Re: Iodine as mercury chelator

Heya, Wombat! How the heck are ya? I've occasionally thought about
you all this while I've been gone. It's hard to know what to do. I've
been experiencing major symptoms of mercury toxicity, such as severe
insomnia (it is now 1:28 a.m.! luckily I don't have to go to work
tomorrow :-) , high cortisol, which is just part of the total endocrine
dysregulation I'm experiencing, a horrid rash on my left hand which
just doesn't seem to want to go away (red, skin-splitting, blister-forming
uncontrollably itchy and unbelievably painful, sometimes I cannot even
use my left hand at all, one day I had to actually call in sick as
I could not use a keyboard) and on my eyelids, which have gotten so puffy
and swollen and red and scaly, that when the swelling goes down, I look
like ET (bags and wrinkles under eyes), ugly as sin. I've also lost all
my muscle mass from not being able to work out and do yoga regularly
for so long, from sleeping 3-4 hrs. per night for over a year and a half
(6 hours is a great night for me--happens once in a while). Then there
is the huge roll of tummy fat which I did not have before, and I've
gone up a bra size (not cup, just measurement around) from all the loss
of muscle mass and weight gain. Sometimes my eyeballs feel like they
are on fire. The worst, though (if all this weren't bad enough) is the
brain effects, the neurological symptoms. Short-term memory is totally
shot, I cannot recall what I just did a few seconds ago, I forget words,
names, street names, forget what I'm doing, cannot concentrate, can't
read a book (takes forever), and feel like I have full-blown Alzheimer's.
For all I know, I might, as one of the illnesses which develops from
long-term mercury toxicity IS Alzheimer's. I told my doctor some years ago
I thought I might be on that road, but he discounted it as not possible
because I was too young (I was around 53 or so at the time). Energy level
is really low much of the time; there are times I have to rest after
vacuuming, or when I just come home and sit there, too exhausted to do
anything. I saw a doctor on Friday who was extremely expensive to see, and
of course not covered by insurance. He had me take a DMPS challenge test
(IV style) which exacerbated my symptoms for a couple days. Got a wicked
charley horse from the magnesium being stripped from my body, two mornings
later. I'm not having those now, mercifully. I was all set to follow his
program, which after getting the results of test, was chelation with
DMSA, over 3-8 months, followed by a protocol called SanPharma, which is
some sort of probiotic from Germany, but that part of the protocol is an
11 week program costing $2633, and I knew I could not afford it, but I'm
feeling so sick lately that I felt compelled to say I would do it. When I
got home I came to my senses, and emailed the doc that it's beyond my
budget. (I work part-time and don't work at all in July, so no paycheck
from 7/1 to 9/1.) So, that's it, in a nutshell. I'm waiting to hear back
from an N.D. in Washington State to whom I was referred by someone on
the Adrenal Support page on CZ, who has a QXCI machine and SCIO, which is
I think what Newport uses. All these doctors are costing me all my money
and then some. (I had just shelled out $120 + $100 for a new N.D. in
town here and a saliva test she wanted me to do, and another $70 or so
for supplements, and then bought some other adrenal supps as suggested
by the guy on the Adrenal page, who said they had helped him.) All my
symptoms, it turns out, appear to be secondary to the mercury-toxicity,
so I really am only treating symptoms by treating my high cortisol
levels. So that's it, in a nutshell (some huge nut! ha ha--we Virgos
always have to go into excruciating detail :-) Then there is the
knee stuff--won't go into that, except to say
it's still stiff and painful but less than it was a few months ago.
Or the bloating...and gas...and diarrhea...goes along with the territory.
I've seen some of your posts about how well you are doing on your
iodine program, congratulations! I don't know why it didn't work for me,
it just seemed to make me worse. I asked the doc I saw, but he doesn't
think it would have made me any worse. Who knows...? Sometimes I just
want to give up; I've tried just about everything, for well over 20
years, spent around $21,000 all throughout these years, and have nothing
to show for it but a diminishing quality of life. Everything supposedly
has a lesson in it, but for cryin' out loud, where is the lesson in
trying everything in your power to turn your health problems around and
just going broke (and getting sicker)? Beats the hell out of me!
{{{HUGS}}} and thanks for listening.