The Mercury Diaries
A few years back, after realizing that mercury toxicity was an issue for me, I spent thousands of hours online searching for help. I came across Andy Cutler’s chelation protocol and studied all I could. On the Yahoo Frequent Dose Chelation support group there was one poster by the name of Sunshine who gave me hope. He was getting better using low and frequent doses of alpha lipoic acid and DMSA, and he often posted words of encouragement to us newbies.
After recovering much of his mind and body, Daniel Forsyth (Sunshine) wrote a book about his experience - The Mercury Diaries - and I recommend it highly. Daniel’s website is mercurydiaries.com. He has been through almost everything related to detoxification therapies, and many Amanda’s Health Journal readers will identify with so much of it.
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AHJ: Hi Danny. Thank you so much for doing an interview with me. I talk a lot about mercury and detoxification on this site, and adding your experience to these topics is greatly appreciated.
Your book is an inspiring (and often funny) story. Not just because you got well, but also because readers can feel that you are writing it for them to get well too. You wrote that at the age of 37 your health was quite poor: constant back pain, stiff muscles, digestive pain, heartburn, bloating…
Danny: I remember it well as it marked the start of an epic adventure into the world of mercury poisoning. Back then my health was on a slippery slope. Nothing I did seemed to make any lasting difference. Little by little my health was just crumbling away and no amount of exercise or healthy eating did anything other than tread water, at best. One day as I lay being worked over by Kate, my osteopath, she excitedly told me all about this short course she’d just done about kinesiology, also called muscle testing. Apparently kinesiology is used to identify imbalances in the body’s structural, chemical, emotional and/or energy to establish the body’s priority healing needs. News to me.
“Hey Danny, can I ask, have you got any silver fillings?” Kate enquired.
“Yeah sure, I got a mouth full, look.” I open my mouth to proudly show off my silvery load.
“Did you know that some people react badly to them?”
I stared blankly at the ceiling, “Really?”
“Those amalgam fillings have mercury in them and sometimes the body rejects them.”
“Really? How odd. Is mercury a bad thing?”
She paused and looked at me odd, “Yes, pretty bad. Do you want me to check yours?” I remember she was excited to test her new skills.
“Sure, if you want.”
So Kate tested me there and then and that started my mercury journey. My amalgam fillings tested weak to my body and she said I should get my silver fillings replaced with white ones. This was all new to me and frankly I didn’t believe a word of it. My bad back and dodgy guts the result of my fillings? What tosh! And she had only just learnt about this kinesiology technique and was just an amateur anyway. But I was kinda desperate so I decided to investigate this a bit further; so I made an appointment and went to see her teacher. He confirmed Kates initial findings: I was reacting poorly to my amalgam fillings: eight of them.
Danny’s book on getting the mercury out using Andy Cutler’s frequent dosing protocol
AHJ: In The Mercury Diaries you wrote:
I had terrible problems with bacteria and parasites. The mercury smashed my adrenal and thyroid glands. This in turn robbed my body of the energy and strength to fight and defend itself against the bugs. I had to kill the bugs, support and repair my adrenal glands, support and repair my thyroid gland, and also chelate mercury. A long chain of problems and solutions all caused by the big M.
When you can see the big picture, when you understand the broader perspective of mercury poisoning, you can follow each problem back to the source: mercury. It is important not to get side-tracked, but to keep all your plates busily twirling around in your incredible plate-spinning show.
I love how you summed it up above. It’s no wonder that most mercury-toxic people can’t get better. They try many things, but not for long enough, and progress is rarely found. People like you who keep at it with such a methodical drive are few and far between. We forget so easily that recovery will take a while, and that we just have to keep going. Slow and steady wins the race.
Danny: Understanding that mercury is a huge and massive problem, the root cause to so many health complications is just vital. A person cannot get better unless he really and truly gets it and understands that mercury is the core issue. Understanding that all their health issues are ‘just’ symptoms of mercury poisoning: that messes with the mind! A person may have twenty health problems, all caused deep down by mercury. Each of these problems has a variety of solutions, but if the root cause is not understood and addressed, all the health problems will just fester and bob along on an endless wave of misery. But for a person to achieve that ‘mercury poisoning’ lightbulb moment; it usually requires a grand and heroic journey.
Dr. Andy Cutler’s book on how to detox from mercury
Mercury is very often the last on a long extensive list of attempts at getting better. Mercury poisoning is difficult to understand, difficult to treat and almost completely ignored by mainstream western medicine. So a person has huge hurdles to leap in order to understand that their problem is mercury, but if they can ‘get it’ and ‘understand it’ then its happy dayz because with that knowledge a person can take and make real progress, making informed choices for their health. There are proven protocols that have stood the test of time: people can and do get better from mercury poisoning. I did and so can anyone that puts their mind to it.
Lots of people get better through chelating with the Cutler Protocol. It’s not particularly quick, nor easy, and it certainly takes some dedication, but it has a long history of safely curing people of mercury poisoning.
I know mums that cured their severely autistic kids. Autistic kids that mainstream western healthcare had thrown away as lost causes. These mums researched mercury poisoning and bravely chelated their kids under the Cutler protocol and cured them. Yup, cured their incurable autism. Mad eh! Those ladies are some of the most awesome mums in the world. What courage to take control! What courage to chelate such young sick kids. Respect ladies.
There are other mercury chelation protocols, many of which seem completely mental to me, but they do work for some people. Unfortunately mercury is very unforgiving and problems and errors can cause massive and long term health problems if messed with incorrectly. I believe you can take a certain amount of risk in the things you do to help your health. Be it herbal cleanses or detox protocols, or drugs or whatever, but I firmly believe a person should take as few risks as possible with mercury chelation. Taking huge dose of mercury chelation drugs/products/potions is a recipe for mega disaster. I have seen and heard many horrific stories of incorrect mercury chelation and my firm advice is: kid gloves only for mercury. Mercury chelation is like Russian Roulette with big infrequent dose chelation: once that bullet is out the gun there ain’t nothing you can do. Cutler’s protocol may not be perfect, but at least it is low dose and tailored to the individual so any problems or minimised because the dose is so low.
AHJ: During my die offs and detox crises over the years, I would have been even more of a mess without the use of bowel cleansing. Some say we need to be eliminating three times a day, especially if detoxing. What has been your experience?
Danny: How many bowel movements should a person have a day? Is the ideal of three a day real, possible or even normal? To answer that: yes it’s real, yes it’s possible and no it’s not normal.
Your digestive tract is a great big digestion, absorption and waste removal system. Traditionally people eat three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Each time you add food into the system you need to make room/space for that incoming food. That’s the logic of it. That’s why a normal healthy body will have a bowel movement after each meal: to make room for the income food into the digestive tract.
But our diets are not always optimum, nor is our overall health and so this three bowel movements a day is not very common anymore. But it can be with a little effort. There are special herbs you can take that will encourage a cleaning and normalisation of the digestive tract. Any ‘Bowel Cleanse’ will clean out your pipes and some of the herbs in there will boost the peristalsis movement of the gut and you too can enjoy a more regular experience!
If your body can quickly expel its waste and swiftly remove any toxins you will be on the way to better health. If bodily wastes cannot get out quickly and easily, it makes for a miserable life. Cleaning the bowels is the foundation of good health. Without clean bowels, all the various remedies for healing will be significantly reduced. It’s worth repeating myself here to hammer home the point: Cleaning the bowels is the foundation of all good health. It is very difficult to get better if your digestive tract is blocked and congested. How do you know if you are blocked and congested? By asking yourself how many times a day you have a dump! Anything less than three per day is sub-optimal.
AHJ: Is it crucial to get the mucoid plaque out? How do we know if we have it?
Danny: Yes. Clean bowels is the foundation of good health. You cannot get better if your body is unable to expel waste and toxins. What is mucoid plaque? It’s a thick rubbery coating the length of peoples digestive tract that stops them digesting the food they eat. If you Google search images of mucoid plaque you will find hundreds of thousands of pictures from hundreds of thousands of people that found it inside them. It’s quite horrific! You know if you have mucoid plaque if:
You are really sick and remain in poor health after many efforts to get better,
You have less than three bowel movements a day,
You have food intolerances and/or allergies.
The sicker you are, the fewer bowel movements you have, and the more food intolerances you have: the more likely you are to be severely congested in your gut. What’s wrong with taking a few herbs to clean out your pipes? That’s all the herbs do: clean the pipes and encourage the digestive tract to move and work correctly.
How often do you wash the outside of your body? Do you shower or bath daily? How often do you clean the inside of your body? Exactly!
Do you ever clean the shower or bath? How dirty do they get, and they just have clean water and your washed off sweat on them. You have to scrub that muck off it’s so mucky. Think about the inside of your body and what that’s got inside it!
And I ask again: How often do you clean the inside of your body? And I say again: Clean bowels is the foundation of good health. The good news is herbs are cheap and can be done from the comfort of your own home.
My bowel cleanse recommendations: Humaworm.com. For bowel cleaning go for the Humaworm Colon Cleanse. There are also loads of other companies too and I’m sure they are fine as well, although I’d avoid anything too mainstream.
AHJ: As you describe in your book, getting a handle on your adrenal and thyroid situation is a bear. Do you have some recommendations for people who think they may have issues but are daunted to even begin to understand their hormonal situation?
Danny: Treating your adrenal and thyroid glands are indeed a beast to get to grips with, but although it’s tricky, with a little dedication anyone can figure it out. I did and I started from a zero-health-knowledge state. It’s not that difficult; you just need to be able to see all the wood amongst all the many trees. Generally people that figure out they are mercury toxic have already usually jumped through numerous hoops along their path. So adrenals and thyroids is just another hoop to tackle and there is no substitute to getting low down and dirty and doing some proper research. Initially I’d stay away from the forums and internet based knowledge gathering: it’s a bit haphazard out there at times. I’d suggest reading a couple of quality books. Books written for normal non-medical people like you and me. They explain in common layman terms what all the mumbo-jumbo actually means, what you need to do, when and how.
“Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome” by James L Wilson.
“Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy” By Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield
Both quality understandable books, written for the likes of us. These two will get you well started on this topic. One thing that is vital is to treat the adrenal glands first before thyroid support is started, so make sure you read the James Wilson adrenal book first.
AHJ: Reading your book I was amazed with the commonalities that a lot of mercury-toxic people share. Here are a few: back and neck pain, poor posture/scoliosis, bloating, history of heavy drinking, feeling cold all the time, memory loss, hormonal imbalances, kidney issues with water retention, missing libido, weight loss...I’ve experienced every one of these symptoms as you did. One of my favorite parts of your book is near the end, when you write:
Dairy allergy – gone Wheat allergy – gone Gluten allergy - gone Soya allergy – gone Nightshade allergy – gone Passive smoking allergy – gone All processed food allergy – gone Sulphur food intolerance – gone Fruit intolerance – gone Sugar problem/hypoglycaemia – gone Chronic heartburn – gone. Constipation – gone Bloating – gone Dry skin – gone Sleeping badly – gone Libido – back to normal Multiple chemical sensitivities – gone Chronic back problems and pain for 10 years – gone Muscle weakness – gone Short term memory problems – gone Brain fog – gone Depression – gone Tinnitus – gone Anger – gone Hypothyroidism – gone Adrenal fatigue – gone Chronic fatigue – gone
What an amazing thing to see how far you’ve come!
At the risk of oversimplifying the process of mercury detox, here is a sort-of summary: educate yourself, eat well, bowel cleanse, parasite cleanse, dental clean up, liver cleanse, kidney cleanse, chelate, and repeat. And throwing in some meditation, yoga, kinesiology, or whatever else works for you can be very helpful.
Danny: Ha, yes, bang on right, especially the repeat part! Sounds a bit ambitious doesn’t it, all those ideas to get to grips with. But no one should feel overawed or overwhelmed by all these different modalities required to regain your health. Just start at the beginning, research the one subject that grabs you by the balls and just dive in deep. One at a time is key. Trying to understand ten new topics all at once is impossible and a recipe for disaster, confusion and despair. Pick one topic, whatever rings your current bell, and dive in hard. Get real focused. All the above subjects suddenly become very interesting when you are dealing with yourself and how they relate to you and your current situation. Just take each day as it comes. Today, this week, is parasite week. Or bowels week. Or teeth week, or whatever week. Read and research until you understand it. When you understand your given topic, everything becomes clear and obvious. What to do and when become self-evident when you understand what’s what. There is a huge amount of cross-over on these subjects too and they are all inter-related. We are after all just one body which is totally and completely one living and breathing machine. You’ll be reading something and you’ll see clearly all the connections and relationships between all the parts. You’ll also see the BS clear as the eye can see. That’s when it starts getting fun: seeing through all the BS.
AHJ: Many thanks Danny. I hope readers will check out your book, The Mercury Diaries.
Danny: Thanks Amanda!
