Me and Amalgam

Are amalgam fillings dangerous?

Are amalgam fillings dangerous? Well. Amalgam contains mercury. Mercury is one of the most toxic elements. And amalgam fillings are put into your mouth, close to your brain. Do I need to go on?

More information about the toxicity of amalgam here

My personal story with amalgam

My mother had a lot of amalgam fillings when she was pregnant with me.  Around 60 % of the toxins go from the mother over to the baby, which definitely gave me a not so good start in life. My sister who is 4 years older doesn't have much symptoms, although she also had some problems like mild neurodermitis, allergies and strong acne during the teenager period. But I got it worse. Maybe I am a bad detoxer (Dr. Mutter, who is a german expert for mercury, claims that 25 % of the population cannot detox properly). That is also the reason why you don't find high mercury levels in hair or blood tests of autistic children. They cannot eliminate the toxins which causes the bigger problems with the brains, and other tissues. I never had high levels of mercury in my hair or blood analysis.
When I was born, I also had a really big head which made the birth more complicated (there seems to be a connection between bigger heads of babies and autism). This might also have caused some problems with my cervical spine, which is also a big factor for symptoms.
If you look at pictures from my sister and me as children, you can see big differences. I always had a very puffy face with often red cheeks. I often had an empty glare. There is also a slight asymmetry in my face (one eye is bigger than the other) which is said to be typical in autism too.

Red cheeks are sooo cute! Well, but they are definitely not a sign of health as so many think. And they are not cute anymore if you are an adult woman.

As a child I also had a hip dysplasia, which could be related to a deficiency in minerals. Mercury wreaks havoc with calcium, magnesium, phosphor etc which is important for bone formation. Mercury also binds preferably to the glands like the thyroid where the parathormone is responsable for calcium. It is all one fragile cycle, where mercury can cause easily an imbalance at many points.
For a small period I also had a mild eczema on my arms, but that luckily went away (I am grateful that I didn't get my mother`s full-blown neurodermitis. She is by the way much stronger than me affected by mercury toxicity, because she still has these old leaking amalgam fillings).
I have been a very quiet child. From early on I had problems with my digestion system, for example severe constipation which caused so much pain that we had to drive to the hospital one night.
In was (am?) pretty autistic. I had no strength in my muscles and couldn't do what other children did easily. I always had a very high pulse.
But still, in elementary school I was quite okay. Very shy and anxious, but also eager to learn a lot and intelligent. I had a very good memory for rehearsing poems for example.
So maybe I would have coped with everything but then the time came when I got my own amalgam filling(s). I don't know if I had only one filling (like my dentist report claims) or more, for example also in my milk teeth. I remember that I had been quite often to the dentist to get a filling (which I can also read in my diaries - in one of those entries you can also read that I had gotten one of my later typical tonsillitis right after the dentist visits - what a coincidense!). In my dentist reports it also says I got the amalgam filling when I was 9 or 10. So that is probably not a milk tooth. But when I had a check-up in my mid-twenties there was no amalgam anymore in that one filling that I have, but glasionomercement. I can't remember or just don't know what happened to that one amalgam filling that I got with 9 or 10. It must have been replaced? But when? And how?

Needless to mention, my memory detoriated a lot at that time.  I got really bad at school, I had problems focussing, I became even more autistic, and much more anxious. Depression and panic attacks galore.
I got VERY short-sighted. I had tonsillitis a lot, or bronchitis, with coughing going on for weeks (my family got crazy about it).
Additionally to the amalgam from my mother and my own fillings, school time was also vaccination time. I remember quite a lot of these, either via injection or via sugar pill. Lots of vaccinations contain mercury or aluminium or other stuff which you don't want to inject your child. When I was 16 you could get the Hepatitis B vaccination for free so my mother thought that might be a good idea. Hepatitis B vaccinations contained mercury, and I got 4 (!) of them. Hooray!

In puberty I got keratosis pilaris on my arms, I developed an eating disorder (which could be a consequence of mercury toxicity, or increasing the toxicity), and my period was very irregular. I was put on birth control pill to regulate that.
I started sweating a lot more than normal, and I had lots of saliva production. My eyes were very sensitive to light. I got hirsutism (male hair growth in the face) and my red cheeks were almost constant, and often hot.
Well, did I have to mention, that no boy was interested in me? But it didn't matter, I was also not interested in them. I was interested in nothing.
I don't remember much from my childhood/teenager time. I felt like in a constant brain fog.
At university time I had bouts of panic attacks and severe depressions. Sometimes I had pain in my heart or heart palpitations or pain in my jaw (especially after eating apples).
I got diagnosed with mild hypothyroid and got medication. Which helped nothing.
I started hurting myself. I tried a psychological therapy.
I forgot everything I ever learned in university, and I wonder myself how I could finish my studies. I wasn't interested in anything.

Then one day I wanted to eat healthier (I was addicted to sweets) and started eating more fruit, and I got severe diarrhea. Which I am so thankful for. Because it made me study. About Food intolerances, Candida, and in the end: amalgam as the cause. I went from doctor to doctor, made all sorts of tests, and had all sorts of irregularities (which none of them could explain, but "amalgam is surely not the problem"). Well, I went to a row of naturopaths and each of them, with different diagnosis-methods, told me, I had a problem with heavy metals/amalgam. I researched more and more and then I was convinced. Mercury is the nerval toxin that was causing me these problems.

I started several treatments. Nystatin, Probiotics, Grapefruit see extract against the candida. I stopped eating sugar and white flours completely. I stopped milk products and gluten.
And things started moving. I got some eczema for a while. Later an abscess on my ankle which had to be opened. My body started to throw out the garbage.
I started the heavy metal detoxes. A la KLinghardt with Chlorella and Cilantro which made me feel like an old woman. It was horrible, and I still cannot understand how two naturopaths could have put me on cilantro from the first moment on. Cilantro should only be used at the end of a detox!
I started taking castor oil weekly (yes, diarrhea helps you detoxing). I took DMPS twice, and went then over to the Cutler protocol with DMSA, and later Alpha lipoic acid.
Lots of supplements. 2007 and 2008 definitely weren't good years for me.
But after a while I noticed improvements. I am a different person today. But I still have some symptoms and mercury in my system. Detoxing is a loooong process with lots of side effects unfortunately. Patience is key.

What is left from the symptoms:

• red cheeks (I hate them), sometimes hot. Probably related to yeast/inflammation in the gut?
• very short sighted (don't know if that can improve much after all these years)
• hormonal issues (hirsutism, thyroid, libido)
• sometimes still heart palpitations (though it has been a while)
• digestion issues, often bloated
• puffy face (edema?)
• my teeth enamel has suffered 

I will post my test results from the years of doctor's odyssee another time.