From 2013 my journey has been an extreme one. This is how it goes…

Travel Jabs

Before Bali in 2013 I had a whole load of jabs including Hep A, Hep B and the Rabies jab (Rabipur). Within 24 hours I started getting pains in my legs, specifically my left knee. For months it felt ‘awkward’ and I couldn’t explain it. If I sat and took the weight off of it it hurt, and if I walked it hurt. I couldn’t seem to shake it off and went to Bali for 3 and a half glorious weeks.

Kidney Stones

The day after I returned I got struck with an evil pain in my left side of the abdomen and called an ambulance. I spent 2 days in a hospital bed and was found to have a kidney stone lodged in my ureter. It was hell. Why? Why suddenly start getting kidney stones? No one could tell me anything. I had 24 hour urine samples taken (where you carry around a 5 litre bottle and pee into it for a day) to see the levels of calcium in my urine, but everything came back fine. “come back in 6 months” the urologists said. I asked many doctors, urologists and search hundreds of websites for the reason why. All I’ve ever had was “drink more water”.

For a whole year I had kidney pains and my health deteriorated but I carried on worrying (and wondering) why I had these pains and why I formed these kidney stones. I kept getting UTI’s (urinary tract infections) so one day I visited my GP to carry out a dipstick urine test. Out pops a kidney stone into the toilet! The urine had no infection and they sent the kidney stone away for analysis.

Testicular Pains

2 weeks later I started getting pains in my testicles, like a dull throbbing pain, it seemed like my testicles had dropped and my balls were lower. Over the following weeks it got worse and worse. I visited my local doctor and he said it’s Epididymis, gave me loads of antibiotics and sent me on my way. After 10 days the pain went only to come back a few weeks later, but worse. Much worse.

THE Antibiotics & Gut health

The doctor gave me more antibiotics and sent me on my way – even though no infection had been found. 10 weeks. Yes, 10 weeks of several different wide-spectrum antibiotics I had and my health spiralled out of control.

My testicle pain got worse, my digestion shut down, I had SUPER bloating, I started getting chest pains so bad I had to call an ambulance, I started getting evil tendon pain, I started pissing 20-30 times a day, my energy disappeared (so much so that I didn’t have the energy to lift an umbrella for more than a minute) and I was falling apart. Thanks doc!

After 4 months of visiting the doctor 3 or 4 times a week one day I asked him what it could be causing all these symptoms, and he shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know how to help you Tim”. That was it. The gloves were off.

Around this time I got thrush in my mouth. It wasn’t just in my mouth, it was on one side all around the gum of one particular tooth. Why? It just happened to be one of my metal fillings (I had 6) luckily.

I knew my problem solving brain would have to hit the books (and Google) and find out myself.

The moment of realisation

After researching kidney stones, antibiotics and tendon pain I found that there were many like me on the forums with the exact same problem. The first one was the antibiotics. Ciprofloxacin was the main one I had for 10 weeks is known to cause tendonitis. It’s got a black box warning! People have been hospitalised by it and are now wheel-chair bound as a result! They call themselves “floxies“. I found on several medical sites that people with magnesium deficiencies are susceptible to getting tendonitis with Cipro. I started magnesium citrate immediately. I also realised that if you have low magnesium it can cause calcium issues (see the link to kidney stones?!).

I also looked into ‘metal fillings’ which turned out to be called “amalgam” which is made of several cheap metals including MERCURY!!! I googled “Metal Filling Thrush” and found out about Mercury Poisoning (also called Amalgam Illness) which suppresses your immune system and when combined with antibiotics can cause Candida (as you kill all the bacteria off in your gut yeasts can flosrish). It was all overwhelming, but I had started running down the rabbit hole. I had found some huge things.

The dentist

Quite honestly the evidence online was so compelling that I decided to get the damn mercury fillings out asap. I called my standard dentist and asked for the amalgam to be removed to which she responded “I don’t believe in that nonsense but I’ll remove them for you if you really want”. I booked an appointment just incase, and couldn’t believe her response. I started looking for a dentist in London near my office (by this time my health was very poor and couldn’t get into work) and found a holistic dentist on Carnaby Street. Kathrin.

When I met Kathrin (who has been a huge help of my journey) she told me about another patient of hers “Danny” who had been through almost the same issues as me. She lent me a book called “The Mercury Diaries” and told me to read it ASAP. All I can say is WOW. Danny was a hardcore dude. He had been through far worse than me, so much that at one point he could only eat salad! I’ll come back to him…

Kathrin booked me in and removed my Amalgam fillings using Mercury Safe Dentistry procedures and I started to get better. I knew there was something in this even though the government won’t admit it (they’d get so many court-cases if they admitted they’ve mucked up and allowed this toxic metal in our mouths for years!).

The Nutritionist, Candida & Mercury

As I worked in the W1 area in London I decided to find a nutritionist in Harley Street to help me with my low magnesium.

When I met Vicky and told her what had gone on, she immediately said you’ve got “Candida”. This was the first time anyone had said anything that made sense. She told me it was controversial with the medical profession (I have since quizzed about 15 professionals who don’t believe you can get it unless you have AIDS (which I don’t)) and sent off a urine sample test called “Organic Acids Test” (apparently the gold standard for candida). It confirmed I had very high levels, so she recommended an “anti-candida diet” which meant not having any sugar at all. NO sugar at all, including sweet vegetables, no pasta (eww), no white rice (carbs) and definitely no fructose.

The book she recommended was The Yeast Connection. It explains why we get Candida, what it is, what it does to you and how to rid your body of it.

Vicky also sent off a hair mineral analysis test to check for heavy metals. They came back high for Arsenic and Mercury! Her approach was to kill the Candida and nothing with the Mercury. What I found interesting is that Candida has an affinity to Mercury, so when you have Mercury you have Candida overgrowth! (she didn’t seem to know this) Things were starting to fit into place for me. Lose the mercury, the sugar and then the Candida will follow.

Danny Boy – Aka “Sunshine”

I read the Mercury Diaries (Danny also has a great blog) hanging on every single word. It’s like this guy was me. He had all the same problems (but worse)!

He was an avid user of the Frequent Dose Chelation Forum on Yahoo, and his username was Sunshine. It turns out that most of his health issues resolved after doing “chelation therapy” to get the mercury out of his body. He tells his story of being super-ill with all the therapies and supplements and what they do – everything was mapped out. From Liver Flushes to fix the liver, to Adrenal Cortex Extract (ACE ACE BABY as he calls it) to stable the adrenals and even his Master Cleanse Diet (also know as the Lemonade diet). He laid most of it out for me.

I needed to know more. I needed to meet him.

When we first met, we met in Central London fairly near to both our offices. 10 years older than me, but we got on well.  He was a dude. I highly recommend you read his book!

The main things I took were on the following:

• Liver Flushes
• Slow and steady wins the race (with regards to Chelation)
• ‘It’s a minefield out there’ – i.e. research everything before popping new pills
• Sole (salt Water) drink
• Andy Cutler’s protocol for Chelation
• Natural Thyroid support

The Private Functional Medicine Doctor

My NHS GP had been useless. They had made me worse. I’m 100% certain of that. I moved on, I needed some guidance in this “minefield” so I went to see Dr Mantzourani. She was £300 an hour or £180 for half an hour. You’ve got to make every single second count!

She ran countless tests and didn’t believe I had Mercury Toxicity (as per all Doctors) as she checked my blood and urine for Mercury – which both showed ‘within limit’ levels. What she doesn’t seem to understand is that Mercury stores within your fatty tissues and sits there more than floating around in your blood! More was clicking into place.

Of the tests the Dr ran several came back saying my gut was leaky and that I had no good gut bacteria. She thought all my issues we were my gut (I agree a lot stems from there, but not everything).

She also said I had very low testosterone, and prescribed me a transdermal gel called Testogel. This helped my body hugely as with all adrenally fatigued mercury toxic victims T is nearly always low. There are better natural ways to make your body make it’s own (Adrenal Cortex Extract and Licorice Root Extract).

Andy Cutlers Amalgam Illness book & Chelation

Although I had read The Mercury Diaries (it spelt out most of the protocol) Danny had told me to buy Andy Cutlers Amalgam Illness book so I could fully understand Chelation before embarking on it. The key difference is that most medical ‘professionals’ (including doctors and dentists) do IV chelation which can cause serious issues, or use natural supplements that haven’t been tested widely. Andy’s protocol is based around the half-life of the Chelators, which for my chosen Chelator (alpha lipoic acid) is 3 hours. So 1 tablet every 3 hours round the clock for 3 days a week. It’s pretty hardcore but works a treat (so I was to find out).

My first and 1 year post-chelation hair test can be found here (link to follow shortly)

Hormones, Adrenal Fatigue & Thyroid

Since seeing my super expensive GP I found out that my adrenals were shot (due to low T) to pieces. Danny also talked about this in his book quite extensively. I had no energy, I couldn’t wake up, and my body wasn’t fixing itself well. After several months of taking a generic version Armour Thyroid and lots of adrenal support I was getting places slowly. Sure it had worked a bit…

I decided to find a specialist to help with this. Enter Marek. Marek is talked about in more detail here.

Human Growth Hormones (HGH)

Sure, I was getting better (80% better I reckon) but I wasn’t right. A friend of mine told me about HGH – this drug that makes your body grow again, fix itself better and makes you feel like superman. It’s not an anabolic steroid, it’s a growth hormone. Very different.

Anyway, I decided to get my levels tested and they were low, so I managed to persuade my endocrinologist to trial me on it. WOW. My nails started growing again, I found my energy SHOT up – I started running up all the stairs in every tube station every day. It worked, but something was still holding me back. I’d get headaches, infections and the occasional candida flare up (but a lot less) and my white blood cell count shot up from 3.1 to 6.7!

What we know is that Mercury poisons the Pituitary gland, which messes with things like HGH, Melatonin and other hormones, and until you chelate the Mercury out it won’t work right. Therefore, supplementing in the meantime can help you get back up to speed.

Prostate Problems

Since day 1 of my kidney stones I would get twitches in my perineum area and it would be an effort to pee. As I got ill-er and ill-er my prostate would flare and I’d be standing trying to pee for 20 minutes. For someone with Frequent Urination problems you can see the double issue here! I would say alongside the energy my prostate and frequent urination issues have been the worse symptom of all.

Having a weekly prostate massage by my urologist and daily self-massages (it’s not fun like they make out in the movies guys) it helped calm and helped me pee, but it’s flared many times over the last 2 years. I’ll talk more about this on a page dedicated to the prostate in due course…

Where I am now…

This was a ‘little’ post to give you an idea of how the last 3 years has been. Luckily I work and live next to Harley Street so I’ve had access to the best medical help in the world (a lot on my insurance too!) although I have found that the pharma world hasn’t helped a great deal. Most help has come from forums and natural practitioners such as Vicky, Marek and Kathrin.

From this point onwards I’ll add a page for each issue, supplement, finding or connection of symptoms – as I’ve found some beauties that not many people seem to have put together, yet.

Until the next time…

Tim