Faith your recipe tastes awesome when done with fresh basil :)

"...mercury is not one of my issues (thankfully). I never had any fillings, and my last reading did not detect any alarming levels of mercury...."

Testing for heavy metals is so difficult. Current technology stinks--short of an autopsy!

My pre chelation hair, provoked urine and urine porphyrins test all reported very low mercury and no problems with heavy metals, except suspicious levels of cadmium. My hair tests while chelating have been more suspicious. However, the gains I've gotten have been life changing.
//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1951581


Hopefully you have not been consuming lots of high-Hg fish and seafood, especially tuna. Hopefully you were not exposed to a broken cfl light bulb or thermometer on a carpet in your home, had lots of vaccines, etc.

I'm not suggesting chelation is for everyone but if the symptom list matches a heavy metal and doctors have not had much luck resolving the problems, it seems to make sense to consider HMs.

"... ALA is a bit too strong for my adrenal state at this time...."

Yes, be careful with ALA. It can be devastatingly powerful if used incorrectly. A friend had a very bad experience with it and even 6 months later has not fully recovered--more on that if requested.

"... A long term NB program will detox the metals at a gentle pace that my body can handle..."

The half-life of inorganic mercury in the brain is something like 20 years. At that rate you'll need a really "long term NB program".

Lipoic acid moves inorganic Hg across the blood brain barrier--in BOTH directions. Therefore it has to be used carefully so the Hg tends to come out rather than go into the brain.

Good luck.

Joe