[I] may have started round 22 with guns blazing, but the enemy was more powerful than expected and after four and a half days, I made a tactical withdrawal. Having intended to chelate for six nights, I was forced to give up early, saving myself for another try at the 75 mg bar in March or April.
During this ugly round I happened to read a paragraph in An Army at Dawn that struck a cord, where the author is describing a failed campaign in Tunisia against Sened Station and quotes an officer who survived:
It was the most terrible thing I had ever seen, not the bodies and parts of bodies near smoking vehicles, some sitting, some scattered, some blue from powder burns — it was the expressions on the faces of those who wandered listlessly around the wreckage, not knowing where to go or what to do, saying, “This can’t happen to us.”
I’ve often had that feeling of bewilderment, confusion and disbelief about being struck by an illness lasting decades. Especially during a difficult round, it’s easy to fall into this.
But, as intense as this round was, and as much as it was a failure, it was different from my early intense experiences – there were no sharp pains and no sudden depression, everything was kind of blunted. I did feel overwhelmed and I did give up early, but there was still a pattern of diminishing difficulty during the first three days and my redistribution day wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.
On my redistribution day I took a bunch of extra liposomal vitamin C and magnesium and it really lifted me up – too much so, in fact.
In my next round, I will repeat my DMSA/ALA combination from round 21 and then in the following round I’ll try the 75 mg ALA dose once more. Next time, I think I’ll nail it.
Round 22 (4.5 days) – 75 mg ALA every two hours, total chelation days to date: 93.5
- Saturday, February 8: this is an increase of 15 mg, a large jump for me, started at 9 AM, no energy surge but also no increase in fatigue. By two or 3 PM strong confusion / IQ drop and memory impairment – extremely slow mentally and pressure in the head but no headache. Sinuses also affected, hard to describe how, but something funny going on as if I had a cold maybe. Very common side effect. Lips are a little swollen and dry but not as bad as in my last round with DMSA.
- Sunday, February 9: very depleted at 3 PM, voice even cracking and raspy, very irritable today but overall much better than yesterday – brain much more functional again, napped, some mild lower abdomen pain yesterday and today, mild frontal pressure at times, slept poorly waking before each alarm during the night.
- Monday, February 10: two sets of stairs and three sets of 30 jumping jacks gave me brain fog right afterwards, mild headache on and off today, cramping and lower back, dry lips and hands, hard day, very fatigued but unable to nap, slept deeply at night.
- Tuesday, February 11: woke up feeling far better, like the storm had broken, but I had to take the car to the shop and walk home, then walk back to pick it up later and I think the exercise was too much for me because by evening I felt destroyed with a steady mild headache and was thinking of quitting the round. At bed time I was feeling better again and decided to keep going, thinking it was just the exercise that pushed me over the edge.
- Wednesday, February 12: feeling better again in the morning but still feel the accumulated fatigue. This round probably won’t last much longer… still functional enough to work most of the day, some tinnitus in the afternoon, strongest I’ve ever experienced although still probably mild, some strange pains in my head near the bottom of my ear, headache again in the evening, last dose at 5 PM, I’m done, I give up !!
- Thursday, February 13: first day off round – better energy than expected, took lots of extra lipo-c and 600 mg extra sunflower lecithin, 200 mg extra magnesium or so. Very warm in the afternoon and evening – methylation cranking up, must be from lecithin. Very dry lips in evening. slept poorly and woke too warm and after nightmare, all typical methylation symptoms.
Hi Eric.
It is interesting reading some of your entries here, especially from someone who has some level of activity and reporting the exact same symptoms as myself. I am into about my 13th year of ‘ME/CFS’, managed to slowly get myself back to 60-80% functionality (depending on the day) and back doing solid cardio exercise. This leads me to ask what you think is behind the pressure ‘in the head’ and headaches? Just such a classic symptom for me after activity, to the point where if I have done too much, built up over a couple of days I can sometimes need a whole day, or on rarer occasions several days to allow this pressure/tension to pass and adjust. Can appear to be body wide as well, excessive tension through the body to the point where everything just becomes a hundreds times more effort.
Anyway even at my decent functionality only just kick started the Freddd methylation regime this last 7 days, will be interesting to see what happens. I had an over lift myself today as well, which was another thing that caught me in your account, dropped 600mg of chocamine on top of 850mg of LCARF and ended up doing two solid bike rides today; left me with a headache but for at least a good 6 hours felt oblivious to any cognitive symptoms and almost numb to any physical limitations exercising.
Not sure how smart it is using stimulants during a methlyation kick start though?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocamine
Cheers mate.
Congratulations on getting back into the game! I wish I knew what causes the headaches – I’m in a migraine right now from DMPS… I don’t tolerate caffeine at all and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone either.
Just found it interesting you reported the same reaction from activity, not sure I have seen others mention the exact same thing before. I had concluded it was due to my dental/jaw/mild tmj issues until I read this, currently have Damon braces on fixing a couple of decades of malformation. Of course there is rarely a simple answer and likely a combination of things.
Cheers mate.
Hi Eric!
thanks again for a great blog!
I’ve been curious, why have you chosen to chelate with DMSA rather than DMPS?
Thanks Moshi! I’m using DMSA because I have a significant amount of lead. However, I just ordered my first batch of DMPS from living network and looking forward to trying it out with ALA. I hope I can do two rounds per month where one round is ALA/DMPS and the other is ALA/DMSA…
Ok, this will be interesting! I had my amalgams out just last month and will soon start my third round of DMPS only. I am up to 20mg every 6 hours then. I too order from LN, I have no reason yet to distrust the quality of their products, however you may find empty or broken capsules in your bottle….something you would never find in a product from a large supplement manufacturer with quality control…nevertheless I have done quite OK with my first two rounds…dmps is a bit rough on your stomach though. The third day and fourth day (redistribution) is of course a bit uncomfortable but after both rounds I have found myself in a better place than before I started them! I learned the hard way not to consume alcohol during rounds or shortly after, yes, that was stupid of me! 🙂
Looking forward to share your progress…I plan to do the opposite….use dmps first and later switch to DMSA…and later ALA of course. I am still hopeful….
ha, when you consume industrial quantities of supplements, you find that even the big brands have some broken and empty capsules!
glad the the DMPS is working out all right for you so far and appreciate the warning about the stomach. I’m always pretty careful to take with lots of water but will pay extra attention…
Thanks for the link to your page Eric. Its really helpful to follow others to compare how I am doing. I think i was lucky to find mercury through food allergies that I was having and fatigue that my doctor failed to diagnose. I don’t think I am as sick as some of the others on the frequent dose site but I was heading down that road. I have had a lot of exposure to mercury since I was a child. I think most is in my head hence the reaction to the ALA. Dentists used to give us kids mercury to play with if we were good patients, i wish i had bitten their fingers. I often wonder what I could have accomplished if i had been plague with problems since i was a child. Looking back a lot of my issues appear directly related to mercury. Good job on the webpage. I have it bookmarked and will go through it all 🙂
Hi Philip, good to hear from you! I didn’t know dentists gave out mercury to kids, that is really criminal. Don’t remember where I got the mercury to play with as a kid, but we found it even if it didn’t come from the dentist… I too often wonder what I would have accomplished.
However, I think there are some really special silver linings. I know I’m closer to my family and I’m not divorced! Had I not been ill, I might have let my entrepreneurial spirits run wild and ended up divorced as most entrepreneurs do…