Mercury Amalgam Removal Protocol:

This protocol is written with the intention of being educational and not meant to replace medical advice.  Please work with a knowledgeable holistic health care professional and your medical physicians during the entire process.  You will need to find someone who is trained in nutrition and detoxification at a minimum.  Someone who can provide additional holistic health care would be ideal.  You may need to work with more than one health care practitioner and it is vital that you keep them all well informed of your progress.

Removal of your mercury amalgam fillings can be a daunting experience, especially if you have been experiencing severe symptoms you think are associated with your fillings.

Preparation:

You will need to be healthy enough first:

Avoid: wheat, dairy and other allergenic foods you react to as well as processed foods.  Begin eating organic foods if you haven’t done so already.  Even if you haven’t had problems with wheat or dairy before or they have been minimal, there are inherent reactions between dairy, wheat, and mercury which will cause you to feel very ill while you detoxify mercury from your system.

If very ill, consider vitamin C flushes or allergy elimination treatments to strengthen the body.  At a minimum, you should be taking bowel tolerance levels of vitamin C.  Take glutathione and MSM along with milk thistle or other liver supporting supplements. Have acupuncture and TCM herbal preparations tailored to your specific needs.  Drink lots of purified water.  You will also need to eat enough high quality foods and fiber to keep your bowels moving everyday.

Find the right dentist:

This is one of the most important parts of the protocol.  You cannot go to your regular dentist if they do not understand the mercury poisoning from amalgam fillings problem.  Even if they agree to try it, do not do it!!!!  Until they have trained, researched and learned more about this issue, it is better for them to experiment on someone else.  They need to know how to use a dental dam, keep the fillings cool during drilling, consider which fillings to remove in which order, look for and remove mercury tattoos, among several other issues.  If your dentist does not protect him or herself from mercury while removing your amalgams, you should be very concerned! 

To help you find a dentist in your area, check out:  http://www.mercuryfreenow.com/

You can also email The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology at info@iaomt.org for a listing of a “holistic” (“biological”) dentist in your area or use their online search.  Their website is: http://www.iaomt.org/  They have an excellent video clip online that you can watch on your computer.  It shows the mercury that comes out of amalgam fillings and gives a short, informative presentation on the issue.  Both sites are helpful in understanding how mercury poisoning from amalgam fillings can be linked to chronic illnesses.  I have found the list of symptoms and diseases listed on their sites to be accurate but incomplete.  

How mercury affects you personally depends on your genetics and medical and dental history.  It does not create one symptom or one disease.  If you plan on becoming pregnant, please remove your amalgam fillings at least a year in advance, especially if you have several.  It is my opinion that you will have less morning sickness and your baby will have less of a chance of having a birth defect, neurological or learning impairment due to the mercury received from you during pregnancy.  

Additionally, it is important to prevent becoming pregnant during the process of having your amalgams removed and during any strong detoxification process.  This is also important for the father.  The father’s genetic material can be damaged from heavy metal poisoning like mercury (as well as other chemicals) and can cause birth defects.  If you think that having your amalgams removed is expensive and not worth the time and energy, you might think again if you plan on having children.  In fact, if you are having difficulties getting pregnant, you should know that mercury and the problems it causes can play an important role an infertility as well as many other diseases and symptoms.

Remove the amalgams:

Do not take vitamin C on that day (vitamin C will remove the numbing agents too quickly)

Do not take vitamin B12.  (As a methylator it will convert the mercury into methyl mercury which is more harmful and dangerous.)

Take activated charcoal and Toxi-Guard Seaweed before and after the procedure in order to absorb any swallowed or mobilized mercury from your system.  No matter how careful your dentist is, even with following holistic procedures, you will probably have some mercury mobilized on the day that you have your fillings removed.  As stated above, it is very important to have a dentist that knows the dangers of mercury and will minimize this problem.

Clean up:

Clean up and detoxify the toxins that have accumulated in your body in the past and cleanse the blood of mobilized toxins.  Now that your body does not have to fight the daily dose of mercury poison it was getting from amalgam fillings, it can begin to detoxify stored toxins.  This includes detoxifying stored mercury.  This part is very tricky and can be a very individual process.  Your genetics and individual medical issues will affect how this part goes.  You absolutely need to work with someone familiar with these issues and this process.  Items like cilantro and alpha lipoic acid should not be used until after much of your mercury has already been detoxified.

Continue to have acupuncture and TCM herbal preparations tailored to your specific needs.  If your body tries to clean up too quickly, your bile, blood and intestines can become overwhelmed with toxins that will make you feel quite ill.  You will need to clean up the mobilized toxins first and slowly dredge up stored poisons at a pace you can tolerate.  You will need to continue to avoid wheat, dairy, and processed foods.  Your body’s pH will need to be monitored, if you suddenly eat too well (e.g. raw foods diet that is perfectly pH balanced after years of eating whatever you want), your body will heal too quickly and you will get very sick.  

During the clean up phase, your symptoms may change rapidly.  It is important that toxins are not just mobilized and move from organ to organ within your body.  You will want to eliminate the toxins from your system completely.  If you have had many issues with chemicals and heavy metals, this may be difficult but it is possible and well worth your efforts.  It is very important to drink a lot of purified water, as well as keep your blood sugar and electrolytes balanced.  You will need to replace the heavy metals with the nutritional minerals it has been depleted of and eat plenty of high quality sources of fiber to keep your bowels moving everyday.  Taking vitamin C and magnesium can also help a sluggish bowel.

Supplements you may chose to use during your detoxification:

(This is not a complete list and is not meant as a protocol for everyone.  Your specific plan needs to be designed for you and will likely change frequently during the detox process)

High quality multi-vitamin

High doses of vitamin C  (high doses need to be buffered with the appropriate minerals, do not take high doses of plain, cheap vitamin C)

Toxi-Guard Seaweed (helps absorb mercury and other toxins and lessen symptoms of detoxification and heavy metal poisoning)

Noni Juice

MSM

Glutathione 

probiotics

Vitamin E or good fats to protect the body (avocado, Omega 3 oils like fish oils or algae oils, evening primrose oil, black current oil)

Activated charcoal

Adrenal support herbs and glandulars

Liver support herbs and glandulars

Cilantro supplements

Alpha lipoic acid (thioctic acid)

Calcium, magnesium, zinc

DMSA

You may have problems with cilantro, alpha lipoic acid, selenium, or other supplements during your mercury detoxification process. When you supplement, do so one at a time and build it into your program gradually so that you can determine if it is making you ill.  Chlorella is a popular supplement for mercury toxicity, but I do not generally recommend it.  If you are able to manage the process well and do not eat poorly or dredge up too many poisons too quickly, it is a more tolerable process and you should notice the difference in your chronic symptoms caused by the mercury amalgams.  Detoxification should be a slow and steady process.  Oftentimes, patients ask me to help them get better right away - going too fast can make your symptoms too much to handle.  Slow and steady - slow and steady.

It is also important to note that if you have suffered from allergies in the past (including food sensitivities), that your body will be healing these allergies during this time.  If you eat a food while the body is trying to heal its sensitivity to it or interact with the allergen you are healing, your symptoms can be worse than usual.  For this reason, it is best to stay away from your known allergens until your body has healed them.  Adding foods/allergens back slowly one at a time will help minimize this healing reaction.  

When the body is able to detoxify on this deep level and maintain a more proper balance for the first time in a long time, it will heal old wounds.  You may notice feeling more emotional or past traumas may surface to be healed.  This is perfectly normal and it is best to “let it out” by talking about it with someone you trust and is supportive.  Be gentle with yourself during this healing time.  

Congratulate yourself for all your efforts and regained health and help others who are also doing their best to regain their health.  Hopefully you will look back at this time as a great healing on many levels and see the miracle that it was.  I know that I personally cannot see it any other way. 

© 2007, 2008  Katie Blair

To learn more, see my More About Mercury page:

http://www.peacefulhealingjourney.com/moreaboutmercury.htm