>I know I've seen info on this before, but can someone please tell me where
I can find an explanation as to how, altho preliminary tests may not show
evidence of mercury, the mercury is actually present, but locked in brain,
(???traveled there from the gut???) and the reasoning for chelating????
>
>As you can see, if I can't even ask the question right, I REALLY do need
help!!!
>
>Thanks for your patience, expertise, and caring.
>
>God bless all.
>
>Pat

Hi Pat,

Are you looking for references, or just an explanation?
If references, I'll have to poke around to see if I know any.
I'll assume you just want it explained -- but let me know if
the following does not help or address your questions.

When someone is exposed to mercury it will be present after
that for varying time periods in different body parts/organs.
It will be present in blood, but not for very long (I think it
is "days" but I am sorry to say I am not really trustworthy
source on this). In hair mercury will be present a bit longer
(I think this is in "months", but again I'm not sure.) Mercury
will be present in urine and stool to the extent the person is
able to detox it, rather than store it. What happens then is
that the mercury gets moved into other ograns-- such as thyroid,
kidneys, brain, etc. The mercury is "hidden" there--- in other
words, a person could have enough mercury in their brain and
kidneys and thyroid to do great damage and at the same time
their urine, blood, and hair would come out "normal". Urine,
blood and feces are the things we are willing to have sampled,
but they are NOT where the (long term) mercury is.

The bottom line here is that is someone is tested and shows
a HIGH level of mercury, that DOES mean there is a problem.
But, if they test as "normal" this means very little, and you
should ignore it!

Please go read this file (called "the counting rules") which
explains how a hair test can be used as a guide to tell if
someone has mercury poisoning.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-Mercury/files/Counting%2BRules

The idea here is you are looking for what mercury DOES since
you can't look for mercury itself. Something mercury DOES is
it seriously messes up the body's ability to use/process
minerals (regular stuff like calcium etc). The counting rules
look for "seriously messed up minerals".

Mercury exposure is not necessarily from the gut. It could have
been from gut (like eating tuna) or from breathing or from skin
exposure--- or in the case of vaccines, I guess I'm not sure how
to say that-- from direct injection into the body. Amalgam
fillings result in the mercury "outgassing" and then one BREATHES
the mercury vapor. If you played with mercury as a child (as
I did) that is skin exposure. There were many topical products
with mercury in them (there are still a few around, unfortunately).
These are meant as examples, but the point is that you could
be exposed various ways.

The reason for chelation is to clear the mercury (or other metals)
out of the body. Andy recently posted something that said that
most body organs will detox "on their own" in something like
2 to 5 years, but brain will hold on to the mercury forever.
Bernie just posted something that said in brain the halflife
of mercury is 30 years--- I think I may have read other numbers
too--- but they are LONG time periods--- much longer than I
have. (And if the HALFLIFE is 30 years, I wonder how long it
is to get it down to --oh 10% or 0!)

Okay, hope that was some help.
Moria