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Maybe It's Mercury

Symptoms of Mercury Poisoning from Amalgam Fillings

Are you struggling with chronic fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, anxiety, insomnia, or persistent allergies? These symptoms are among the many things chronic mercury poisoning can cause. If you have or have had dental amalgams or extended exposure to high‑mercury seafood, you may be suffering from chronic mercury poisoning.

Thousands of people have had dramatic recoveries from chronic illness by detoxing mercury. The most conservative and consequently safest way to do this is a low-dose, oral chelation method known as the Andy Cutler Chelation Protocol.

Let me be your guide. I can help evaluate you for mercury poisoning and other heavy metal toxicities and work out a plan for you to finally get better!

Rebecca Rust Lee

Certified Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition

Coauthor, with Andy Cutler, PhD, of The Mercury Detoxification Manual.

About Me

How You May Have Got Poisoned with Mercury

In the general population, the biggest exposure to mercury is amalgam dental fillings. These are 50% mercury by weight and mercury offgasses from them and goes on to accumulate in your brain and organs. This is a slow and incremental chronic toxicity and builds up over time.

There are many other ways to get mercury and heavy metal poisoning. Because this toxicity accumulates and builds up over time, an exposure you got years ago and forgot about may be causing you trouble today.

Ingestion: Eating fish and seafood contaminated with methylmercury in their tissues,
Environmental exposure: Workers in industries like mining, metallurgy, and manufacturing may be exposed to mercury vapor.
Household exposure: Some skin-lightening creams, antiseptics, and ointments may contain mercury.
Medicinal mercury: mercury has been used in various medical applications for the past 150 years.

While it may be easy to get poisoned by mercury, it does not come out of your body easily. Safe amalgam removal to halt ongoing exposure, and proper mercury chelation to detoxify the body are critical.

Common Symptoms of Mercury Poisoning

There are few substances that are as poisonous as mercury, yet it is so interesting and beautiful, and so technologically useful, that it is found everywhere in the environment. It is very easy to get exposed to mercury.

Everyone has some of it in their body. The question is, is it enough to interfere with your biochemistry and make you sick? Accumulate enough of it and it will make you sick, It interferes with a vast number of metabolic processes. and it can cause hundreds of different symptoms. Any individual may experience some or a great number of these at any time.

Common symptoms I see include:

Neurological Symptoms:

Memory problems or difficulty concentrating
Fatigue and/or brain fog
Irritability, mood swings, and/or anxiety

Physical Symptoms:

Thyroid issues coupled with chronic fatigue
Muscle weakness or aches
Joint pain
Nausea or digestive issues

Psychological Symptoms:

Depression or low mood
Insomnia or sleep disturbances
Nervousness and emotional instability

Common Causes of Mercury Poisoning

Mercury poisoning or mercury toxicity can come from a variety of exposures like amalgam fillings, a heavy seafood diet, environmental and iatrogenic exposures. Chronic low-level exposures build up over time and gradually produce symptoms.

Symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning can vary based on exposure level, individual sensitivity, and health status. Acute poisoning is less likely and usually comes from industrial accidents, which do not happen often anymore, although here is a discussion of one distressing example.

In the general population, the biggest source of mercury exposure is dental amalgam fillings These are 50% mercury by weight. Mercury evaporates from these fillings and goes on to accumulate in the brain and organs. Activities like chewing gum or getting your fillings polished by the dental hygienist, will cause more vapor to be produced. This vapor easily penetrates cell walls and the blood brain barrier and builds up in the cells, brain and other sensitive organs.

There are many ways to get poisoned and an exposure that happened years ago can still be causing you trouble today.

Here are some common ways people get exposed to mercury:

Ingestion: Eating fish and seafood contaminated with methylmercury in their tissues
Environmental exposure: Workers in industries like mining, metallurgy, and manufacturing may be exposed to mercury vapor.
Household exposure: Some skin-lightening creams, antiseptics, and ointments may contain hidden mercury.
Iatrogenic exposures: Mercury has been used in various medical products for at least 150 years.

Testing for Mercury Poisoning

If you have a long-term, chronic exposure to mercury, such as amalgam fillings, blood and urine levels can be low while organ levels can be dramatically high. Mercury clears the blood, for instance, in a few months after an acute exposure.

The only really effective test for mercury toxicity would be biopsy of an organ, such as the brain, after death. Nevertheless, below are some tests that are commonly used.

Challenge Tests
These involve administering a bolus dose of the chelators DMPS or DMSA and then measuring how much metal comes out in the urine. Because these are not fat-soluble chelators, they do not access the mercury in the organs that is causing the real problems. Also, a single bolus dose of a chelator will mobilize everything it can find and the body will be unable to excrete it all. Much of it will be redistributed, possibly to some place that is worse than where it started out. Not everyone has an adverse reaction to these tests, but many do, and we hear from them when they join our support groups after getting injured. These tests are not diagnostic and can potentially do more harm than good.

Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis
This is a useful test for evaluating for mercury and some other metals. Mercury interferes with mineral transport across cell walls and this situation will show up in the essential elements section of a hair test. Andy Cutler developed 5 statistical rules to test for this, “deranged mineral transport” that only mercury causes. Deranged mineral transport is one of the ways that mercury can make you sick. If this shows up on a hair test then you can assume it is messing with your metabolism in other ways as well. Andy Cutler wrote a book on how to interpret hair tests: Hair Test Interpretation, Finding Hidden Toxicities, How to interpret a hair test is also explained in The Mercury Detoxification Manual.

Muscle Testing and Other Detection Methods
Some practitioners use electrical machines or applied kinesiology (muscle testing), and these may provide some useful information. Chronic mercury is so ubiquitous that you can almost assume that if you have wound up testing for it, then you have it. At least these methods won’t hurt you, as a challenge test easily may.

A Therapeutic Trial of Chelation
The best test to see if you have mercury in your body causing you symptoms, is to do a therapeutic trial of chelation. You cannot do this if you have any amalgam fillings in your mouth and it needs to be done according to the rules of the Andy Cutler protocol. If, however, you have any reaction to a mercury chelator, good or bad, that means there is something there to be chelated.

Natural Ways to Recover from Mercury Poisoning

Once mercury is in your brain and other organs, it will not come out on its own in any meaningful amounts. It has to be chelated using a fat-soluble, dithiol, chelator. Mercury that is in your blood and other extracellular spaces will be available to be detoxed in other ways.

Nutritional Support
Everybody who has a mercury problem will benefit from taking two minerals and two antioxidants (“the core four”) that particularly oppose the bad things mercury does to you. These are magnesium, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin E. It is a good idea to start taking these as soon as you can and to have been on them at least two weeks before you start moving metals around. These supplements will not reduce your mercury burden, but they will make you feel better and stop some of the damage.

Stop Exposure
You mustn’t start chelating mercury until you have identified and removed current exposures. The biggest exposure that most people have is mercury amalgam fillings. Please find a dentist who understands the danger and how to protect you from mercury vapor when you go to get these removed.

Support Your Body’s Detox Pathways
In addition to “the core four” it is a good idea to support your liver. The most popular supplement for this is milk thistle extract. Here is a Fullscript Because the HPA axis is a target system for mercury, most people with this problem will need adrenal support, as well. Here is a video about adrenal support and some supplements you can take.

Detox Practices and Symptom Control

Sweating therapies: The only way to detox mercury other than chelation, is via sweating. Regular saunas are the best kind to use. Infrared saunas, if they are not high quality, can off-gas, and it is important that they have enough heaters to heat your body evenly. Keep in mind that sauna will only access extracellular mercury. Exercise is always good, especially if it makes you sweat. But keep in mind that toxic people can be very sensitive to overdoing things so exercise carefully and in moderation.

Diet is the most effective way to control symptoms while you are detoxing. At the very minimum you should stick to organic as much as possible. After that it depends on what works for you. A vegan diet, for instance, may be just the thing for one person but catastrophic for the next. In general, I suggest sticking to The Weston A. Price Society for diet advice, although which diet works for which person is a quite individual thing, and can also change over the course of this detoxing process.

What mercury poisoning looks like

If you have mercury poisoning, depending on your particular biochemistry, you will experience a constellation of different symptoms. Which symptoms show up will depend on how susceptible you are, where the poison wound up in your body and how much of it you have. Below is a list of some of the symptoms that can happen to you.

SOME SYMPTOMS OF MERCURY TOXICITY

ADD/ADHD
Adrenal Fatigue
Allergies+A1:D55
ALS
Alzheimer's Disease
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Anorexia Nervosa
Anxiety
Asthma
Autism
Autoimmune Disease
Bipolar Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Bulimia
Burning or Itchy Skin
Cancer
Chronic Fatigue
Colitis
Crohn's Disease

Depersonalization
Depression
Dizziness/Vertigo
Eczema/Psoriasis
Endocrine Problems
Environmental Illness
Epstein Barr
Fibromyalgia
Frequent Urination/Interstitial Cystitis
Gastritis
Headaches
Heart Problems
IBS
Impaired Methylation
Insomnia
Intrusive Thoughts/Suicidal Ideation
Juvenile Arthritis
Leaky Gut
Learning Disabilities

Low Hormone Levels/ Infertility
Low Neurotransmitter Levels
Lupus Erythematosus
MS
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities
Myasthenia Gravis
Nervousness/Irritabiity
OCD
Panic Attacks
Parasites
Parkinson's Disease
Peripheral Neuropathy
Procrastination
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
Sciatica
Sleep Disorders
TMJ
Yeast Overgrowth/Dysbiosis

The medical and scientific literature is packed with this information and has been for at least 150 years. You don’t have to look far to find it.

Visit for more information on symptoms and conditions.

The Mercury Detoxification Manual

I wrote this book with Andy Cutler, PHD, PE, pioneer of mercury chelation. In it, we identify the sources of how you may be exposed and poisoned by mercury or other heavy metals, such as lead. It takes you step by step through how to detox using a low-dose, oral chelation method. Nothing else works half as well. This information has been out there for at least 20 years, but this is the first time it is written in a style that even the most cognitively impaired and brain-fogged layperson can understand and follow.

From the book:

“There is no profit to be made by diagnosing and treating mercury poisoning. If there were, any chemist at any pharmaceutical company, by reading the same standard medical texts that Andy read, would come up with this same protocol: low-dose, oral chelation, based on the half-life of the chelators.”

p.43

“Dietary supplements and prescription drugs are all chemicals. Neither are magically better than the other. We simply want you to use those chemicals that will make you feel better. Our experience has been that dietary supplements are more likely to be tolerated and are often as useful as drugs, although for certain conditions prescription drugs are necessary and do work better.”

P.77

“There are many diseases of unknown origin that can “just be mercury.” These include multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and many more. If you have a chronic disease for which nobody knows the cause, look closely at the possibility of mercury poisoning. Mercury poisoning is curable, whereas these chronic diseases rarely are.”

p.17

You can get this book and the other books Andy wrote at my

Book Store

This book is a definitive guide to help anyone detox mercury in a safe and methodical way. It helps identify your issues, tells you what to do, how to do it, and most importantly what not to do.

- J Powell

The Detox Manual is the only book you need to safely detox mercury from the body. If you are doing any detoxing, don’t go anywhere else. All the information you will need is in this book. This book has saved my life.

- Georgia B

Coaching and Consulting

With one-on-one coaching, I can create a personalized detox program based on your symptoms and their intensity. You’ll learn how to dose chelators so you won’t stress your system while you detox mercury and other heavy metals. I will also suggest supplements and things to ask your doctor to help you with your symptoms while you detox.

Session Coaching

With one-on-one coaching I can create a personalized detox program based on your symptoms and their intensity. You’ll learn the right dose of chelators that won’t stress your system while you detox mercury and other heavy metals like lead.

Self-Guided Workshop

A series of short and easy-to-follow video lessons with some additional interesting resources. The workshop explains how to detoxify from mercury and other toxic elements based on my book The Mercury Detoxification Manual.

Support Group

Join a community and gain insights and guidance from a broader group of people with similar and shared experiences. There is a group zoom call on Sundays as well.

Learn More

Videos interviews and information

Explore my “Maybe it’s Mercury” YouTube channel where I post videos that discuss mercury toxicity, inspirational case studies and interviews, and insights about the significance of this toxicity.

Sam tells us about the progress he has made chelating lead and mercury since he started out totally disabled and with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and autism.

Robert suffered from serious lead exposure. He talks about probiotics in relation to the process of chelating

Kelly Gonzalez learned about mercury exposure and how to detox after working 17 years as a dental assistant.

Molly recounts how she recovered after being ‘bed-ridden and broke’ and barely able to walk ten feet.

Visit and subscribe to my YouTube channel

Maybe It's Mercury

Heavy metal detox supplements

Order from my Fullscript dispensary

I put together several supplement packages like the Core 4 and other combinations to support and detox your liver, or support and heal your adrenals.

Get the Core 4 plus

Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Adrenal Cortex particularly oppose the bad things that mercury does to you.

Get a huge discount and support me at the same time by ordering your supplements from my Fullscript dispensary (Sorry, only available in the USA.)

There are loads of other supplements you can use to help you feel better while you detox. I have put together several packages like “The Core 4.” There are other combinations to support your liver, or support and heal your adrenals.

Get a huge discount

Frequently Asked Questions

on Mercury Poisoning and Treatment Options

My doctor says I should do a challenge test, do a DMPS IV, take chelators once a day and so forth.

Be very cautious about taking the advice of doctors, naturopaths, chiropractors and other providers. They do not have the proper background or technical education to guide you. Frequent low dose chelation is the only way to remove metals safely. Any other way carries significant risk. Chelate properly and get well!

Does chelation remove important minerals?

No. The chelators discussed in The Mercury Detoxification Manual, alpha lipoic acid, DMSA and DMPS, are highly selective for heavy metals. They do not directly remove the lighter nutrient metals. People who have mercury often have low magnesium and zinc because mercury keeps your body from holding on to them. When chelating, this problem may be exacerbated for magnesium. No other metal is affected.

Shouldn’t I heal my gut, cure my candida, clear out my detox pathways before I start chelating?

These problems will never clear up until you chelate. You can treat them at the same time as you are chelating. Chelating will allow your immune system to work properly and combat these problems. Do not put off chelating for more than two weeks.

What are the symptoms of mercury amalgam toxicity?

Mercury interferes with so many of the body’s systems that it can cause 250 or more different symptoms. People will experience a constellation of different symptoms depending on their own particular biochemistry. Which symptoms show up will depend on how susceptible you are, where the poison wound up in your body and how much of it you have. The illness is progressive and the symptoms may come and go, or change. It may take years or decades for the symptoms to develop into a case of frank mercury poisoning. Here is a link to a good list of symptoms.

What are the early warning signs of mercury poisoning?

Although mercury symptoms tend to vary from person to person, fairly common early warning signs could be free-floating anxiety, unexplained fatigue and/or odd aches and pains that change from place to place.

What are the symptoms of a leaking silver filling?

A “leaking filling” implies that you are getting exposed to mercury even faster than the slow off-gassing from an intact filling. If you have sensitivity around a silver filling, and you are feeling anxious and tired all the time, that would be suspicious for the filling leaking.

How do you know if mercury is in your body?

There is no direct test for mercury in your body other than biopsy of an organ. You will need to look at the symptoms you have, compare them to a list, and think carefully about your history of exposure.

Aside from the huge laundry list of possible symptoms, you may very well have mercury poisoning if any of the following are true:

you have been told by a doctor to see a therapist when you were obviously physically ill,
you have a medical file more than an inch thick,
you have a cupboard bursting with supplements and medicine,
you have consulted multiple doctors and other practitioners without much progress.
you have tried all kinds of different diets and cleanses without much success.
Being interested enough to read all this information so far may well be diagnostic.

How to Test for Mercury Toxicity?

A Toxic and Essential Elements hair test may show “deranged mineral transport” which only mercury can cause. If you have this going on, you can assume that you have enough mercury in your body to make you sick in other ways as well. The test to order is Doctor’s Data Essential Elements hair test. You can order this from my Fullscript account by sending me an email. (Sorry, only available in the USA). You can also order through Direct Labs ( USA and international)

A therapeutic trial of a chelator is the “acid test” for metals. If you react to a chelator, that means there is something there to chelate. Be sure to educate yourself about the guidelines of the Cutler protocol as taking chelators randomly can be dangerous.

Testimonials on the Cutler Protocol

Hear from people who have detoxed with the Cutler Protocol and have successfully remediated their symptoms or health issues.

- Giovanni

As a result of severe mercury toxicity and redistribution, I found it impossible to wade through the endless pages and information regarding the do's and don'ts of chelation therapy. I had already done several if not all, of the 'don'ts'. I needed someone like Rebecca who's been through it to help me stay away from the don'ts, so that I could get better as soon as possible. I tried group forums but they didn't help. I would have to wait days for the answer, and there were so many off-topic comments. With Rebecca I was able to get the right answer right away, no waiting. No confusion.

I highly recommend Rebecca as your chelation coach because everyone needs someone like her by their side. She is reasonably priced and prompt with her emails and always willing to call or Skype in tight spots when I really needed someone to talk to. I could not have got this far without Rebecca Rust Lee."

Thank you, Rebecca!

- J.H.

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Rebecca Rust Lee for the tremendous work she did in creating The Mercury Detoxification Manual. I read that book first, and after successfully chelating for about four months to incredible improvement, bought and read Andy's original Amalgam Illness almost cover to cover.

AI is a remarkably thorough and cogent textbook on chronic mercury poisoning and its cure, but the sheer quantity and complexity of the information presented was overwhelming, even after reading everything else I could get my hands on on the topic (and becoming a health nut the last two years before that), not to mention the lack of specificity in some areas (like supplementation dosages) and learned experience from two decades of internet discussion.

If I had read AI first, I might never have chelated at all, or these last few months would have been extremely difficult. The MDM is billed as "written for the severely brain-fogged," and I could not agree more. AI is what I would give to my physician. The MDM is what I would give to a friend.

Thank you, Rebecca, from the bottom of my heart.

- Vivian W.

I am now so much happier, more easy-going, and at peace with myself than I ever thought possible! I don’t constantly run on adrenaline, feeling that I need to be everything to everyone, and always worried that people think that I am not enough. My husband tells me that I am easier to love and our relationship, which I always thought was quite good, has become much better. Poor guy, sometimes he really had to walk on eggshells around me, and I usually thought it was HIS fault. Now I know better.

A couple of weeks ago, I had three different people on three different days tell me that I look younger, and I truly FEEL younger. I have a long way to go before I finish chelating, but I KNOW that this protocol works and I am living proof of it. I am confident that things will just get better from here on. Happy chelating!

- HDL

We have done 375 rounds with our son and he is so miraculously better - though permanent you know what injuries occurred (he had a stroke after some you know whats and he was diagnosed with heavy metal intoxication (mercury poisoning). He suffered some permanent injuries, but ACC and adrenal support brought him from moderate-severe/non-verbal and seriously chronically ill to high functioning, verbal and much much healthier.

We continue because this is the only intervention that ever improved his immune function. He was also diagnosed with a non-specified immune disorder after his you know what reaction.

It caused SO many sufferings for him and so much pain.

He has been doing so well for some time, and I could just walk away and enjoy the benefits of our hard work, but I cannot do that because I will never forget the sufferings he went through, and I know many are just getting started on this journey. People need HOPE. People need to hear from those who have gone through it. We have to pay it forward. Other parents helped me, so now I help other parents if I can.

I could never forget the nine years of hell he went through.

- A PROGRESS REPORT FROM RR

There’s been a few really lovely improvements. I have more energy, patience, capacity to deal with situations, people, changes. I don’t get so drained by being with other people anymore. I have more self-confidence, think more clearly, and devour books again. I go out, do stuff, and enjoy it. I feel like I need to move outside every day. I’ve been going on 2-3 hour-long walks and hikes regularly and love it. For the first time in my life, I have something resembling an interest in and a capacity for cooking. Most of my food sensitivities are gone. I recently had something with gluten, sugar, and lactose, until recently my devil’s trifecta, and didn’t feel anything the next day. For the first time since childhood, “healthy eating” is actually a choice, rather than something I must do if I don’t want to feel utterly crap after.

When thinking about my desires for the future, “full health” isn’t top of the list anymore-more of a side note-since it almost feels like a given now. Almost. There are still a few things that could improve, among which my digestion, adrenals, and my hormonal balance. But one step at a time.