Some interesting posts by Dr. Holmes to other people
by Shirley
Here are some posts from an autism-mercury group with yahoo
Amy,
Would you mind sharing your sons history and chelation response for our case studies. I'm really excited to hear of his response to DMSA. It sounds only a little short of miraculous.
Lyn
----- Original Message ----- From: Amy Holmes > To: >
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: Re: [Autism-Mercury] Doctors
Lyn,
I would be happy to share Mike's history with you for your case studies. But first, let me thank you for all the work you have done in this very important area. I am becoming increasingly convinced that mercury poisoning underlies all of autism. I finally figured out that Mike's case was most likely due to mercury about a year ago, but I had no idea of the scope of the mercury problem until I went back into practice (this time as a DAN! doctor). Almost every child I tested had the same lab abnormalities as my son, including the high levels of various heavy metals. Very uncanny! Anyway, thank you for starting this list and for everything else you have done in the pursuit of the truth about what happened to our children. Feel free to edit this, because I'm not sure exactly what info you want.
Mike - DOB 10/18/94
Unremarkable pregnancy. Born by planned C-section (advanced maternal age and very large baby). Weight 9 pounds, 2 oz. Very healthy. Apgars 8/9. Uneventful first year. Got all immunizations on time. Sat at 4 months, crawled at 7 months, walked at 10 months. Spoke first word at 9 months. By 12 months, had 10 to 15 words. Good eye contact, good imitative skills, very social.
Stopped talking 5 days after MMR plus Hep B at 12 months, gradually lost all imitative skills, all interaction and eye contact. By 18 months was in his own world. Would not even respond to his name. We asked everyone why he was acting this way, including several pediatricians - no answers. Finally diagnosed as autistic at 26 months.
We began an intensive ABA program (Lovaas) at 28 months. We took him to see Dr. Stephanie Cave at 29 months. She ran a number of tests, including hair analysis for heavy metals. He was very high in lead, aluminum, and antimony. Mercury was only slightly elevated. She gave him DMSA 100 three times a day for 5 days, followed by 100 mg twice a day for 2 weeks (the old treatment).
By 1 month after this first chelation course, he had improved noticeably - behavior was better, no longer as "zoned out" as before, was no longer pale, looked healthier. Repeated the hair analysis several months later. This showed a significant drop in lead, but still high antimony and aluminum, and to our surprise, a high level of mercury. No one knew what this meant at the time - this subsequent high level of mercury meant that mercury had been mobilized back into the bloodstream, thus could finally show up in the hair. Looking back, if we had realized the significance of this finding then, Mike would be completely recoved now.
After this, we pursued other areas like getting rid of yeast and pathogenic bacteria, gluten and casein-free diet, getting rid of multiple food allergies, and did not return to the heavy metal issue until he was 4 years old. By this time, I had taken over his case. I repeated a hair analysis for heavy metals when he was 4. Mercury had dropped (of course - it had gone back into its favorite storage areas), but aluminum and antimony were still very, very high, and the lead was back up to elevated range.
I started him on a kinder, gentler course using DMSA 200 mg TID for 3 days, off for 11 days while repleting minerals. I repeated this 2 week cycle for a total of 4 cycles, then got a toxic urine screen on the last cycle. To my surprise, tons of mercury were coming out. That is when I started investigating mercury-autism connection in Mike's case. After a few weeks, I was convinced that mercury was responsible for a lot of his problems, so we continued with the same 2 week cycles of DMSA for several more months, repeated the urine toxic metal screen with almost the same findings. From April of 1999 to the present, I have been doing these 2 week cycles, 4 to 6 at a time, then allowing him a month off now and then to fully recover from the chelation. We got a urine toxic metal screen last month (4/00) which showed mercury at 2.7 ("normal" range > 0 - 3). This is the first time he has ever been in the "normal" range for mercury (provocative urine).
One year ago, Mike was essentially non-verbal and preferred to engage in meaningless self-stimulatory behaviors. Today (5/00), he speaks in sentences, addresses people by name to get their attention, and no longer "stims" non-stop. His receptive language is excellent, expressive is still 2 years behind his peers (but is catching up fast). His pronunciation, which had been so bad as to make any words completely unintelligible, is now improving to the point that we can understand almost everything he says.
I intend to continue chelation until no more mercury comes out on provocative urine toxic metal screen.
Hope this helps,
Amy
Originally From: AndyCutler@a...
Subject: [Autism-Mercury] Doctors
Date: 04/25/2000 12:42pm
I don't know any mercury toxic adult who got better by depending on one doctor, mainstream or alternative. All the adults I know who got better went through a lot of doctors. They all found this extremely alienating and emotionally traumatic. I doubt it will be any different for those of you who end up getting your kids well - I suspect you will go through a lot of doctors and be pretty upset about MD's in general by the time you are done. As with the adults, I expect your choice is the emotional turmoil and alienation involved in running roughshod over a bunch of doc's to get what you want, or developing a long term relationship with one or two doc's who never do get your kid well. For the most part I don't think this is the doctors' fault. They are as much victims of the system as we are. Bouncing from doc to doc just seems to be the only thing that has a hope of working - I am sure it is as tough on the doctors as it is on us.
Andy Cutler
Andy,
Speaking as a physician and a parent of an autistic son, I can tell you that it is not traumatic to the doctors at all - most of them go home to nice normal kids and never give our kids a second thought. My son's pediatrician said," I now have 20 autistic kids in my practice and I don't know what to do with any of them." He was very perturbed when I had the audacity to ask him if he had ever thought about WHY he had that many autistic kids in his practice when both of us learned in medical school that it was extremely rare and a pediatrician could finish 50 years of practice without seeing even 1 kid with autism. To be perfectly honest, the people in my med school class who went into pediatrics were not great thinkers. They were just nice guys who wanted to do something that didn't require a lot of thought.
Your comment about parents figuring out the problem when physicians should have done it 20 or 30 years ago really struck home. You are completely correct on that one. I have learned the hard way that the only physicians who really care about our kids are the ones with kids just like them at home.
BTW, add me to the list of people who have used DMSA on my child with great results. My son, Mike, was very high in lead, aluminum, and antimony, but I suspected that the real culprit was mercury. He has been on DMSA chelation - 3 day "on"/ 11 day "off" for about a year. His clinical improvements have paralleled the drop in his urine lead and mercury levels. He has gone from an essentially non-verbal 4 year-old to a very talkative (very bossy, I might add!) 5 year-old. His GI problems have completely disappeared. He is no longer pale with dark circles under his eyes. His receptive language has gone from the 5th percentile for age to the 45th percentile.
I wonder if it is too late to get a urine porphyrin test?
Another question - considering that mercury irreversibly inhibits DPP IV, if I can get all the mercury out, dare I try re-introducing gluten and casein? It would be so nice if he could go to McDonald's and get a Happy Meal like his friends do.
Just my thoughts,
Amy (formerly mainstream physician, now DAN! doctor)
Maranie,
I hope you mean 3-day on/11 day off !!!!! Otherwise we could all be in trouble!!!
I just got back from the Mercury Toxicity workshop in Dallas. Very informative. Stephanie Cave and I were lucky enough to have a long discussion with some really great researchers. From everything we've been able to piece together, it looks like mercury is a big culprit in autism - maybe the biggest. But, it doesn't look like most cases are purely mercury and mercury alone. There are some other heavy metals that play a big part, both by themselves and by (horrors of all horrors) potentiating the toxicity of mercury. And there are several non-metal toxins we need to take a very close look at - like hexane and xylene, among others. Many of these are toxic to the brain by themselves and exacerbate the toxicity of the heavy metals.
Most felt that autism was most likely a neurotoxic disease - and
that is a huge step forward. A few cases were presented showing
dramatic improvements (like "normalization") in autistic children
after complete detoxification.
There is a lot of work to do. Like:
1. We need a battery of tests to completely assess toxin load,
both metal and non-metal. This looks reasonably easy.
2. We need a quick, non-invasive (no more invasive than a blood draw)
way of assessing brain mercury load and effect on brain of the
mercury present there. A promising lead may be the BB fraction of CPK, but this might not pan out.
3. We need a safe and effective protocol of getting rid of all the toxins. This part doesn't look extremely hard at the present time.
It just needs to be put in a coherent whole and in order.
There was a lot of data presented about mercury vapor exposure from amalgams - and (more pertinent to us) the fact that this mercury can be (and more than likely is) transmitted to the fetus. And the transport of amalgam-derived mercury through breast milk. This stuff really shook me up because I have a mouth full of amalgam!! The extreme toxicity of organic forms of mercury were very apparent. But, it became rapidly apparent to us, at least, that as much as we would like to, we cannot blame the mercury in the vaccines for all the mercury in our kids. And mercury is not the total problem.
So, the good news is that autism is really beginning to look like
a neurotoxic problem, with all the other biochemical problems
secondary to the presence of the toxins. This is good news because this is something we have a chance of fixing. (I like things I can fix. I don't like hopeless conditions!)
And it appears that, if you can get these toxins out at a reasonably early age, the child can be "indistinguishable from his peers".
Personally, I don't care if my son is a party animal or not, but
"indistinguishable from his peers" is my goal.
Also, for the older kids (teenagers), more than likely getting the toxins out is not going to completely normalize them, but you may be able to avoid or fix the problems relating to violence and uncontrollable behavior. I have some patients in this very situation, so this is of interest to me. I hate the thought of these kids winding up in an institution because of uncontrollable behavior, so I hoping this may be their ticket out of this horrible fix.
Mike is demanding my presence. He is very bossy, but he is talking!!!
Amy
KB,
Our son's doctor is Dr. Amy Holmes, from Baton Rouge. You have seen her post here before, probably! She is a DAN doctor and has our son on a three day on, three day off regimen. He gets 100mg of DMSA three times a day while on the three day on segment. During that time he doesn't get any other minerals supplemented. During the eleven days off, we load him up with all his vitamins, and supplements. I trust her immensely, as she is also doing/done this program with her own son. Hope this helps!