Michele, thanks for the explanation. I really believe there's more
than one way to skin our mercury cat, and glad to hear you found
something that worked for you. I know very little about cilantro &
chelation, but one thing struck me while reading your story. Do
Mexican/Spanish/other nationalities who eat lots of cilantro have
lower autism rates? Is it possible a mom eating cilantro regularly
might lower the maternal mercury levels that could be passed on to
baby? If she breastfeeds, could that further prevent mercury
poisoning? "food" for thought, lol.

Debi

--- In Autism-Mercury@yahoogroups.com, Michele <calif.michele@s...> wrote:
> 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,
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> Michele in California
>
> calif.michele@s...
> webmaster@c...
>
>
> Visit Michele's World! of (Twice) Exceptional Homeschooling
> http://www.califmichele.com
>
> "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
understanding." -- Albert Einstein
>
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