Re: What is the Hal Huggins protocol for mercury chelation?
Hi Princess,
You know, I can't speak from experience as I am just beginning. And to be honest, testimonials on Internet message boards don't mean a huge amount...not even that people are lying, but it is very common to have a major temporary relief of symptoms, and if it coincides or is caused by trying a new therapy, you might think you've found the Holy Grail. But the underlying problem(s) remains. I know, I've been there.
But I have to say that what impressed me about Cutler's protocol was the rigor of the
Science behind it. It uses what are actually the most accepted means of mercury chelation (DMSA or DMPS), plus ALA, and tries to use them in a way that will maximize benefit and minimize harm. If you have Huggin's book, there is no talk of effective half-life of DMSA or DMPS. He simply talks about how they were having trouble with patients getting sick on daily DMSA, so first they lower the dose, then do it every other day. No explanation as to why every other day would make sense based on the actions of the substances themselves or the body's cycles. And in the next paragraph, even Huggins gets onto something when he talks about how seriously toxic and sensitive patients can get the best results by dissolving 50 mg of DMSA into a
quart of water, then sipping it at intervals over the course of two or three days. That is basically a very crude approximation of Cutler's method. You're missing the overnights, but 50 mg over 2 or 3 days is much less than what most people following Cutler's method will take of DMSA over that time period, so the approach is still pretty gentle, though not as effective as Cutler's.
The protocol is honestly not that hard at all. The getting up at night part sounds horrific at first, but when you actually do it, it's nothing. I picked up a timer made by Mark of Fitness for like $15, and it beeps every four hours to remind me. I have found that I will wake at the first beep at night, turn it off and reset, take my pill and water, and be sound asleep again in about 5 minutes. Really. It is not that bad. Biggest complication I can see is if you share a bed with someone else who is a light sleeper, and it might take them a while to tune out that beep. :-)
I'd like to see what Cutler's method will evolve into. I suspect that we will ultimately see something like pills of ALA at only 5 mg that will be taken once a day post-amalgam. Maybe it would take 6-10 years to chelate like that, but it would be a no-brainer method for the majority of people who don't want to get into something that requires more dedication. That might be the popular method, with round the clock 3 day on/4 day off stuff for people who are seriously sick and want to get rid of the metals as quickly and as safely as possible. That is only my guess...I have no idea if there are factors in human biology that would make this a poor approach.
I hope this helps. What you might want to do is try Cutler's method for a couple of months and see if it helps you at all. If it doesn't do anything, you might want to look from there. Good luck!