Chelation in general is a dicey proposition; not impossible, just very tricky. This situation is heightened if one still has amalgams in their mouth. For starters, the process of a person discovering the most appropriate chelation method for themselves generally requires that they take on both the role of beign their own physician as well as a chemist.

There are many web sites that you can be sent to to research this on your own. Here are two different ones, each another forum where people discuss the various questions and situations with mercury. Perhaps you will find some valuable information there.

HerbAllureForum

For some reason the CZ forum editor is trashing the above link. I'm going to spell out the link with an extra space in between just in hopes that you can see the name of this site.

http:// h e r b a l l u r e . c o m / u b b t h r e a d s / u b b t h r e a d s . p h p

Go to the forum titled Amalgam Filings / Mercury Poisoning


http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-Mercury/

http://home.earthlink.net/~moriam/ANDY_INDEX.html#dental

The situation is different between a mouth that has no amalgams filings and metal compared to a mouth that still contains one or more amalgam fillings and or other metals. Either way, there are three basic chores each which must be handled:

1) mobilize

2) bind

3) eliminate

1 - mobilize, is another way of saying - shake loose and round up mercury from all the places it's hiding in your body, wherever it may be hiding out. Mercury that's been in the body short term may still be floating around the blood looking for somethign to latch onto. Mercury that's been in the body a long while may have already latched onto something deep cover pretty much anywhere in the body, organs, bones, tissues and cells. It starts when the mercury filling is first intalled. From the get go, the amalgam is continually giving off mercury vapor, some of which may end up being breathed, some of which may mix with your saliva that is then swallowed in the upper GI. Some of it may aborb into the blood supply starting in the mouth. The chemistry aspect has to do with valence bonding. All elements have a certain amount of electrons. Some elements have only a few electrons, other elements have a bunch of electrons. Each atom has one or more shells to contain it's electrons. Starting near the nucleus is the first shell and there are successive shells as one expands outward from the nucleus until enough shells exist to provide a place for all the electrons to orbit. Each shell may not need to contain the same number of electrons in order to be considered a complete shell. Some elements do not have a complete outer shell, meaning there is more room in the shell for additional electrons. Electrons in these partly-filled shells are kind of like people looking for love in all the wrong places.... they are prone to ending up who know's where in an attempt to find another substance to be attracted to and bound. This potential problem must be addressed when chelating.

2 - binding, is the process of the chelating agent (many and varied) providing an element or elements to travel through the body and bind with mercury. Think back to the lookin for love scenario - the chelating agent is attempting to provide an oppositely charged atom or molecule of some stuff for the mercury to be attracted to and bound.... like with handcuffs.....it might be considered entrapment, but, that's kinda what this chelation game is about. Another variable and potential problem with some chelating agents is that they may sometimes bind with molecules of stuff that you do not want to be eliminated from they body, like essential minerals, and cause these to be eliminated.

3 - elimination - once the mercury and chelating agent have been bound, the hopes and desire is that this bond will least last long enough for the mercury to be escorted through the body and past the threshold of the eliminative orifices and either down the toilet, out your sweat glands or other eliminitive channels. Beleive it or not, when it happens this way, this was considered a successful marriage ;) This is the really critical stage. Mercury can be really flighty. On the path to being escorted from your body while bound to the chelating agent, it may happen by some other tiny piece of substance for which it has a stronger attraction (affinity) than it does for the chelating agent. If the chelating agent is not up to the job, it may fail to hang onto the mercury and release it. Releasing the mercury before it's gotten out of the body is undesirable. The end result is, instead of eliminating the mercury, it's now been relocated, or what is also known as "redistributed". There are many variables, and depending on these variables, some agents turn out to be better binding agents than others.