I originally posted this a year ago, but due to a couple of developments, I wanted to reach out to all of you again.  I recently received this kind and thoughtful email from a member of our community:

Dear Cynthia, I never told you that last year you mentioned the Broken Brain series and I followed it. I believe that this and your blog saved my health. I went to the dentist in May due to a toothache. She told me I must have a root canal and proceeded to merrily drill out the old amalgam filling. Over the next few days I began to lose my memory, concentration, anxiety, depression, insomnia, tingling hands, arms, unclear vision. It took 9 weeks, and warnings from my employer before I realized that something terribly wrong was happening and it wasn’t going away but getting worse. Then, I remembered Dr. Hyman talking about mercury and you blogged about mercury and I had recently had the dental treatment.

I asked the GP for a mercury test, he told me I needed a psychiatrist. I agreed to go to the psychiatrist if I did not have mercury poisoning. There are no facilities to do this blood test in Cyprus, so we had to wait a week for the results from abroad. The doctor called me and said the mercury level was 500% above the maximum accepted level. I could not find any doctor in the public hospital system who could help me. The GP consulted with 3 private neurologists who could not help me. I found a doctor in Nicosia who was away on holiday for most of August. He is MD but also ND and specialist in homeopathic remedies. I think the Holy Spirit guided me to find him as well as asking about the mercury test.

Anyways, just had all amalgam fillings safely removed and the doctor started me on chelation therapy (20 – 30 weeks). Off work because my brain is not working correctly, but have hope that this will change. Thanks for your work, you do not always know how those ripples you send out help others.

Ok, so first, after drying my eyes, I thanked God that something I wrote helped someone, and prayed for our sister in Christ.  Secondly, I thanked Him for this wonderful woman who took the time to share with me, and gave me permission to share her email with you.  Here is my original post, and I’ve added a link at the end just in case you want to look into this further.  This is such a hot topic today…it was hard to narrow down all of the resources I have to just one.  But I chose the most recent Broken Brain interview.

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To mark my one year anniversary of blogging, I missed a week!  Last week I got my mercury fillings taken out, and didn’t know that the mercury in your bloodstream actually goes up afterwards for the first week or so.  Maybe my doctor didn’t want to scare me?  I think I would have preferred to have been prepared!

Using a holistic dentist, who employees the correct techniques, prevents additional mercury from entering your system.  However, the heavy metals that have been gathering in your body for years increase in your bloodstream after the amalgam fillings are removed.  THEN the dumping and healing starts!  The result is that the symptoms of heavy metal toxicity increase before the relief is felt.  This includes joint pain, fuzzy brain, fatigue, difficulty breathing, muscle tension, depression…long story short…it was a tough week. For a complete list of symptoms associated with heavy metal toxicity and what you can do about it, as usual, Dr. Mark Hyman has a great post, complete with video.  Ah…to be Dr. Hyman someday with a ton of helpful blog posts.  I’m working on it!

Research published in Neuroendocrinology Letters showed that removing mercury fillings resulted in improvements in 70 percent of those who were suffering from mercury-related health issues.  Since my blood tests show that this is an issue for me (and it goes up when you are recovering from bio-toxin illness) it was really time to get it done after years of procrastination.  Unfortunately my regular dentist doesn’t understand these things, so I did have to find a new one.  I asked my new dentist why it is that so many conventional dentists are resistant to the research going into this topic.  She said that number one, they are not taught this in school.  And, number two, unless you have first hand knowledge of it happening to yourself or to your family, as she did, it’s easy to just go with ADA guidelines.

You might find this as interesting as I do.  OSHA and the EPA consider mercury to be a hazardous waste that can be lethal to humans.  Therefore, dentists have to treat amalgam material as “dangerous” and follow a lot of special rules when handling it, or they incur a huge fine.  And yet, the ADA still thinks it’s ok to put in people’s mouths.  It is proven that the vapors that continually emit from these fillings go right into our brains!  Here are some good videos that explain how this happens.

Aside from saying no to amalgam fillings, there are other ways that you can decrease exposure to heavy metals:

• Use glass, cast iron, carbon steel, titanium, and enamel cookware. Both aluminum and non-stick cookware are well known for their toxic dangers.
• Avoid  cosmetics with aluminum bases, mineral powders that contain bismuth, and aluminum-laden antiperspirants, which have been shown to increase your Alzheimer’s risk by as much as 300 percent!
• Avoid vaccinations that inject mercury or aluminum directly into your bloodstream.
• Avoid costume jewelry if you are sensitive to metals.
• Avoid smoking and second hand smoke as it causes cadmium poisoning.
• Make sure you purchase your natural herbal remedies from a reputable source with strict quality testing. Some colloidal silvers can lead to silver poisoning for instance.
  
• Avoid conventional household cleaning products.
• Avoid conventional insecticides and herbicides.

Need to find a new dentist?  You can try these links.  The one I found was in my insurance network!

Holistic Dental Association

International Academy of Biological Dentists

Also, Dr. Mercola has some good links for finding dentists, and a great list of questions to ask your current dentist if you are unsure about his/her knowledge in this field. 

Excellent podcast to listen to:

The Broken Brain Podcast – Dental Dangers of Mercury, Root Canals, and Fluoride with Dr. Rouzita Rashtian, #17