Natural Mercury Detox: Are There Holistic Strategies to Recover from Mercury Poisoning?

Mercury builds up and accumulates in your body. Even if you had your amalgam fillings removed years ago, it will still be there in your organs and brain causing you trouble. Your body has no natural detox systems that can access the mercury that is stored in your brain, and other sensitive organs

Mercury does not come out of your body on its own to any meaningful extent. Once it gets into your brain, for instance, it oxidizes into a non fat-soluble form of itself and gets trapped behind the lipid barriers.. The half-life of mercury in the brain is thought to be 30 years or more.

The only way to get mercury out of your brain organs and cells is through chelation. The main chelator, that can cross cell walls, and the blood brain barrier is actually a “naturally occurring compound.” called Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA), which is sold as an over-the-counter antioxidant.

ALA MUST be used properly or not at all! The other two chelators that work well, are the prescription medications, DMSA and DMPS. We call these “adjunct chelators” as they can only access extra-cellular mercury. (Although DMSA chelates lead.)

Go slow to go far. This is not something you can rush or power through. Mercury is very poisonous, and it affects people in ways that are quite unbearable. Frequent-low-dose chelation or The Andy Cutler Protocol is the most effective method. It is based on pharmacokinetics and moves small amounts of mercury slowly and safely over a long period of time. Find out how to chelate properly by buying “The Mercury Detoxification Manual” or joining our Facebook support group.

First limit and avoid sources of exposure..

See our article on causes of mercury poisoning. You must remove any source of current exposure before you undertake chelation. For most people this means removing your amalgam fillings and limiting mercury in the diet. If you try to chelate while you are being actively exposed, because of the concentration gradient across membranes, you will move mercury the wrong way, i.e. into your brain.

Nourish with supplements before you mobilize.

Before you start working with chelators you should take “the core four” for at least 3 weeks. These are supplements that particularly counteract the effects of mercury.

• Vitamin C: (buffered forms are often gentler) Mercury is very oxidative and you should try and get as much C into your body as you can, and as often as possible. Try liposomal C to see if you can take larger doses. Keep a bowl of C on the table and eat it like candy.

• Magnesium: Mercury tends to make us waste magnesium. You should try to get 800 to 1200 mg, in divided doses, of magnesium (not oxide) into your body each day.

• Zinc: Mercury knocks zinc and magnesium out of the “active site” of certain enzymes and disables them. Take 50 mg of zinc once a day.

• Vitamin E: An antioxidant that gets inside your cells. Take 800 to 1,000 iu once a day.

Track your symptoms

There are no “before and after” tests you can use to measure how much mercury you started with and how much you have now. Mercury clears the blood in a couple of months so a blood test is not useful to evaluate for long-term, chronic exposure. A hair test is more informative. We evaluate hair tests for “deranged mineral transport,” unusual patterns of the essential elements, which only mercury causes and which is one of the ways it makes you sick. A follow-up hair test may look more normal and balanced but a hair test will normalize before you do, and Cutler did not advise people to track progress by using hair tests.

The best way to track progress is by symptoms, so keep a diary of your symptoms as well as to keep track of your supplements and medicines.

What not to do!!!

The internet is full of advice about how to detoxify heavy metals.

Eat as organic as you can. This will spare your liver, a primary target for toxicity, from having to deal with strange chemicals.

About a third of mercury toxic people react badly to “thiols” which are a form of sulphur. It is worth doing the thiol challenge test to see if you are sensitive to thiols. If you are, stopping them will help enormously with your symptoms. The thiol challenge test is outlined in The Mercury Detoxification Manual.

Fasting may be useful in some situations but we consider it too stressful for a mercury toxic person.

Mercury affects various people in very different ways. What diet works for any particular person differs greatly. A carnivore diet may cause great symptom relief in the one person but the next person may thrive on a lot of pasta and cheese. You will need to figure out the best diet for you, although we think that The Weston A. Price Foundation gives excellent advice on how to eat.

Although exercise is universally thought to be a good thing, toxic people often have “post exertional malaise” due to poor adrenal function. Be careful with exercise and don’t overdo it.

Sauna: Sweating will remove extracellular mercury from the body and saunas are a great way to sweat. Just be careful to stay hydrated and don’t overdo things. Toxic people don’t have much leeway as far as extra stress. If you are using a FAR sauna be careful that it is high quality and not off gassing chemicals. Be careful, also, that it has enough heaters in order to heat your body up evenly.