysmoke]

I have been taking Na-Rala and enjoying it. However I read yesterday that ALA is dangerous to take if you have amalgams since it can remove mercury but does not rid it from the body rather it moves it to other areas. I think it was diagnose me website. They said it could end up in the brain and recommended not taking it unless it is combined with DMSA.

the quote was "Alpha lipoic acid should not be used alone, as it only mobilizes mercury with a weak bond. Without additional chelators present, such as DMPS or DMSA, the mercury may just redistribute elsewhere in the body instead of being removed."

I also take 3 grams of Kyoto Chlorella each day for heavy metals.

Can anyone help me clear this up.

Up until yesterday, all I ever read was that ALA was extremely safe.

Thanks.

Edited by Holysmoke, 25 September 2009 - 12:37 PM.

[kurt9]

I am using ALA for the purposes of chelating Mercury from my body. My chelation regimen consists of taking 200mg of ALA every 4 hours, day and night, for 3 days per week. I did this for about 18 months from the end of '06 until spring of '08. I am doing it again. I had Mercury "issues" (not from Amalgam) that I have sought to resolve by this method.

The fact that ALA is a Mercury chelator is very real. This also ties into issues of Mercury poisoning from dental amalgam and the Thimerosal in vaccines, which is considered very controversial, even within the life extension community. My friend who invented this ALA chelation regime believes that ALA should not be used for the anti-oxidant purposes that the LEF promotes. He recently visited Germany to a attend a conference on Mercury poisoning issues. He found that ALA is actually used as a diabetic treatment in Germany. This ties in with the possibility that Type II diabetes is one result of Mercury poisoning (Mercury does inhibit transport across cell membranes and type II diabetes is certainly a cell membrane transport disease).

Check out Andy Cutler's book, "Amalgam Illness" at www.noamalgam.com

[hamishm00]

I thought that ALA is used as a diabetic treatment because it increases insulin sensitivity, and not because of its (well known) ability to chelate mercury. Interesting.

Edited by hamishm00, 25 September 2009 - 06:35 PM.

[VespeneGas]

I thought that ALA is used as a diabetic treatment because it increases insulin sensitivity, and not because of its (well known) ability to chelate mercury. Interesting.

You were right

[Holysmoke]

I saw a post from Andy who said Chlorella is a bad thing to ingest since he thinks it may contain mercury and other toxins.

Mercola suggest using chlorella to eliminate mercury in the stool.

I'm confused.

to the poster who is using ALA to chelate mercury, can you comment on the statement in my 1st post that says using ALA alone is dangerous because all ALA does is dislodge the mercury and it goes to other areas and doesn't get it out of the body.

[niner]

How do you guys know that mercury is causing your problems? Have you had any analytical work done?

[Lufega]

There's also Modified citrus pectin, which is also a good chelator and IP6. I did the whole counting method, per Andy and I fall into the mercury poisoned group....but, I just don't know. I tried chelating for a while, was a pain, didn't really feel anything. I wish there was some test that was more conclusive, like urine of blood. Either way, I have all this DMSA and ALA I never used. Plan on giving it another shot just for the heck of it.

[aaron_e]

There's also Modified citrus pectin, which is also a good chelator and IP6. I did the whole counting method, per Andy and I fall into the mercury poisoned group....but, I just don't know. I tried chelating for a while, was a pain, didn't really feel anything. I wish there was some test that was more conclusive, like urine of blood. Either way, I have all this DMSA and ALA I never used. Plan on giving it another shot just for the heck of it.

try finding a doc who will prescribe you oral DMPS, its alot more tolerable than DMSA.

[Lufega]

Arginine helps in mercury toxicity.

[Mercury toxicity: trace element interactions and detoxification activity by L-arginine]

[Article in Italian]

Santarelli L, Piacenza F, Bonacucina V, Malavolta M, Mocchegiani E, Bracci M.
Medicina del Lavoro- Dipartimento di Patologia Molecolare e Terapie Innovative, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Tronto 10/A, Torrette Ancona. l.santarelli@univpm.it

Mercury (Hg) exposure makes happen disease to humans and animals spreading in all body compartments, especially in liver and kidney. In these ones, copper, zinc, manganese and iron were investigated to assess perturbation of essential metals' homeostasis due to Hg chronic intoxication. Because L-arginine, is able to induce beneficial influence on immunologic functions on mice intoxicated with Hg, we also studied the efficiency of detoxification process before and after treatment with this aminoacid. Adding L-arginine to diet of the intoxicated mice we achieved a good restoration to normal homeostatic conditions.

L-arginine reduces mercury accumulation in thymus of mercury-exposed mice: role of nitric oxide synthase activity and metallothioneins.

Bracci M, Tomasetti M, Malavolta M, Bonacucina V, Mocchegiani E, Santarelli L.
Department of Molecular Pathology and Innovative Therapies, Occupational Medicine, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy.

Mercury, an occupational and environmental contaminant, is a well-recognized health hazard. The thymus is a target for inorganic mercury (Hg2+); thymic function is impaired in Hg2+ intoxication and is partially restored by simultaneous L-arginine supplementation. The nitric oxide (NO)-nitric oxide synthase (NOS) pathway and metallothioneins (MTs) were studied to investigate the role of L-arginine in thymic function restoration after mercury exposure. Mice received a higher and a lower dose of inorganic mercury, with and without L-arginine supplementation. Saline-treated mice were used as controls. Thymus weight and thymulin were measured as indices of thymic function. Mice treated with Hg2+ alone displayed an accumulation of metal in the thymus, reduced NOS activity, a lower plasma nitrite plus nitrate concentration and an increased MTs expression compared with control mice. L-arginine supplementation was associated with lower Hg2+ concentrations in the organ and partial preservation of other measures. Reduced accumulation of Hg2+ in mice dosed with L-arginine was probably related to greater NO production and NO-MTs interactions.

The role of L-arginine in toxic liver failure: interrelation of arginase, polyamine catabolic enzymes and nitric oxide synthase.

Nikolic J, Stojanovic I, Pavlovic R, Sokolovic D, Bjelakovic G, Beninati S.
Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Nis, Nis, Serbia and Montenegro. nikdan@bankerinter.net
The existing interrelation in metabolic pathways of L-arginine to polyamines, nitric oxide (NO) and urea synthesis could be affected in sepsis, inflammation, intoxication and other conditions. The role of polyamines and NO in the toxic effect of mercury chloride on rat liver function was studied. Administration of mercury chloride for 24 h led to significantly elevated plasma activities of Alanine transaminase (ALT) and Aspartate transaminase (AST). Malondyaldehyde (MDA) levels were unaffected (p > 0.05) and arginase activity was significantly decreased (p < 0.05) while nitrate/nitrite production was significantly elevated (p < 0.001) in liver tissue. Polyamine oxidase (PAO) and diamine oxidase (DAO) activities, enzymes involved in catabolism of polyamines, were decreased. L-arginine supplementation to intoxicated rats potentiated the effect of mercury chloride on NO production and it was ineffective on arginase activity. Results obtained in this study show that mercury chloride-induced toxicity leads to abnormally high levels of ALT and AST that may indicate liver damage with the involvement of polyamine catabolic enzymes and NO.

l-Arginine normalizes NOS activity and zinc-MT homeostasis in the kidney of mice chronically exposed to inorganic mercury.

Piacenza F, Malavolta M, Cipriano C, Costarelli L, Giacconi R, Muti E, Tesei S, Pierpaoli S, Basso A, Bracci M, Bonacucina V, Santarelli L, Mocchegiani E.
Department of Molecular Pathology and Innovative Therapies, Occupational Medicine, Polytechnic University of Marche, Torrette, Ancona, Italy.
Inorganic mercury (HgCl2) exposure provokes damage in many organs, especially kidney. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression, total NOS activity and the profiles of zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and Hg as well as their distribution when bound to specific intracellular proteins, including metallothioneins (MT), were studied during HgCl2 exposure and after l-arginine treatment in C57BL/6 mouse kidney. HgCl2 exposure modulates differently iNOS expression and NOS activity, increasing iNOS expression but, conversely, decreasing total NOS activity in the mouse kidney. Moreover, during Hg exposure an increased MT production occurs. The kidney damage leads to a loss of urinary proteins, increased plasma creatinine and high Zn mobilization with consequent increased urinary Zn excretion. l-arginine treatment recovers NOS activity and induces a normalization of MT induction, plasma creatinine values and urinary proteins excretion, suggesting that l-arginine may limit kidney damages by Hg exposure.

[LIB]

I saw a post from Andy who said Chlorella is a bad thing to ingest since he thinks it may contain mercury and other toxins.

Mercola suggest using chlorella to eliminate mercury in the stool.

I'm confused.

to the poster who is using ALA to chelate mercury, can you comment on the statement in my 1st post that says using ALA alone is dangerous because all ALA does is dislodge the mercury and it goes to other areas and doesn't get it out of the body.

Andy doesn't recommend Chlorella for mercury chelation and I agree. From what I understand it forms a weak bond and basically just moves it around. I have a legitimate mercury problem and taking chlorella made me much, much worse. I use ALA and or DMSA at LEAST every 3 hours. Around the clock. To keep the blood levels as steady as possible.

[Saber]

This sounds like ALA can actually aggravate mercury poisoning by dislodging and moving it around without actually taking it out of the body, one of the inherent danger of heavy metal chelation.

I recently bought NA-RALA but now a bit hesitant to take it. Since it does have the ability to cross the BBB and according to this thread, only forms a weak bond with mercury, dislodging and having it freely move around, it could potentially cause further damage.

If anyone has any further information on this, please do post it.

Edited by Saber, 05 November 2009 - 12:39 AM.

[hamishm00]

That's speculation, but you may be right.

[LIB]

This sounds like ALA can actually aggravate mercury poisoning by dislodging and moving it around without actually taking it out of the body, one of the inherent danger of heavy metal chelation.

I recently bought NA-RALA but now a bit hesitant to take it. Since it does have the ability to cross the BBB and according to this thread, only forms a weak bond with mercury, dislodging and having it freely move around, it could potentially cause further damage.

If anyone has any further information on this, please do post it.

ALA is reduced to DHLA which has two thiol groups, thus making it a strong chelator. The weak chelator's only have 1 thiol group.

So ALA is not inherently dangerous. It CAN be dangerous because if you don't keep your blood levels as constant as possible, (taking ALA every 3 hours round the clock, for at least 3 days at a time), all you're doing is moving mercury around the body instead of excreting it.

[Blue]

Lots of claims in this threads, no sources. Where are the sources for the ALA is dangerous regarding mercury? I would defnitely not take ALA every 3 hours. No studies on this and if the ALA=brief chemical insult theory is correct, then continous intake is likely outright damaging, like continous exercise would be.

[Saber]

This sounds like ALA can actually aggravate mercury poisoning by dislodging and moving it around without actually taking it out of the body, one of the inherent danger of heavy metal chelation.

I recently bought NA-RALA but now a bit hesitant to take it. Since it does have the ability to cross the BBB and according to this thread, only forms a weak bond with mercury, dislodging and having it freely move around, it could potentially cause further damage.

If anyone has any further information on this, please do post it.

ALA is reduced to DHLA which has two thiol groups, thus making it a strong chelator. The weak chelator's only have 1 thiol group.

So ALA is not inherently dangerous. It CAN be dangerous because if you don't keep your blood levels as constant as possible, (taking ALA every 3 hours round the clock, for at least 3 days at a time), all you're doing is moving mercury around the body instead of excreting it.

Now we have two different claims. One person says ALA is a weak chelator, someone else says it's a strong chelator. The question is who is right.

I would never take ALA if it is a weak chelator. Someone said it's safe if you take it with another chelator but if this second chelator can't cross the BBB, how will it pick up the heavy metals that ALA has loosen?

We have seen far too many people messed up by chelation treatment. I'm staying far away from ALA until someone brings up a source proving that it is a strong chelator.

[kurt9]

I saw a post from Andy who said Chlorella is a bad thing to ingest since he thinks it may contain mercury and other toxins.

Mercola suggest using chlorella to eliminate mercury in the stool.

I'm confused.

to the poster who is using ALA to chelate mercury, can you comment on the statement in my 1st post that says using ALA alone is dangerous because all ALA does is dislodge the mercury and it goes to other areas and doesn't get it out of the body.

Your body excretes the Mercury on its own but cannot get rid of any Mercury that has crossed the blood-brain barrier. ALA is necessary to remove (chelate) Mercury from the brain, adrenal and pituitary glands (which are also inside the blood-brain barrier. Once the Mercury is removed to the rest of the body, your body gets rid of it naturally over a 80 or so day half-life period.

[LIB]

Lots of claims in this threads, no sources. Where are the sources for the ALA is dangerous regarding mercury? I would defnitely not take ALA every 3 hours. No studies on this and if the ALA=brief chemical insult theory is correct, then continous intake is likely outright damaging, like continous exercise would be.

I tried to answer every question directly, but they got sillier, and sillier. There's the facts for those interested.

http://en.wikipedia....e_as_a_chelator

[Alexwkt]

ALA is a strong chelator, I did not study chemistry but have read enough to understand what is important, chelators work on thiol bonds, single thiols like green veg, chlorella (don't take this stuff if you are mercury toxic it mobiles mercury with a weak bond and moves it round the body) pick up mercury and drop it very quickly so a mercury atom can be draw from say fat in the body where it is doing no real harm then it is moved into say the heart, brain, adrenals where it will really knock you about, been there done it with chlorella anyone suggesting it is good to use needs to go back to school and learn chemistry.

ALA is the only di-thiol that crosses the brain barrier it bond with mercury atoms at two points creating a much stronger bond than single thiols, I have used it for 3 years with very good results. Once again anyone suggesting that it needs to be used in conjunction with other chelators needs to do a bit more learning, it is true that ALA with DMSA or ALA with DMPS can be a good combo but it needs to be understood why. When first starting out with chelators it is important to note that there may not be an equilibrium of metals throughout the body and that the body might have higher concentrations than the brain. If you take ALA when the body concentrations are higher than the brain you will push mercury into the brain, this is why you might need DMSA or DMPS to lower the body burden first, you take the DMSA or DMPS without ALA for a few months just to bring levels down, then start on the ALA.

3 years of chelation has given me massive benefits, lowered my aluminium by 90%, mercury by 60%, cadmium by 50%, lead by 60%, if you want to know how I know, I did hair tests, which are not good for ongoing progress reports, I did lymphocyte sensitivity testing with additional tests that show the impact of say mercury on the metabolism, all show that I am improving at a reasonable rate, I have gone from bedridden to almost normal functioning in that 3 years.

I took ALA on a single 600mg dose per day, this made me very sick over the course of a few months, I looked into the Andy Cutler protocol and have followed that since, I have modified the protocol because I need to dose very frequently or I get sick, having done 100's of rounds of durations from 3 days to 50 days I consider myself pretty experienced in chelating, it is not without issues, but chelating to the half life of the chelator is very important, this is my schedule:- 12am, 2:45am, 5am, 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9:15pm if I move out to 3 hour dosing I wake up very groggy in the mornings so this is why the night doses are like they are. Today I take 150mg of ALA on that schedule putting me well over 1.5gm per day with no other chelators but lots of antioxidants and other supplements to support the process.

Dosing ALA correctly is the difference between getting better or making matters worse, and of course you have to be amalgam free before taking it.

atb

alex

[Alexwkt]

How do you guys know that mercury is causing your problems? Have you had any analytical work done?

tests I have had done:-

DNA hair analysis
Hair mineral and toxic tests
Blood tests (not very useful but showed mercury moving round my blood under a microscope, saw with my own eyes)
Lymphocyte sensitivity tests
Toxic effects tests linked to the lympho test above, will give % scores of the impact of each chemical on your metabolism.
ATP profile test. (showed that my magnesium levels were very low 20% of what they should be, my zinc at a cellular level has been replaced by mercury). This test was used to work out my level of CFS which at the time, my krebs recycling was running at 20% of the normal figures.
Fat biopsy test.

All tests were done over the course of a few years using different doctors and different labs ALL showed mercury problems, I have DNA gene issues due to both mercury and formaldehyde (this is very complex and is related to the mercury as well).

atb

alex

[Alexwkt]

It is worth mentioning about the chelator bonding none of the bond either single or di-thiol are permanent a mercury atom is bonded to and dropped many times on its journey out of the body, with single thiols this happens much more frequently as the bond is much weaker, but even with ALA mercury is picked up and dropped many times, I explain the process a bit like waves on a beach moving stones up and down the beach, this is why maintaining a level of chelator in the bloodstream is so important.

One year of chelation I noted how I felt all the way through the rounds, the process went like this, start the round, feel ok for about an hour, then start to feel the chelators kick in, I used to get tinitus and eye floaters at this point, day one would be reasonably ok, then day 2 went like this, serious fatigue sometimes on waking, but most of the time this kicked in mid morning, it did not take me long to work out that my adrenals were playing up, I got tested and my 8am cortisol levels were approx a 3rd of what they should be, 160nmol/l (rather than 450+nmol/l) so spent about 6 months trying to manage this and failed, my doctor put me on hydrocortisone and this fixed that problem. What I did note was it was only day 2 of the round and the day after finishing that my adrenals played up and all other days I did not need hydrocortisone, this was why I tried very long rounds I did very well on them with the exception of day 2 on and the day after finishing, this has proved to me that once the chelator dose levels out in the blood the impact of chelation in how I feel is lessened very much.

One other observation is whilst on round, my ability study effectively is greatly reduced, the amount of repeats of information to get me to remember it is quadrupled over the off round repeats, this again has been very consistent and I don't chelate in the two weeks leading up to exams. Currently on day 8 of a 150mg every 2 hours round and feeling pretty good.

atb

alex

[pone11]

It is worth mentioning about the chelator bonding none of the bond either single or di-thiol are permanent a mercury atom is bonded to and dropped many times on its journey out of the body, with single thiols this happens much more frequently as the bond is much weaker, but even with ALA mercury is picked up and dropped many times, I explain the process a bit like waves on a beach moving stones up and down the beach, this is why maintaining a level of chelator in the bloodstream is so important.

One year of chelation I noted how I felt all the way through the rounds, the process went like this, start the round, feel ok for about an hour, then start to feel the chelators kick in, I used to get tinitus and eye floaters at this point, day one would be reasonably ok, then day 2 went like this, serious fatigue sometimes on waking, but most of the time this kicked in mid morning, it did not take me long to work out that my adrenals were playing up, I got tested and my 8am cortisol levels were approx a 3rd of what they should be, 160nmol/l (rather than 450+nmol/l) so spent about 6 months trying to manage this and failed, my doctor put me on hydrocortisone and this fixed that problem. What I did note was it was only day 2 of the round and the day after finishing that my adrenals played up and all other days I did not need hydrocortisone, this was why I tried very long rounds I did very well on them with the exception of day 2 on and the day after finishing, this has proved to me that once the chelator dose levels out in the blood the impact of chelation in how I feel is lessened very much.

One other observation is whilst on round, my ability study effectively is greatly reduced, the amount of repeats of information to get me to remember it is quadrupled over the off round repeats, this again has been very consistent and I don't chelate in the two weeks leading up to exams. Currently on day 8 of a 150mg every 2 hours round and feeling pretty good.
 

 

Alex, is your protocol and diary of your three year chelation written up anywhere?   If you ever come back to Longecity, please let us know, and if possible please contact me

[Alexwkt]

Hi pone11,

 

I did not write a diary as I did not have the time, what I can say is I am still chelating I am at over 600 days on round with a long way to go, I am making improvements all of the time but have setback as well, the AC protocol is the way to go, and going slow is very important, I did a lot of things wrong (mainly professionals making mistakes and me trusting them) but as long as you are 100% sure you have no amalgam then the AC protocol is good.

 

To put this into perspective I went from completely bedridden for many months to about 95% functioning over about 2 years of solid chelation, the last 5% is going to take many many years for me.

 

atb

 

alex

[pone11]

Hi pone11,

 

I did not write a diary as I did not have the time, what I can say is I am still chelating I am at over 600 days on round with a long way to go, I am making improvements all of the time but have setback as well, the AC protocol is the way to go, and going slow is very important, I did a lot of things wrong (mainly professionals making mistakes and me trusting them) but as long as you are 100% sure you have no amalgam then the AC protocol is good.

 

To put this into perspective I went from completely bedridden for many months to about 95% functioning over about 2 years of solid chelation, the last 5% is going to take many many years for me.

 

 

I think what you report is the best outcome you could even expect.   The last 5% might involves symptoms from other causes, and the chelators might have dysregulated other things that then need fine-tuning.   Are you getting a Genova ION Profile periodically to check on nutritional status?

[protoject]

This sounds like ALA can actually aggravate mercury poisoning by dislodging and moving it around without actually taking it out of the body, one of the inherent danger of heavy metal chelation.

I recently bought NA-RALA but now a bit hesitant to take it. Since it does have the ability to cross the BBB and according to this thread, only forms a weak bond with mercury, dislodging and having it freely move around, it could potentially cause further damage.

If anyone has any further information on this, please do post it.

 

I don't have any further info in terms of scientific reports, but both periods during which i took ALA, and at a later time frame NA-R-ALA, it severely messed me up. It felt like my brain was breaking down and that I was starting to hallucinate and felt like I was dying. I am not sure why this happened but I would suspect that it is due to the heavy metals being dislodged and moved around. I haven't been reading on this topic for a few years but from what I remember heavy metals are a lot safer when they are in an immobolized state, whereas if you mobilize them they can easily start causing more damage at that point. In the end of it all I was never a fan of all this Andy Cutler shit and I feel that it's probably the purest quackery and obsessiveness that there is. I could be wrong but I know I will likely never touch any form of ALA again. I'm surprised that I don't hear people having the types of reactions I did.

Edit:forgot to mention i did take DMSA as well during the second time frame.

I don't think it's really safe to do this sort of thing without medical supervision and without any real reason. The whole approach is really speculative.

Edited by protoject, 07 January 2015 - 07:58 AM.

[Alexwkt]

The key to taking ALA (not R-ALA this is no good as the half life does not work like ALA if I remember correctly), it dose size and frequency, mobilising metals will make you sick this is why you do rounds then recover, ALA is the only thing that has reduced my mercury load and I have tried a lot of things, I don't agree with Andy on a number of things but his ideas around ALA are solid IMHO, I know many doctors who follow his protocol very successfully, he is not a quack IMHO, going from pretty much a vegative state to 95% functional on a lot of ALA rounds proves without a shadow of doubt for me that done right ALA is the key to resolving these types of issues.

 

On the group I was on with 1,000's of members taking ALA a lot of people had issues but only very few had very specific issues with ALA itself taken in the right dosage was key for most people, given that when I started I could not handle 10mg of ALA and now I could if I wanted take 200mg without the same issues as the 10mg was when I started shows that there is an improving and it is significant.

 

Supporting supplements whilst chelating is absolutely key and it is different for every person.

 

atb

 

alex

[protoject]

Yes but is there any evidence that having a specific blood level of ALA somehow stops mercury and other metals from being dropped off in other places at any time? I would imagine that it's more likely the mercury/other heavy metal will be picked up by the ALA but I couldn't imagine that there's some set in stone rule that says it's definitely not going to let the mercury be dropped off somewhere else long enough that it will not cause damage there. Also is there an upstream to downstream direction that the picked up heavy metals would travel in? For example who is to say that mercury wouldn't be picked up from one part of my body where it's not too harmful and drop it somewhere else where it could cause much more of a problem?

[niner]

I don't have any further info in terms of scientific reports, but both periods during which i took ALA, and at a later time frame NA-R-ALA, it severely messed me up. It felt like my brain was breaking down and that I was starting to hallucinate and felt like I was dying. I am not sure why this happened but I would suspect that it is due to the heavy metals being dislodged and moved around.

 

You might have been hypoglycemic; ALA lowers blood sugar.  It made me feel light-headed. 

 

Alex, from the schedule you posted, it looks like you were waking up multiple times per night in order to dose ALA.  Seems like that would really mess up your sleep.  Did you ever look at time-release ALA? 

[pone11]

 

I don't have any further info in terms of scientific reports, but both periods during which i took ALA, and at a later time frame NA-R-ALA, it severely messed me up. It felt like my brain was breaking down and that I was starting to hallucinate and felt like I was dying. I am not sure why this happened but I would suspect that it is due to the heavy metals being dislodged and moved around.

 

You might have been hypoglycemic; ALA lowers blood sugar.  It made me feel light-headed. 

 

Alex, from the schedule you posted, it looks like you were waking up multiple times per night in order to dose ALA.  Seems like that would really mess up your sleep.  Did you ever look at time-release ALA? 

 

 

Cutler's chelation protocol is based on maintaining a nearly constant level of chelator in the blood.  He is keyed on the half life of lipoic acid being three hours.    Taking a time release formulation would likely give you a very high level followed by a constantly diminishing level and would be very hard to understand exactly what is going on.

 

What happens when the chelator dose approaches zero is that mercury that is in transit resettles to a new part of the body and causes symptoms.

 

Cutler has you terminate the entire chelation round if you miss a single dose.   So he is dead serious about following the three hour rule.

[Alexwkt]

Time release ALA defeats the the idea of the half life and will not work, I have thought about doing ALA on a drip but I think you would run into other issues, I have missed doses on round and tried to continue and failed 100% of the time, the half life is the key to the AC protocol, 3 hours between doses is way too long during the day, genetically I am a very fast metaboliser and need to take the chelator at every 2 hours during the day at 2:15 past the last dose I can feel issues so dose timing is very important to me.

 

Getting up at night once you have done as many days as I have (600+) is not a problem as long as you layout the capsule by the side of the bed next to the alarm clock you will go back to sleep pretty quickly, this part of the process is the one that people try to cheat at and fail every time, it is key to take the chelator day and night for at least 68 hours.

 

As I said in a previous post the bond between the chelator and the mercury atom is not permenant the mecury is picked up and dropped many times on its journey out of the body, the whole idea is maintaining a constant flow of the chelator in the blood, whilst this is not part of the AC protocol this works I have spoken to Andy about it, you can gradually move the chelator dose up during the round, you must not lower it but gradually incrementing it works so you can do things like start on 10mg for a day or 2 then move up to 20mg for a few days and keep on moving it up, because there is an ever increasing amount of the chelator it works ok.

 

For me 8 days is the sweet spot at 8 days into a round my body normalises, my adrenals play nice, I can lower my Hydrocortisone intake by half I forget I am on the round other than the alarm, all of the lightheadedness goes away, I have done rounds up to 50 days at 200mg with good breaks at the end.

 

atb

 

alex

 

 

[pone11]

Time release ALA defeats the the idea of the half life and will not work, I have thought about doing ALA on a drip but I think you would run into other issues, I have missed doses on round and tried to continue and failed 100% of the time, the half life is the key to the AC protocol, 3 hours between doses is way too long during the day, genetically I am a very fast metaboliser and need to take the chelator at every 2 hours during the day at 2:15 past the last dose I can feel issues so dose timing is very important to me.

 

Getting up at night once you have done as many days as I have (600+) is not a problem as long as you layout the capsule by the side of the bed next to the alarm clock you will go back to sleep pretty quickly, this part of the process is the one that people try to cheat at and fail every time, it is key to take the chelator day and night for at least 68 hours.

 

As I said in a previous post the bond between the chelator and the mercury atom is not permenant the mecury is picked up and dropped many times on its journey out of the body, the whole idea is maintaining a constant flow of the chelator in the blood, whilst this is not part of the AC protocol this works I have spoken to Andy about it, you can gradually move the chelator dose up during the round, you must not lower it but gradually incrementing it works so you can do things like start on 10mg for a day or 2 then move up to 20mg for a few days and keep on moving it up, because there is an ever increasing amount of the chelator it works ok.

 

For me 8 days is the sweet spot at 8 days into a round my body normalises, my adrenals play nice, I can lower my Hydrocortisone intake by half I forget I am on the round other than the alarm, all of the lightheadedness goes away, I have done rounds up to 50 days at 200mg with good breaks at the end.

 

 

Have you mentioned using a two hour schedule to Cutler?   It's interesting that this reduced your symptoms.  What would happen on a three hour schedule?

 

A 50 day round is enormous.  I would be pretty concerned about dysregulation of minerals, even with ALA.  You were doing DMSA during those entire 50 days too?   Kind of scary.

 

How many days off after a 50 day round on?

 

Have you ever thought about trying a liposomal ALA?   It's so convenient to reduce a dose to a single spray....

Edited by pone11, 08 January 2015 - 06:38 AM.