I’m wondering what the typical round progression is from one day to the next in terms of difficulty, mood etc. I do DMSA & ALA – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and have completed 11 rounds. Here’s what happens to me:
- When I am not increasing dose, on Monday I’m often very unusually active because the DMSA seems to energize me and I’ve had Thursday through Sunday to sleep/recover without the interruptions of the alarm clock.
- On Tuesday, that Monday energy peak fades because of the sleep interruptions of the alarm and
- Wednesday I seem to have recovered a little because Tuesday I was so tired I slept better.
- When I’m increasing dosage as I did this week, Monday is a very difficult day and I get a lot less done with confusion and pressure in my head, sometimes very moody in the afternoons… but
- then, by Tuesday and Wednesday I’ve adapted and am starting to feel better, like the storm is passing.
- In my early rounds I was feeling really beat up by Wednesday, and looking forward to ending the round. Now I’m starting to feel okay on the last day even when increasing doses.
- On the last day, I always feel that I’ve accomplished something important and challenging, because of all the concentration it took to get it done.
- On Thursday, the day after, I’m always dragging. Sometimes the fatigue lifts around dinnertime though.
Just wondering if these are typical trends. What’s your experience?
Hi!
I am curious what Al stands for? Also, did you use 200 mg every three hours Expat Viking?
Thank you!
AI stands for Amalgam Illness, the title of Dr. Cutler’s book.
Hi, I’m on round 38 right now and I get a lot less candida now but it is steady even when off rounds. I do get weird headaches on rounds. Specially now after I went for a short bike ride Cutler said don’t exercise because it causes stress in the body I guess hes right. I am looking forward to healing candida, allergies(sugar, dairy), male fertility problems(high FSH) and other things like IBS and fatigue ect… I can say for the most part my moods are better but I have ups and downs. Sometimes I get weird pains in the chest and stomach too. Even when I’m off rounds I can feel many symptoms so I get back on rounds and those symptoms go away and I get different symptoms like weird feelings in my head.
I’m on 37.5 ALA and 50 DMSA I got high lead levels and I suspect high mercury since I had 9 amalgams at least. ( 2 primary teeth)
Maybe I should scrap the biking and just make my way out to the sauna everyday?
If you can do sauna, that’s fantastic! I would not worry so much about the exercise. If it harms you, it’s not worth it.
For me, early on, I’d feel markedly better on round than off. Increased clarity, vision, energy, and mood. Redistribution would hit me with a crushing headache and darkness in vision as well as mood by the end of the second day off round. These days though (Round 43 currently), I don’t notice much difference on round vs. off, and I don’t feel much in the way of redistribution. I’m doing longer rounds though, typically 5 days, and probably should have tried going longer earlier.
Be ready for things to shift and change though, especially when still adjusting doses. I’ve read different experiences from others, different from what I’ve experienced. Many people seem to get hit with redistribution about mid-day first day off round. I never felt it that early. I think there are many factors involved in how we all feel things, so I guess it may be hard to say what’s typical… Either that or I’m just untypical! Lol.
thanks for sharing Tara, interesting how much your experience has changed – that’s very motivating. what happens if you increase doses now? just wondering if you would feel a difference again between on and off-round.
my first off-round day is hard from the moment I wake up but I’m hesitant to call it redistribution because it feels mostly like fatigue and it’s the same feeling I get near the end of every three-hour dose period… wish I knew what was happening inside.
I’ve done some rounds at 112.5 mg, but it seemed like my MCS reactions were even more sensitive (ie. I felt even more reactive to chemicals and smells than I usually do). Someone who’s mostly recovered and has both chelated and done the iodine protocol had said that it’s not a good idea to chelate higher than 50 mgs, but rather to do longer rounds because too high of a dose is too stressful on the liver. While I don’t agree entirely with that statement, I do tend to feel, for myself at least, that continuing to increase my ALA much higher makes my liver start to panic. Processing too much mercury and arsenic on the way out leaves little room for any residual chemicals or offenders from my surroundings. For me, that’s overkill. I’m just happy I have been doing so well on 100 mg. With all my issues this is an absolute blessing. I think the moral in all of this though, besides each of us being unique, is that our bodies and our capacities are always changing. The only thing we can do is to be prepared for continued shifts throughout our chelation careers 😉
I like your philosophy Tara! 100 mg ALA seems like a lot to me so I’m glad you tolerate it well. will keep in mind your comments about the liver…
What is a typical round like? If I try to find some sort of general pattern, it is something like this:
The first days is often very easy, i.e. no meaningful sfx. The one general exception is that my thyroid seems to slow down and I often get cold feet (I used to have that all the time but it is now mostly gone). My temp often (late afternoon) often falls to 36.2-36.4 early on round and then comes back to 36.8-37.0 late in the round or after a few days off round.
Then as the round progress, there tends to be more sfx and the intensity also goes up over time. The type of sfx have varied quite a lot. Often I will get the same type for 3-5 rounds and then it goes away and instead I get something else. Sometimes it can pop back at later rounds, but then often milder than when I first had it.
Just to pick some examples, I got very specific headache located behind the eyes during all of the early rounds. This is now gone. One interesting observation that may be related to this is that I have been reading books with one eye closed for many years but as chelation progressed, I started using both eyes. First on and off but after maybe 1 year it was all the time. Cutler talks about this in AI and it is such a specific effect that it very much helped convince me that chelation really is working.
During later rounds, I started getting more psychological symptoms. The main ones have been procrastination and confusion. This always happened late in the rounds.
Right now, I am on day 4 of a round and so far it is very pain free. Also, I actually managed to get some focused, high quality work done! I can feel traces of both procrastination and confusion but it is so mild that it’s almost not there (if that makes any sense….).
Sounds like there is no such thing as a typical progression because your experience and Tara’s are very different from mine. It even makes me worry that maybe chelation isn’t working for me! Then I think about all the side effects and I’m certain it is working. Our bodies are just too unique, we all have a different basket of metals (I have lead, mercury, thallium, barium, nickel and tungsten) and different genetics.
It’s funny how we tend to forget the improvements also. I had headaches on my first day of earliest rounds every time. The round I just finished was difficult but no headaches! I’ve got an explanation for that (increased ALA and held DMSA steady), but it doesn’t really matter what the explanation is – it’s an improvement I need to embrace.
Reading with one eye must’ve been very difficult and a huge relief to recover from that! Congratulations on the pain-free round, I think you’ve earned it.
I don’t see any pattern with my temperatures – they range chaotically from 35.5 to 36.5. Maybe time for an iodine boost!
Thanks for sharing:)
“Reading with one eye must’ve been very difficult ”
The funny thing is that I never considered it a problem at all. It was just the way it was and I always did a fair amount of reading without really thinking about it. Then after some months of chelation I remember beeing very suprised when I realised that I was reading with both eyes. It was only after this that I noticed the relevant info in AI ( I have read it many times, but still discover new things).
On the other hand, I have a friend with this exact symptom. I found this out when I told him about my experience.He has lots of mercury fillings and also some gold and in many ways fit the AI profile. But he flat out refuses to listen……..
In other news, I am now starting day 6 of my round. I did get some sfx todax, mainly feeling irritated, short tempered and a bit “off” in general. Also some muscle twitching but nothing major. Still, this is the most pain free round since I went up to 200 mg ALA and I will try to push on a few more days.
“But he flat out refuses to listen…”
we know some people too (close close relatives) who cannot really be helped, and it’s very saddening.
you and Tara have me thinking about trying to do a longer round at some point…