Cooking Traditional Foods

I bit the bullet and started OSR today. The child doseage, 1/16 tsp, stirred into some peanut butter. It didn’t taste nearly as bad as I expected, I was able to get it down without problems. A full adult dose is 1/8 tsp, and I’ll gradually work up to that. One vial is 72 full doses.

So now the wait begins to see what’s going to happen, and if I’m going to go backward and get sicker, have fun things like Candida and other weirdness pop out, regress back into food allergies, have severe digestive issues, and the like. I’ve read all can happen while chelating. Some people have it happen the first 6 months, for others it starts after 6 months, but loosing gains is common while you pull out mercury. Even those who are in good health and decide to chelate preemptively after amalgam removal have this happen, so it’s no indication that you’re not eating right or not doing something else right- it’s part of the healing process from mercury removal. I’ve yet to meet someone who chelated and only went upwards in their progress without any regression. My hope is that I don’t regress into food allergies while getting the mercury out. I’ve been down that road and I’m ready to move on. Some people have brain fog, neurological symptoms, and other such fun while chelating. We’re praying that all of this will be kept to a minimum and the chelation will progress quickly and smoothly, so I can regain my health quickly. Most people say they feel much better after 6 months, even though they don’t have a complete resolution of symptoms in that time. A complete resolution of all symptoms takes 1-3 years, and some never reach that point.

I’ve started some supplements to take while chelating to help preemptively deal with what might happen. To prevent Candida, I’m working up to high doses of S. boulardii along with my probiotics. I already eat a relatively sweetener-free diet, so I won’t change what I’m eating unless I see it’s necessary. For the potential regression into food allergies, L-glutamine, digestive enzymes and pascalite clay.

My current list of daily supplements:

Once my lab results are back, we’ll add others like B-vitamins and whatever else the tests show I need. By looking at my fingernails, we know I’m B-12 deficient, and we know my test results show that as well.

I’m still reeling from that food exposure last week with a headache, backache and constant stomachache. So while I can’t say that I feel good, at least the OSR hasn’t given me a worsening of symptoms. Yet. I have a feeling I need to get strapped in because it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I’ve yet to meet someone who chelated and only went upwards in their progress without any regression, either periodic or at the beginning.

My long-range plan right now is to use OSR for a period of 6-9 months, then re-evaluate and possibly switch to ALA/DMSA in cycles per Cutler’s protocol, if it’s needed.

My two big mercury exposures as an adult both happened right before I got pregnant with Belle. Once we’ve got me on the road to health, they’re next. We’re going to have them tested to see if they need to be chelated. And Jeff’s got 16 amalgams in his mouth to deal with, and then we’ll put him through chelation. I might take another 2-3 years to recover my health, but it looks like we’ve got a long road of dealing with mercury in front of me before we can move on.

I had an accidental food exposure on Saturday morning, which lead to a spiral. Every time I get exposed, I always have problems with my spine, joint and muscle pain, phantom bone pain and digestion issues. So on Saturday, I had several ribs between my shoulder blades slip out of joint, which led to a lovely cascade right up my back and neck to my skull. I had a killer headache that went for days. Normally I just deal with sciatica after an exposure, so this was a completely new experience for me. It was so bad that I was very grateful I had written the menu mailers early, as I have been on the computer little. I’ve still got the muscle aches and joint stiffness from the exposure.

Tomorrow, Jeff will be picking up the OSR if all goes well. I’ve talked with someone who has taken it and it has done well for him, but I’m still uneasy about trying out something new, in case it does make me worse. We’ll give it a few weeks and then re-evaluate to see if it’s working and if the side effects, if any, are enough to continue. I know to expect some digestive issues at first, but they should clear quickly. No one I have spoken to has noticed any other side effects, and some people have gotten better. I’ve ordered a Cap-M-Quick and empty capsules from Frontier to help me get it down, as I’ve been warned from multiple sources that it tastes incredibly bad. I’ll get it down however I have to until the Cap-M-Quick arrives.

I haven’t updated the blog in a long, long time. As of my last writing, I was caring for my dad. I finally left Mount Olive after 5 weeks and headed home. My adrenals completely crashed. I became quite exhausted, and just went downhill. Again.

Finally, I found the Adrenal Fatigue thread on MDC, and got saliva testing done. Amazingly, my cotrisol test came back HIGH. I was shocked. I had every symptoms of low cotrisol. So I got online and started reading. I found Dr. John Wilson at Great Smokies Medical Center here in Asheville, who had some awesome stuff on his website. He had accurate, excellent information on adrenal fatigue, thyroid treatment, and even recommends raw milk on his website!

Last Wednesday, Jeff and I went to see Dr. Wilson with my saliva tests in hand. He looked at my saliva test, and the first thing he asked is if I had an open sore or bleeding gums when my testing was done. I did have a gum bleed. He immediately realized there was a problem with the test results. We talked for over 2 hours. He did muscle testing, looked at past test results and medical records I brought with me, and we ran a huge number of lab tests. Muscle testing showed I am mercury toxic, and I do have low B-12, adrenal issues and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. We’re waiting to see what else the lab results show. We have decided that as a minimum I will do an anti-oxidant that has a side effect of pulling mercury out of the brain. Once the other results are in, we’ll see if there’s anything else to add to that list.

So today, I got in the kitchen and worked like a mad woman, only breaking to process subscriptions and eat a big lunch. At 2 o’clock I sat down and realized I felt tired. I took a nap around 2:45, and when I woke up about 3:30, I knew I had overdone it. My arms were back to feeling like lead and I was nauseated. I laid on the couch until time to finish dinner. After dinner, I had a low-aldosterone, adrenal attack and started dumping fluid. So tomorrow, I will take it at a more reasonable pace. I am going to have to curb my enthusiasm and not over-do it, or I could likely set myself back. Now that the attack is over, my arms aren’t feeling like they have lead in them anymore, and I’m feeling ok even though it’s 10 o’clock at night. Comparatively, it was a mild adrenal attack, but it was enough to warn me to pace myself and not get crazy and to continue to ask people to help as I need it. I’m hopeful I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling good.

The anti-oxidant is by Dr. Boyd Haley, and is called OSR, or Oxidative Stress Reducer. I’ll start once the doctor’s office gets another shipment in. It’s oral and it dumps through the bowels instead of the kidneys and is said to only pull mercury from the central nervous system. As I learn more about it, I’ll post more. I can tell you already that it’s highly controversial, and a lot of folks in the chelation community have extremely strong opinions on which protocol is best, or is the only one that should be used by everyone. In just joining some lists and saying that I was doing a doctor-led protocol instead of trying to piece it together myself or from a book, I’ve already been attacked over it by those who feel all of the doctors are wrong except the one they happen to follow. I’ve had more than one person tell me, quite rudely, that I’m going to make myself much, much sicker just because I’m seeing a doctor for treatment and they just want to experiment on people. I’m praying for discernment and the ability to sift the grain from the chaff as I learn more about this area of regaining my health.

I’m most anxious to get my hair and neurotransmitter testing back, and my individual nutrient levels, since we already know my B12 is low. The hair testing will give us the full range of heavy metals and a full picture of what we’re facing with the chelation. I’ll post to the blog often through this journey so you can follow the progress of my treatment. As we get test results back, I’ll post them here.