Mercury testing

Does anyone have a recommendation of where to get hair tested for
mercury? I know it's easy to Google but I am wondering if some places
are more accurate/reliable than others.

Thanks,
Aline

Aline wrote:
> Does anyone have a recommendation of where to get hair tested for
> mercury? I know it's easy to Google but I am wondering if some places
> are more accurate/reliable than others.

You should note that there is no form of testing which will tell you
how much mercury you have in your body. Testing of hair, urine,
and blood samples really don't tell you much. You could be
terribly poisoned but have test results which show nothing,
because the heavy metals are in your organs, not your hair,
urine, or blood (in this case your body's detoxification
mechanisms are failing). Or you may show high readings
but really not have a problem (because in this case your
body's detoxification mechanisms are working). Or you
could test high and have a problem.

I think with mercury poisoning, the best way to tell if
you have a problem is to find a list of symptoms that
are known to correspond with it, and see how bad off
you are. I remember once finding a questionnaire, where
you could tell how badly poisoned you were by seeing what
score you had.

(for what it's worth, back in 2001 I had high levels of
mercury in my hair, urine, and blood samples, and scored
high in the questionnaire)

Marc

There is something called a "challenge test", IIRC it was described at:
http://www.bioray2000.com/
and it shows whether one has significant mercury in the body.

AFAIK it's the only reliable one.

William



--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@...> wrote:

One option is through Greenpeace <https://secureusa.greenpeace.org/mercury/>.
They have tested a lot of people and
you can read the results, so you can have a good idea where you are compared
to others
tested the same way.

https://secureusa.greenpeace.org/mercury/

Bill

On 7/2/07, Aline <[hidden email]> wrote:

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

skrzn wrote:
> There is something called a "challenge test", IIRC it was described at:
> and it shows whether one has significant mercury in the body.

A challenge test doesn't really tell you how much mercury you
have in your body, or whether it is a problem.

It will tell you if the challenging agent causes mercury
to leave your body (assuming that the challenging agent
doesn't contain mercury). So you could use this to
monitor progress during a mercury chelation -- when
the mercury stops coming out, you are done with
that particular chelating agent. Note that this
still doesn't indicate whether you have removed
all the mercury, just that this particular chelating
agent is no longer helping. Switching to some
other chelating agent and then doing a challenge
may still show more mercury being removed.

Marc

Try www.directlabs.com and order the "Hair Toxic
Element Exposure" for $93 USD.

Cheers,
Jane Springs


--- Aline <[hidden email]> wrote:


____________________________________________________________________________________
Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us. http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 

Ugh, now I'm all confused again. Anyone know where a questionnaire is?

At $25 I might be worth doing the Greenpeace test - I might learn
something from that.

Thanks,
Aline

In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@...> wrote:

Aline wrote:
Does anyone have a recommendation of where to get hair tested for
mercury? I know it's easy to Google but I am wondering if some places
are more accurate/reliable than others.

You should note that there is no form of testing which will tell you
how much mercury you have in your body. Testing of hair, urine,
and blood samples really don't tell you much. You could be
terribly poisoned but have test results which show nothing,
because the heavy metals are in your organs, not your hair,
urine, or blood (in this case your body's detoxification
mechanisms are failing). Or you may show high readings
but really not have a problem (because in this case your
body's detoxification mechanisms are working). Or you
could test high and have a problem.

I think with mercury poisoning, the best way to tell if
you have a problem is to find a list of symptoms that
are known to correspond with it, and see how bad off
you are. I remember once finding a questionnaire, where
you could tell how badly poisoned you were by seeing what
score you had.

(for what it's worth, back in 2001 I had high levels of
mercury in my hair, urine, and blood samples, and scored
high in the questionnaire)

Marc

Hi Marc,

What you are saying makes sense but if a hair test shows high mercury
that would lead me to believe that my body is having to deal with a
lot of mercury, even if it is successfully detoxing it.

By the way, I did just find a Maui dentist who uses separate air as
well as a dam so I'm going to look into that (although he recommends
getting all the fillings out during a 4-6 week period and I don't
have that sort of money on hand currently).

Where there's a will, there's a way, however.

Aloha,
Aline

Marc wrote:
You should note that there is no form of testing which will tell you
how much mercury you have in your body. Testing of hair, urine, and
blood samples really don't tell you much. You could be terribly
poisoned but have test results which show nothing, because the heavy
metals are in your organs, not your hair, urine, or blood (in this
case your body's detoxification mechanisms are failing). Or you may
show high readings but really not have a problem (because in this
case your body's detoxification mechanisms are working). Or you
could test high and have a problem.

I think with mercury poisoning, the best way to tell if you have a
problem is to find a list of symptoms that are known to correspond
with it, and see how bad off you are. I remember once finding a
questionnaire, where you could tell how badly poisoned you were by
seeing what score you had.

(for what it's worth, back in 2001 I had high levels of mercury in my
hair, urine, and blood samples, and scored high in the questionnaire)

Marc

> Ugh, now I'm all confused again. Anyone know where a questionnaire is?

I don't recall where I got my questionaire from... since I bought
about 8 books on mercury poisoning in 2001, it may have been
in one of those.

Anyway, doing a quick Internet search brings up the following:

http://www.noaw.com/Mercury%20Poisoning/mercury_poisoning.htm
http://www.extremehealthusa.com/survey.html

This will at least give you an idea about the common symptoms
of mercury poisoning.

Marc

> What you are saying makes sense but if a hair test shows high mercury
> that would lead me to believe that my body is having to deal with a
> lot of mercury, even if it is successfully detoxing it.

Yes, that's true. However, you can't really say that you are okay
just because the hair reading is low.

Marc

There is a chapter entitled "Do you have it? How to diagnose mercury
poisoning." in Andrew Hall Cutler's book Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis
and treatment. (Marc, is this where you saw it? I'd be interested in
knowing about another thorough survey if you know of one.)

This is a pretty comprehensive book and that chapter isn't what I'd
say is geared toward self-help unless you're a physician. The
determination of mercury poisoning relies on:

1) 13 history and discussion points
2) 10 physical examination tests (for symptoms like very poor balance,
unusual tics or twitches in the facial muscles, etc.)
3) and a selection from up to 33 lab tests you can have done.

Once you've got all the info you can, you count up all the positive
test results and compare that number to two charts that give what
Cutler considers from his research as the probability of having Hg
poisoning.

In line with what Marc recommended, Cutler suggests that if you can't
get a physician to help you, or your finances limit your lab testing,
that you can read the extensive descriptions of Hg poisoning in an
earlier chapter and see if they strongly match your situation.

You can order the book directly from Cutler for $35 + S/H and
applicable sales tax if you live in WA. Amazon sells it for $60.

Cutler's website is www.noamalgam.com

-Beau


--- In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@...> wrote:

bbin37 wrote:
> There is a chapter entitled "Do you have it? How to diagnose mercury
> poisoning." in Andrew Hall Cutler's book Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis
> and treatment. (Marc, is this where you saw it? I'd be interested in
> knowing about another thorough survey if you know of one.)

I don't remember where I saw the questionaire... it could have
been the Culter book, as that was one of the books I bought...

Marc

Thanks Beau and Marc,

I'm finding it very hard to make decisions about how to try and solve
my problems and suffereing from information overload.

Could be a symptom of mercury poisoning but I'm too confused to
figure it out. HA! HA! LOL! (yes, I'm cracking up......).

Aline

In [hidden email], "bbin37" <netfarer2@...> wrote:
>
> There is a chapter entitled "Do you have it? How to diagnose mercury
> poisoning." in Andrew Hall Cutler's book Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis
> and treatment. (Marc, is this where you saw it? I'd be interested
in
> knowing about another thorough survey if you know of one.)
>
> This is a pretty comprehensive book and that chapter isn't what I'd
> say is geared toward self-help unless you're a physician. The
> determination of mercury poisoning relies on:
>
> 1) 13 history and discussion points
> 2) 10 physical examination tests (for symptoms like very poor
balance,
> unusual tics or twitches in the facial muscles, etc.)
> 3) and a selection from up to 33 lab tests you can have done.
>
> Once you've got all the info you can, you count up all the positive
> test results and compare that number to two charts that give what
> Cutler considers from his research as the probability of having Hg
> poisoning.
>
> In line with what Marc recommended, Cutler suggests that if you
can't
> get a physician to help you, or your finances limit your lab
testing, questionnaire is?