Hi. I've been dealing with this- and I can give you my experience. Hope it'll help, though it's not as good as actual science.
I had 7 mercury amalgams, one of which was very big, and close to the root. Also, my lifestyle/surroundings have exposed me to other metals, along the way, weakening that whole system.
The heavy metals ended up causing me fairly bad effects- inflammation that made my brain feel like it was on fire, visual difficulty with concentrating on text, trouble learning new concepts(I must have lost about 45 points of IQ, but it varied from day to day), and some sort of plaque that was slowing down my speech processing, to the point where I had trouble understanding. It was bad. Also, it caused me bipolar, which is a pain in the ass(though high dose fish oil mostly keeps it in check). Finally I'm pretty sure it helped me pick up gluten and casein allergies*. I eventually had to go on medical leave from work, (I'm a software engineer) as my brain is no longer functioning well enough to do the job.
*Gluten and casein allergies also cause cognitive impairment, and for a while I thought that the day to day IQ shifts were because of accidental glutening. In retrospect I can tell them apart, but I'm not sure how to describe the difference, other than Gluten/casein cognitive impairment is more cottony/light, were as the mercury inflammation/cognitive impairment is thicker, more unpleasant, and the feeling of it coming on is generally more dramatic, where as a glutening just sort of creeps up on you unnoticed.
I started taking ALA as it helped with blood sugar/energy issues. This is before I researched things thoroughly. Taking ALA definitely increased the problem. The time release 12 hour pills cause the inflammation to be much worse. I'm pretty sensitive to things, so you may not notice it if it occurs, but to me it feels like my brain is on fire/full of rage and frustration, though the rage and frustration aren't directed at anything.
I knew I was in bad shape, and went to a holistic practitioner, that was a MD/Psychiatrist, who does a lot of work helping autistic kids. She did a lot of testing, most of it negative, but the interesting bits were that Lab tests showed my testosterone levels were almost non existent(I'm male), my glutathione levels were extremely low, and anything that helps mitigates the effects of metals(like selenium), or that were precursors to glutathione were all low.
So I did s-acetyl-glutathione, in high doses-think 10 100mg pills per day. That got my speech processing difficulties down. However, after a bit using s-acetyl-glutathione, it stops becoming the limiting factor, as you run out of flavonoids. Reading this in a book(why isn't my brain working) I bought a bunch of different flavonoids, and started taking them, so the glutathione would working again. It did. Eventually I ended up just using bioactive curcumin, as it's the easiest in terms of price/dose availability.
I was better, but still was nowhere near good. I then stumbled on serrapeptase, and when I took that, it cleared up the rest of the plaque type feeling, and improved my circulation a ton. I took fairly high doses over the course of a day, and the shift was fairly dramatic. The only side effects I notice were that during that day, I was excreting a lot of what looked like mud, and my off hand became much easier to use. I still take a little serrapeptase every two weeks or so to keep things cleared out.
Eventually I found blueberries, and blueberry extract did the same thing as acetyl glutathione for the speech processing difficulties. Blueberries are aren't cost efficient, but blueberry extracts in pill form are a great deal cheaper. However, the acetyl glutathione also helps with the inflammation, which blueberry extract doesn't help with. So even with adding blueberry extract, I'm still taking s-acetyl-glutathione, but now I'm down to 200 mg per day.
That's how I was mitigating symptoms. Now, with my holistic practitioner's help, I figured out it was heavy metals. I was initially resistant, because the tests were borderline, but all of the symptoms matched, the glutathione and ALA were clues, and she had basically eliminated everything else. So, I got the amalgams out, and started chelation. This immediately confirmed the diagnosis to me- every time I go through an Andy Cutler type oral chelation cycle*, my symptoms both decrease, and shift around a bit (like trading off worse bipolar depression for some of my IQ back).
I'm currently working my way through chelation cycles, and slowly recovering. While the ever changing symptoms are rough, I see great improvements, and I'm confident that I'm recovering. I've gotten some of my brain back, though how much I will ultimately get back is anyone's guess. At least the visual focus problems are completely gone, and I can mostly concentrate again, even if I'm not as smart as I was. I'm passed the nightmare stage, where I was worried I'd be unable to ever hold down a job, and I'd end up living as a hobo. It's still up in the air if I'll recover enough to resume being a software engineer, though I'm pretty hopeful at this point.
Chelation also seems to have helped with the blood sugar/energy issues I was originally taking ALA for, which I didn't expect.
In any case, that's my story. Hope it helps.
*I do everything he says, except that I use 3 hour cycles on DSMA rather than the recommended 4 hour ones.
Edited by Garrick Peschke, 25 May 2014 - 09:45 PM.