Hi Onwards,

Here are my levels

Zinc
1 2 3 4
13 11 16 20

Copper
1 2 3 4
1.3 1.1 0.9 0.6

I haven't taken Zinc for some time. I find that if I take even one tablet I come up in small itchy bumps on my skin.

Bee

Yes on paper 7.5 is fine, sources I have found recommend that ratio's I described but ARL works with 8 for both genders so I am definitely in the ballpark of 'normal'. However if I take even a little copper my body tells me differently, that is just me.

You are right that operating under the assumption one is copper toxic (or anything about anything!!!) is unwise, but rather one should examine the symptoms carefully first and look for a match, then look for test evidence to back it up.

However, there appear to be higher copper lower zinc 'trends' within AF patients. This could probably be explained by the fact that in 'fight or flight' cycles we dump calming mineral like zinc, and since copper is highly stimulative it feeds the constant thinking/mind rush many have that drives them into AF.

Copper is also all over the place, so with weak eliminative functions it becomes 'likely' (not definitive!), that one with AF will have an excess.

http://www.advancedfamilyhealth.com/copperdocument.html
(overview of sources of copper, toxicity etc. by Eck)

It is not so easy to find on a hair test:
http://www.melissadianesmith.com/Articles/CopperOverLoad.html


And my ARL hair test never discovered it (granted I do not test regularly enough), only my urine challenge test did, but it found my copper to be off the charts. However, I was also a perfect symptom match and responded to a low copper protocol extremely well. Truly life-changing.

Hi Onwards thanks,

For the first 3 tests I took 2-2-2 lincomin but I haven't taken the sbf yet.

The thing I notice most is I have a lot more physical strength now than I did a month or two ago. I have moments of clarity when I feel really good emotionally and mentally but they're still fleeting. I've also noticed that I'm dreaming more often or I'm just recalling my dreams better not sure which it is.

The worst symptoms were the headaches and the fatigue that went along with it. The first time the copper came out I felt like I was dying, it sounds dramatic but my limbs felt really really heavy and the headache lasted for a week. I was really tired for a few months around that time and would get people at work asking me if I was okay quite often. I also remember being very irrational telling my practitioner that it was coke that caused it and I was turning into a diabetic lol! Also cold feet and my blood Sugar would go a bit wacky, it didn't go that high I could just feel weird after eating Sugar or carbs, I would get a prickly feeling mostly in my extremities. Thankfully that has gotten better too. Overall just feeling crazy for the last year and a half. I wish I had known you guys were here on the Adrenal Fatigue forum it would have been cool to be able to talk about the program, but oh well I'm just glad I'm here now.

Just some history, 4-5 years ago I was Vegan for about a year and a half, a raw Vegan for about half of that time(Hippocrates sproutatarian) and then tried to make it work with high calorie bean and grain combos and supplementing. I fell apart on that diet though, so I think maybe that had something to do with my copper toxicity.

I understand yourself and some others lobbied for a separate forum for NB, thank you very much for doing that.