This is my first post here, but I've been reading the Heavy Metal and Chelation subsections of this forum frantically for the last four days in an attempt to try to make sense of what has happened to me. I hope you don't mind if I give you a bit of background on my situation first.

I'm 22 and live in the UK, and for the past year and a half I had noticed that my mind was no where near as clear as it used to be. I had lost much of my creativity and motivation that I had been accustomed to having just a few years prior. I was also sleeping a lot more, taking naps during the day, and never feeling refreshed. I have asthma and it seemed to be at it's worst during this time. There was also a myriad of other symptoms that came and went, most of which I shrugged off and muddled through with a certain apathy (having been so used to being told by doctors for most of my teenage years that a lot of my problems were in my head, and probably all caused by anxiety).

Mainly sparked by a certain frustration at the deterioration of my mental clarity, I went through a period of intense research beginning around this time last year to figure out why I could be getting these symptoms that were so hard to put my finger on. And so fairly quickly I found myself delving into all manner of Conspiracy theories (as it seems more and more people are doing these days). Within the space of about a two weeks I found out about fluoride in medication and toothpaste, the chemicals in food, heavy metals from 'geoengineering', and the mercury in vaccines. I started to get seriously depressed about all this new information, and this Depression lasted for about three months while I was still trying to process what I was learning about the sinister nature of our current situation as a species, and the ruthless and psychopathic nature of those in power. During this period I came to realise how awful my diet had been at university and things started to fall into place. I had literally been living on a junk food diet for two out of the three years of my course, and I found it difficult to contemplate how careless I was in light of this new perspective on things.

I became especially angry when I realised that the flu shots my mother had frantically insisted that I had done every winter (which I had always protested against, due to them making me feel like crap for a couple of days afterwards half the time), were probably the root of most of the problems I was experiencing due to their mercury content. And as I was apparently in the 'high risk group' because of my asthma, I was the most vaccinated in comparison with my siblings.

Needless to say, I swore to myself that I would never get vaccinated again, and refused to get the shot during the winter (which wasn't very well received at home unfortunately). The next thing I did was to make a drastic change to my eating habits – I cut out all obvious junk foods immediately, including pizza, coke and anything highly processed. Within a few weeks I was eating as much raw organic food as I could afford (but also quite a bit of fish for protein), and while I've been toying with slightly different variations of this diet since then, at it's core it has remained unchanged. I found myself losing a lot of the weight I gained at university surprisingly quickly after also giving up bread and pasta (while increasing my intake of saturated fats when I could) and this gave me some hope for my health. I realised that much of my Depression in the previous months was likely due to poor nutrition, as that underlying sense of dread seemed to disappear within a few months of eating more real food.

Unfortunately the mental clarity never returned as I had hoped it would over time, though I was generally coping with things a little better and was in higher spirits. If anything, my brain fog was gradually getting worse, and despite the change in diet, I noticed I had developed some loss of feeling on parts of the left side of my body, including my head. This had me worried – well, more frustrated than anything, as it highlighted how much healing still needed to be done and I wasn't sure what my next move would be. Having had a check up with the family doctor, who declared that I was perfectly healthy and that I was probably just stressed, I decided it wasn't worth the humiliation to pursue any more professional advice. I just couldn't see anyone getting to the bottom of it, so I went back to doing research. I ended up buying a few supplements in an effort to reverse some of the numbness (magnesium, B vitamins, and a couple of others) but they didn't seem to be having much of an effect. I was also in between jobs at this point so I couldn't indulge in any top quality supplements, and eventually I just gave up focusing on the issue and told myself that I would to accept that it was something I would just have to live with... along with the brain fog.

To cut a long story short, a couple of weeks ago I started researching heavy metal detoxification and came across a variety of interesting methods and perspectives. After about a week I decided to invest in some Modified Citrus Pectin with Alginates for the reason that it sounded gentle to start off with, but nevertheless effective. In my mind, heavy metals were the only remaining reason I could find for the numbness and the fogginess (I still think that is the case), so I thought it was very much worth the risks that this type of treatment comes with. Unfortunately, three days after I ordered, the company informed me that the product was out of stock and that they could send me another product which was getting good reviews: Immune Boost 77. Normally I would have cancelled the order and looked elsewhere, but I was feeling impatient. After only a few hours research on humic and fulvic acid, in my naivety I decided it was worth a try. From what I had read, humifulvates could bind very strongly to all manner of heavy metals, without entering the bloodstream. Unfortunately there seems to be very little research on how it actually works, dare I say even less than Cilantro (which ironically I felt I should steer well clear of).

When the product arrived I decided I should start at half the recommended dosage - one tablet instead of two (per day). Even though there was no real protocol recommended for this product, somehow that didn't really phase me (it really should, for anyone reading who is considering chelation). Thinking I was being careful, I took one tablet at around 3pm, and drank two glasses of distilled water.

I didn't really feel anything until later that night at maybe about 9:30 or 10:00pm, when I noticed that I had a headache coming on. For about an hour it was mild enough for me to ignore, only associating it with the tablet that I had taken when the headache persisted beyond 11:30pm.At that point I decided that I probably need to hydrate (I think this may have been one of the reasons I reacted so badly – I didn't prioritise having enough water throughout the day to minimize any side effects). As time went by, the headache became more and more painful, until even my shoulders and neck were aching considerably. At this point (around 3am) I was certain that heavy metals were being moved around and causing disturbance. Interestingly, during this time I had the distinct impression that my head actually felt a lot more clear than usual, despite the pain. The fogginess had seemed to have lifted considerably, and it was a lot easier to really take in my surroundings when panning around the room. I decided not to have any more water for the time being as I was worried about increasing blood pressure in the brain, although I'm still not sure how legitimate that concern was. Either way by 4am, my neck and shoulders felt like they were on the verge of cramping, and the headache was almost unbearable. I told myself that I should just let it take its course, and that hopefully I'd feel fine again after getting some sleep. After about three more hours, the pain had died down enough for me to go to bed, and I fell asleep fairly quickly.

When I woke up, I immediately noticed that the brain fog was back, but heavier, and focussed on the left side of my head. For about an hour after waking up my coordination was really off, as well as feeling weak and shaky. Moving around I noticed that events didn't seem to register, as if I wasn't actually witnessing the present moment. Along with the remnants of the headache from the previous night, this made me very worried. My coordination returned within two hours, but the heavy brain fog remained. I felt distant, and irritable. I wasn't comfortable doing anything, or even doing nothing, because it was difficult to really focus on anything. The feeling is of distance between yourself and reality, and the inability to take anything but a small segment of information in from one moment to the next. Equally as disturbing is the feeling of coldness / tingling / pressure on the top left section of the head. All of these symptoms are still with me four days later, just slightly less pronounced. Things get worse when I'm outside in colder weather for more than 10 minutes at a time. I'm shocked but grateful that I still have the ability to express myself, at least through writing, but I have a really bad feeling that this will be somewhat permanent. I assume effects of this nature come from redistribution of mercury, which seems makes sense in my case.

It's difficult to describe what to make of all of this, and where to go from here. I rushed into it and paid the price. I'm still functional though and four days on things have improved slightly, though still definitely feeling the negative effects. This is where I was hoping for a little bit of input, because I really don't trust myself to take any future action in this area without making things even worse. I would really appreciate some guidance as to what you think I should consider doing in my case, and also what to avoid. Even assuming the humic acid is useful if used in the right way, there is no way I'm taking any more of it for the time being, if not ever. What I'm after I guess, is to find out if I should just wait it out and hope my body mends itself at its own pace, or supplement with anything specifically to improve my chances of a decent recovery. I would ideally like to avoid aggravating the heavy metals in the brain for a while, and if chelation is still a possibility for recovery then ideally something that pulls the metals slowly, and something that doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. I did find an interesting product by Dr Chris Shade called IMD, which apparently reabsorbs and pulls the mercury out of the digestive tract, and prevents recirculation of metals allowing for the body's natural detox pathways to open up. Even if this were to be suitable though, I'd still need to follow a strict protocol that others have tried and had success with, to minimize harm.

Sorry this was so long. Any comments and suggestions will be much appreciated.