As you read this story you will appreciate why Alofa and I love our work and why retirement is not going to happen.
Frequently, a person will say, "Gary, I have tried everything and nothing has worked".
My usual answer is, "nobody has ever tried everything and perhaps the reason why nothing has worked is that people have been looking in the wrong places".
The first step to unravelling a health mystery is to apply the appropriate test. It is far too common nowadays for a health professional to just bombard a problem with a barrage of expensive tests in the hope that something might hit paydirt. This is wasteful and lazy stuff that usually results in confusion and failure. And it causes financial hardship for the poor patient who can then not afford the treatment.
When a person is stressed by health and injury problems, they are usually financially stressed as well!
The treatment is usually, "You have an incurable condition, take these drugs for life. They will conceal the symptoms but cure nothing. You will also have to take these extra drugs to suppress the side effects of the first drugs. You will also have to take this extra drug to stop your stomach trying to vomit up the other drugs".
You get the idea.
When it comes to children we must be very, very careful about placing them on powerful medications if only for a few weeks, let alone months and possibly even for decades.
(Note: this is an essay by Gary Moller, reflecting upon what he has observed when applying the HTMA in the Clinic, including the unique patterns on the HTMA that are often common to a specific health condition. This is not to diagnose a medical condition, nor are there any treatment recommendations. The intention here is to help guide nutrition and lifestyle support).
Sally's story
Let me tell you about Sally (not her real name). This is with the permission of her parents.
At age one year and three months, Sally began to have constant seizures, several every hour, known as "tonic, clonic absences". She was placed on an anti-seizure drug called Levetiracetam. While it provided some symptomatic relief the seizures continued.
Seizures are not the disease: seizures are the symptoms of some kind of "systems failure". Treating the symptoms may be necessary but only while the "Root Causes" are being identified and fixed.
I first met Sally when she was a few months past two years of age. A family friend had told them to get hold of me. Sally was a delightful child but she was lagging behind her developmental milestones and my impression was that she was not completely present.
While she was under specialist medical care, my summation was that she would remain on the medication indefinitely while the condition either "burned out" or she would "grow out of it". To all of us, this was a most unsatisfactory strategy, which was basically to sit around and do nothing other than taking the medication and praying to God.
We arranged for an Interclinical Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA). Her first report is below and it is revealing, to say the least!
Sally has toxic levels of arsenic as well as significant traces of mercury, lead and aluminium, rubidium, tin and titanium. Nickel and vanadium look ominous. We may be viewing the tip of the iceberg. These are all potent neurotoxins that a child's brain is especially sensitive to. In addition, she has extremely low calcium, magnesium and zinc. These are all necessary for brain development and functioning.
Please refer to the two charts below for a quick summary of some of the conditions, including seizures and autism that are associated with imbalances and deficiencies of these minerals.
Note that toxic elements arsenic, mercury, lead and aluminium are mineral antagonists to calcium, magnesium and zinc and a whole lot more. Not good for a toddler with a rapidly growing brain!
We tested the rest of the family (siblings, Mum and Dad). All had similar patterns. The father had the highest levels of arsenic. His HTMA is below.
I've replicated this repeat HTMA so you can see the interesting process of mobilising and excreting of toxins. This has been captured in his hair sample. Arsenic, for example, has increased from .026 to .061. These levels will drop once the detoxification is completed. It may take some years to be completed, assuming that he has stopped any further exposures to arsenic.
Sally's mother had by far the lowest levels of arsenic and the older children were lower than Sally and their father. We were thus able to identify the source.
Where did the arsenic and other toxins come from?
Sally's father had a workshop adjacent to the house where he worked with materials including arsenic-treated timber. On occasions, the children would be in the workshop while he was looking after them. Sally, as a baby, presumably spent her time crawling and doing what babies do - putting dirty hands and various objects in her mouth. Even if the floor was clean there would still be residues of arsenic and also lead which is heavy and difficult to remove. There was to be no more playing in the workshop!
It was important to be certain that there was no more arsenic getting into Sally, otherwise, any therapy to remove the arsenic would be compromised.
The therapy
It was actually quite simple but I will not go into detail here because I do not want to be accused of giving medical advice over the internet.
As is always the case, I was careful to ensure there was no interference with her medication by any nutritional supplements. The parents were asked to consult Sally's doctor about what we were planning and my invitation, as always to hook up with their doctor by video to explain the findings of the report and my recommendations.
The way we get rid of a toxin is we use diet and some special nutraceuticals to assist the body's natural eliminative processes. The general principle is to refer to the Periodic Table of the Elements and list the antagonists to the toxins, in this case, the toxins were arsenic, mercury, lead and aluminium plus some additional elements such as tin and bismuth. We then refer to Sally's HTMA report, taking note of what appears to be lacking.
It just so happened that calcium, magnesium and zinc which were very low on her HTMA are also antagonists of the toxins identified. They were probably low in the first place because these nutrients were low in her mother. As with the other children and the mother their health was fine. In Sally's case, a potent dose of arsenic and some lead and other toxins were just too much for her immature brain, liver and kidneys to handle. Her father, on the other hand, had the protection of a mature nervous system and better levels of protective zinc.
Sally needed to have supplementary calcium, magnesium and zinc, as well as cofactors to improve their uptake and other special nutrients that facilitate the safe and gentle removal of the toxins. The same need was for the entire family since they had similar nutrient patterns. In addition to supplementary nutrients and cofactors, dietary changes were recommended to support the intervention.
What was the outcome?
The effect was delightful. Her seizures began to abate within just a few weeks and Sally's mother was able to cautiously and gradually titrate down the anti-seizure medications to have her completely off the meds after several months and with no seizures at all. We repeated her HTMA After 5 months. Here it is.
Here is why repeating the HTMA is very important. While we have made a little progress with calcium and magnesium, zinc has dropped. Sodium and potassium have sky-rocketed which is typical when a person is "detoxifying". It looks like our hair sample has captured the excreting of lead. Tin and rubidium are companions of toxins like lead and cadmium and they have gone through the roof, which means her body is cleaning these out. All of this is good stuff happening!
We concluded that Sally is a bottomless pit for calcium, magnesium and zinc but we must accept that we can only get so much into a wee child at a time. The best approach always is to go slow, to patiently take our time.
We repeated the HTMA after her 3rd birthday. Here it is.
Sally is continuing to detoxify. Sodium and potassium remain elevated but have dropped a little. A little cadmium has popped up in her hair. Germanium is now being excreted and rubidium has gone gang-busters. This is good because it is coming out of her body and she is in excellent health while this is happening. We can be confident that these are coming from deep within her body including her brain because we have been giving her nutrients which we know facilitate the process of mobilisation of tissue stores of these toxins and we are confident that there are no further environmental exposures happening. Tin and vanadium have dropped away.
Sally has to continue with the nutrients, especially calcium, magnesium and zinc and cofactors and to ensure her diet is nutrient-dense with the right foods. We know she will do well because her parents are absolutely switched onto the programme. Good on them!
How is Sally today?
Sally has not been on any medication for years. She is a normal four and a half-year-old child.
We will repeat her HTMA sometime but there is no hurry. Another child is on its way so the money is better spent elsewhere such as on good food. We all know what to do for her nutritionally for the next few years. It is now a case of hunkering down for the long term. "Steady as she goes!"
Yes, we sure do love our work!