I thought I would weigh in here since it seems to me that my inquiries about
cilantro a few months back kind of started this on-going debate (not saying it
never came up before me, just it feels to me like I was "the instigator" for
this debate in recent months, so to speak).

I still have not had the chance to go through the many links in the archives
that I have in a file -- links to the posts which came up when I searched the
archive for cilantro. But let me do an update on my personal experiences with
cilantro:

I just happened to meet someone at a restaurant of his choosing in May of 2004
-- a restaurant I had never been to. After that, I began eating there fairly
regularly -- it was affordable, quick and the food was good. I noticed that on
days when I ate there, I felt much better than on days when I did not. So I
began trying to figure out *why*. I found out as much as I could about what
spices they used and got some information on the medicinal effects of those
spices. Later, I learned it is an organic restaurant. I joined this forum in
November and learned that cilantro was a chelator and that seemed to be the
final piece of the puzzle: the spices have medicinal properties which help with
my respiratory and other problems, the food is organic, and the cilantro had to
be chelating metals out of me.

I have now been eating lunch almost daily at this restaurant for about 16
months. In recent weeks, I have had to change what I eat there. When I order
the rice -- the primary source of cilantro on the menu (at least, as far as I
can tell) -- I now end up with a metalic taste in my mouth. Some days, I can
tolerate it. Some days, I cannot. So it seems to me that I have chelated out
enough metals from my body that I now leaching metals from the two small
almalgams which remain in my mouth (I lost 5 molars in my early 30's, so the
teeth with the largest amalgams are gone) -- ie I think you could say that I am
now having problems with redistribution that I did not previously have.

I happened to stumble on something which worked for me. But I do not actually
know what made this work for me. I hope to put together some clues from the
archives to better understand what I have experienced. I do not at this time
advocate that anyone experiment with cilantro unless, for some reason, they
cannot use other methods. I got lucky. And I do many things during the course
of each day to support my healing process which are confounding factors. I
cannot separate out which factors helped make cilantro a safe chelator for me
and which are unrelated. I have some guesses at this stage but no proof.

A few observations:

1) I consumed cilantro once a day, almost every day. I did not use multiple
doses in a single day. Generally speaking, on the rare occasion that I ate at
that restaurant twice in one day, I felt worse, not better.

2) I take hot baths every single day. I know for a fact that hot baths can help
draw toxins out of the body through the skin and I suspect it helped make the
cilantro a safe chelator -- was one facto that prevented it from simply
redistributing metals within my body. This may sound like a casual, easy answer
but I wouldn't agree with that assumption. When I was deathly ill a few years
back and the doctors really had no answers, I began taking hot baths daily to
help me survive my undiagnosed, mysterious health problems. At some point, I
began taking my temperature from both ears while in the tub (until the steam
finally ruined the thermometer). After weeks or months of doing so, I drew some
conclusions about what temperture range was most effective, among other things.
It is important that it not be too hot and not be too cool and that you try to
raise the temperature as evenly as possible across the entire body -- especially
the face and ears, which tend to be cooler than the
rest of the body. This means dunking your head under water, among other
things. I no longer pay close attention to the details -- I have done it so
long, it is habit now. But I made a concerted effort to study, as
scientifically as possible, how to make a hot bath effective in the face of
anti-biotic resistent infections. So I wouldn't say you can willy-nilly fill
the tub with water and get similar results.

3. I began taking guafenisen in November to help me remain off antibiotics in
the winter. I took it for probably 3 months or so. Comparing my experiences at
that time with anecdotal stories on the web about what it feels like when
mercury exits the brain, I feel pretty strongly that the guafenisen was one
factor which helped make cilantro effective for me. Coincidentally, guafenisen
is a treatment for fibromyalgia and it appears to purge something from the body
which helps fibromyalgia patients improve. That fact fits with my subjective
experience that guafenisen seemed to interact with the on-going process that
started some months earlier and helped promote the removal of metals from my
brain and body.

4. Around the same time that I began eating at this restaurant every day, I
also began taking glyconutrients. Independent observation of days when I forgot
my glyconutrients made it clear that this was one of the things substantially
contributing to my healing process. I cannot say how this interacted with
cilantro as a chelator but this may be part of why cilantro worked for me as a
safe chelator.

5. The glyconutrients helped me get off two presription drugs and stay off of
them. There is no telling how drugs might interact with cilantro since -- as I
understand it -- we don't know the mechanism that makes cilantro mobilize
mercury. I mention this because I stopped taking the prescription drugs and
began taking the glyconutrients around the same time I began eating at this
restaurant. These are confounding factors that I cannot begin to even speculate
on.

6. The other spices in the food at this restaurant have medicinal properties
which help treat other underlying medical conditions that I have and the
generally high quality of organic food also helps simply give me a foundation of
basic good health/support. So it seems obvious to me that supporting basic good
health is an amelerioting factor, making my body more able to cope. It seems
equally obvious to me that most folks in this forum deal with food issues and
many deal with other health problems. So those are complicating factors that
make it impossible to say how one can optimally support cilantro as a chelator.
(AGAIN: I GOT VERY LUCKY. I could not have planned these aspects of these
meals. They just happened to co-exist with the cilantro in the food.)

In short: cilantro appears to be a powerful chelator, I used what I would
classify as a low dose once per day, every day, for a long time -- which seems
to have made this as gentle a process as possible -- and I am now beginning to
have problems from eating it. For the record: I have NOT had a hair test and
all of my observations are anecdotal (supported by doing some reading). I
consider this to be "food for thought", NOT any kind of scientific conclusion
that you can design a protocol around.

In closing, let me say again:
It just so happens that I was eating cilantro every single day for some months
BEFORE I came to this forum and learned it was a chelator. I had stumbled upon
something -- food at a particular restaurant -- that worked for me. I have been
trying to figure out why it worked ever since. I have concluded that ONE of the
reasons it was helping me get well was that it was chelating metals out of me --
I used to have MANY large amalgams in my mouth and I know I am better off since
losing those 5 molars. I GOT LUCKY and have been trying to figure out as much
as possible the details concerning how this worked. If no one can tell you HOW
and WHY it works, I do not advocate you try to "replicate" what they did --
because you can't. I have a mental model that is still being fleshed out. I do
not expect to ever fully understand all the contributing/confounding factors as
to why this worked so well for me. And, at this time, I am beginning to have
problems from consuming cilantro. It
worked well for me for a long time. But now it isn't working so well. I can
make guesses as to why but I can't really know why.

I don't really advocate that anyone try to do what I did (unless all other
options fail you). I do not think it is replicable at this time. My inquiries
into cilantro on this list have primarly been with the goal of UNDERSTANDING a
process that ALREADY occurred -- in the past (and somwhat on-going) -- for ME.
That is a very different thing from trying to put together a protocol for FUTURE
use with a child.

HTH,















Michele in California

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