If you’ve been feeling off but all your tests are coming back fine, it’s possible that you have heavy metal poisoning. Heavy metals could be behind many of the diseases and illnesses our bodies have such as digestive issues, weight gain, autoimmune diseases, brain fog, and more. Wendy Myers from Myers Detox explains how you can start to detox from heavy metals to regain control of your health and life.
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Wendy was feeling generally unwell through her 30s and was told she had the hormone level of someone in menopause when she was only 37. Instead of immediately going on the HRT her doctor’s recommended, Wendy decided to get to the bottom of why she had this issue in the first place. After lots of internet research, and a few out-of-pocket tests, she discovered that she had heavy metal poisoning, which was affecting all her other hormones.
Wendy thought she was doing everything right. She ate a healthy diet, got lots of exercise, and generally lived well. But heavy metal poisoning doesn’t care about that. Our society is exposed to so many toxic metals - from our cavity fillings to our wall paints and more.
We talk about what testing you should get done to check for heavy metal poisoning in your body. It’s an all-over approach from blood to stool. But what if you can’t afford or aren’t in a position to do all these tests? Wendy shares what some of the physical symptoms of metal poisoning are - and gives the recommendation to take her heavy metals test.
Wendy believes that we need to go through a detoxification process to rid our bodies of heavy metals. But it’s not just about the detox, we need to lead a healthy, organic life to prevent the poison coming back.
Overall, for our health, we really do need to prioritize removing these heavy metals from our bodies, lives, homes, and diets. Wendy does explain who shouldn’t go through a detoxification process, as it could actually do more harm to their health, but in general, everyone should be able to detox from heavy metals safely.
Wendy’s last piece of advice is to listen to your body. If you’re not feeling well and your doctors can’t figure out why you need to push harder and start investigating for yourself.
Have you been feeling unwell in ways your doctors can’t explain? Do you use commercial cleaning products? Do you have white marks on your fingernails?
In This Episode:
- How heavy metals can poison the other hormones in your body
- How you can have heavy metals in your system even when you live a healthy lifestyle
- What tests you should get done to check for heavy metal poisoning
- How do you know if you’ve got toxic levels of heavy metals
- How you can detox your body to start removing heavy metals from your body
- What things you can do at home before you work with a professional
- Why you need to prioritize removing the metals from your body
- Who shouldn’t start detoxing to remove heavy metals
- Why you really need to listen to your body if you’re not feeling well
Subscribe to Couch Talk w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca on Youtube
Quotes:
“Heavy metals can cause almost every imaginable symptom and diagnosis. They can either outright cause it or contribute to it in some way, directly or indirectly.” (18:04)
“Detoxification is a lifestyle. We are exposed to so many metals and chemicals that you have to be doing something on a daily basis to be thinking about adding detoxification to your already healthy lifestyle.” (27:07)
“If people are trying to do a detox and they just feel terrible, we need to pull back and course correct and do something else. Most people feel great when they detox.” (30:07)
Links
Find out if YOU have heavy metals
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Transcript
Wendy Myers:
I really try to educate people that detoxification is a lifestyle. We are exposed to so many metals and chemicals, you have to be doing something on really almost a daily basis to be thinking about adding detoxification to your already healthy lifestyle, whether that's an infrared sauna or maybe coffee enemas, binders, substances that removed heavy metals, green juices. There's lots of different things that you can do to be thinking about pushing metals out of your body.
Dr. Anna:
Welcome to Couch Talk, our intimate place for intimate conversation. I'm thrilled to be here today to really dig into a topic that is often not spoken about, and that is heavy metal toxicity. You have heard from me about amalgam fillings and heavy metals and how it creates a resistance to optimal health. Let's just say it that way. Something that I've seen clinically so often is this triad between thyroid disease, yeast infections, and heavy metal toxicity, and we'll add in elevated cholesterol as the fourth component. I am sure when I see cholesterol, candida, and thyroid that you've got heavy metal toxicity.
Dr. Anna:
I brought on Wendy Myers. Her website is myersdetox.com. She has a heavy metal quiz that we are offering to you guys to figure out what is going on with your body and how is it affecting you. Wendy in our podcast today shares a bit about her story, her journey, and her self-discovery and how she's turned it around to really help so many others.
Dr. Anna:
She has written a bestselling book called Limitless Energy: How to Detox Toxic Metals to End Exhaustion and Chronic Fatigue. She has hosted the very popular Heavy Metal Summit and she hosts two podcasts, including Myers Detox podcast and the Supercharged podcast about bioenergetics. She has just been a delightful guest, and I know you'll enjoy this interview. Here we go.
Dr. Anna:
Welcome, Wendy. Thanks for being on the show today. This is such a critical area. Let's get into it. First, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and what brought you to this passion for heavy metal detoxification.
Wendy Myers:
Like a lot of women, I was my mid-thirties and just starting to feel run down. I just had a baby and I just felt didn't feel like myself. I was having trouble losing weight after the baby even though I was doing everything right. I was brain fogged and fatigued. I just wasn't feeling well, even though I was doing everything right with my diet. I was eating a perfect diet, taking amazing supplements, and I was exercising and just reducing stress. I just felt like I had this amazing life, but I didn't feel good emotionally as well.
Wendy Myers:
I went to my doctor to get all this testing and I found out I had the hormone levels of a menopausal woman at 37. I was obviously thrilled to hear that. I think a lot of women these days are getting that ... When they go to their doctor, they're getting low hormones, low thyroid hormones, low sex hormones, and obviously don't feel good because of that.
Wendy Myers:
My doctor wanted to put me on hormone replacement therapy with estrogen and testosterone and thyroid hormones. I was okay with the thyroid hormones, but I thought, "I'm just not ready for HRT quite yet. I'm 37. That's not really how I envisioned going into my thirties." I just thought, "Well, what caused that? If it's something that caused that, why don't we just reverse it? Let's figure out what exactly is happening here."
Wendy Myers:
I started going ... I went on doctor Google and doing research, and I found out that mercury and lead and arsenic and cadmium and nickel and all these other metals dramatically interfere in hormone production and conversion of one hormone to another hormone. I decided to do some testing. I get a hair mineral analysis and found out I had all these heavy metals. I was totally shocked because I lived this super healthy lifestyle and I've always been relatively healthy. I just knew that these heavy metals were holding me back. I felt like they were the keys to this is what I wasn't doing, and what I needed to add to my health regimen was just removing these from my body.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, no. That makes sense. It's great that you did your investigating because we know that heavy metals are huge disruptors for our hormones, especially our reproductive hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, even our adrenal hormones, DHEA. It can definitely affect you and also thyroid. That's a huge cause of thyroid dysfunction. Let's talk about what these heavy metals are, and where did you get your toxic levels of heavy metals from?
Wendy Myers:
Yes. The metals that interfere in hormones are mercury, lead, thallium, a lot of people don't know about, arsenic, aluminum, tin, and cesium. They do this in various ways, but what they do exactly is they poison what's called hydroxylase enzymes. These are enzymes that help convert one hormone to another. That's what metals do in your body. They poison different enzyme systems, poison your body's ability to function in every possible way. They interfere in that way in thyroid hormone production and conversion and sex hormone and adrenal stress hormone production and conversion also. That's why so many people today have low-stress hormones, they have low sex hormones and low thyroid hormones. A lot of people that aren't well, have all of the above. We can go into like each metal and what they do exactly.
Dr. Anna:
Just to get that analogy, to give a visual, because I love to give analogies, so you think of these metals like rocks. You're going to hit one. You just like bump, maybe roll over it, but every time, they pile up, pile up, pile up. All of a sudden, you've got a wall and that's blocking one reaction to go to another reaction. It just can't get to the other side. Things build-up, there's toxic levels, and that gets fed back into our system. That way just kind of see a visual of how these heavy metals can interfere. They interfere in other ways too, but let's just think of them as over time they accumulate. Unless we're really empowering our body's ability to detoxify those hormones, eliminate those metals to eliminate them, then we're really creating some major health problems.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. That's a very good point because a lot of people think, "God, I live this healthy lifestyle. Where am I getting these metals?" They're in the air, food, and water, so it's really impossible to avoid in our environment today. We didn't even mention chemicals. So many different chemicals in the pesticides in phthalates and parabens in our beauty products that most people are using, the conventional ones, all these mimic estrogens and interfere in our hormones also. It's just this perfect storm in our environment that's dramatically impacting our hormones and our weight and our brain functioning and how we feel emotionally also.
Wendy Myers:
These metals, let's say mercury, for instance, mercury is ... Everyone knows about mercury. They're in mercury fillings. They're in ... It's in fish and shellfish, but it's also in the air that we breathe. That's what most people know about. Mercury basically builds up in our thyroid, and it can also build up in our pituitary gland and our hypothalamus. This is kind of this all the glands that are involved in that thyroid hormone production feedback loop that tells your body, "Hey, produce more thyroid hormones or less." When we have mercury dramatically interfering in that, and it's why I believe one of the top reasons why thyroid hormones are one of the number one prescribed medications, mercury is dramatically interfering in thyroid hormone production in four different ways. Mercury, it also lowers progesterone. It can increase estrogen. It can impair ovulation by interfering in thyroid function, and it promotes infertility in that way as well.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. I think it's so abundant. You mentioned that it's in our dental amalgams, the silver fillings. Is it still in silver fillings?
Wendy Myers:
It is, unfortunately. If you have a silver filling, it has mercury, but it has other metals too. It can have cadmium and tin and aluminum and copper, so it can have other metals. It's not just mercury, and silver as well.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. I want to share with you and our audience that in 2007 part of my healing journey around the world, we ended in Thailand. One of my daughters had a toothache. We're like, "Oh, we'll go do some ... Go to the dentist while we're here. We've been traveling for six months, so we'll get cleanings and everything." My daughter needed a filling, and I said, "Well, we don't want the amalgams." They said, "Oh my god. We haven't used those in a decade. That's hazardous." This is Thailand, and we're thinking, "Oh my god. No, they absolutely no way. Porcelain fillings only." That was so eye-opening for me because today our dental association's still fighting back on this.
Wendy Myers:
I don't know what ... It's like the old guard that just doesn't want to be told that they're wrong or something. I don't know what that is.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. What they said in 2007 in Thailand was that "Ma'am, we need hazmat suits. We need to be suited up to really even eliminate them, to remove them from someone's mouth. It's a really big process for us." I was like, "Oh, wow. Very cool."
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. I think it's really one of ... Dentistry has one of the highest suicide rates in any profession. It's because dentists that are using these hazardous toxic materials just dramatically affect their brain functioning. It causes mercury, causes depression and low energy. It's just not a good job. Not to mention, dental hygienists also have a lot of exposure.
Dr. Anna:
Right. I think that's one of those things in my clinical practice when I started seeing hypothyroidism in younger and younger thyroid nodules, hypothyroidism, as well as the candida combination. It's always the triad. It's heavy metals, it's yeast and thyroid. I know there's heavy metal toxicity in that image. Another big component is the elevated or spikes in cholesterol. That cholesterol will actually be elevated as a neuroprotective mechanism to preserve some brain function from the heavy metal toxicity.
Wendy Myers:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). [inaudible 00:10:38].
Dr. Anna:
When our cholesterol is high, it's not just, "Okay. Let's reduce this protective cholesterol barrier. Let's understand why it's high. Is it from heavy metal toxicity?" Typically, just by chelating or removing metals that cholesterol numbers came down, thyroid function improved.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah.
Dr. Anna:
You mentioned some really key heavy metals that affect hormone function, thyroid function, and are really very, very prevalent. We get them from amalgams, pesticides, herbicides, certain chemicals, lead in lipstick, that's a classic, and mercury. No more mercury thermometers for us. Those are all gone.
Wendy Myers:
Yes.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Where else?
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. Lead. Lead is a very common one. Every one has lead in their body, even if it doesn't say so on the heavy metals test. It's just impossible to avoid. We use leaded gasoline for decades and we have leaded paints still in 50% of homes. They might be under new paint, but it's still there. Unfortunately, lead is in our bones. It builds up in our bones. Our bones are kind of like garbage cans that the body uses to store metals. Lead can make bones look a lot denser on DEXA scans that some people do.
Wendy Myers:
But if lead is one of those things that's contaminating our soil, so all that leaded gasoline settled into our soils. The lead that was admitted by cars, it's still on our soil, so it can still be in organic food, it can still be in food-based supplements, it can be in greens powders. It's really a big, big problem. A lot of different foods and vegetables and animal proteins have lead in them because of this, even though it's in trace amounts, but still continues to build up. Lead interferes in hormone functioning as it inhibits progesterone. It can create irregular periods because of that. It also inhibits estrogen and testosterone and cortisol, and all those imbalances can create irregular periods and contribute to infertility.
Wendy Myers:
Lead also chokes off the mitochondria, which are our little cells' powerhouses in our body, so it can reduce energy production as well. Some people are severely affected by lead. Other people, not as much, but I find as people get older and older, they start feeling more and more tired. It's not really because you're getting older so much. It's because we have lead and mercury, we have other metals like arsenic, aluminum, tin, and thallium that interfere in mitochondrial energy production that reduces the person's ability to make energy and feel good. I talked about that a lot in my book, Limitless Energy. I discuss every different metal and exactly how it interferes in mitochondrial energy production.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, and that's crucial. We talked ... You mentioned arsenic. Let's talk about organic sources of arsenic from shellfish, etc., versus other more harmful sources of arsenic. Is there a difference?
Wendy Myers:
There's different forms of all different types of metals. There's different forms of minerals, and some are harmful and some a little bit may be necessary. With arsenic, most people have some level of arsenic. It's a common contaminant in drinking water. Arsenic is also in conventional chickens, even ones that say free-range. They're in conventional, free-range eggs. They can be in rice. Non-organic rice will have more than organic, but organic can still have rice. Brown rice has more arsenic than white rice. Arsenic is a common contaminant in drinking water and well water.
Wendy Myers:
It's a big problem in the United States actually, the amount of arsenic. Arsenic is interesting because if you have arsenic toxicity, which I definitely had, it poisons enzymes. It transports triglycerides out of fat cells. It'll prevent you from losing weight, even if you're just doing everything you can to lose weight, starving yourself or going to bed hungry or keto or whatever you're doing or exercising a lot. Arsenic will throw a wrench in your plans to lose weight.
Dr. Anna:
Good point. All right. Then the step is, first of all, look and see where possibly heavy metals are coming into you. Then to see how it's affecting you. Let's talk about testing.
Wendy Myers:
Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Anna:
There are definitely different ways. You had mentioned hair mineral testing. That was something I'd been skeptical about for so long. Especially like as a physician, we're looking at blood, we're looking at urine, we're looking at pre and post chelation challenges. What do we need to look at for testing? That was where I was really familiar with testing. Mostly it was through blood or urine testing. Then so compare and contrast that to the modern-day hair mineral analysis.
Wendy Myers:
I do a multitude of tests. I do hair mineral analysis, urine, and stool testing because different metals come out in different ways in the body. They have different exit routes. Some metals are best seen in the hair, some metals are best seen in the urine, and some metals are best seen in the stool. To get the best picture, it's good to do all three of those.
Wendy Myers:
With hair, I like to start there because it's just the easiest for people to do at home. Hair you can really see arsenic. You can see uranium. You can see the methylmercury from fish really easily. You can see aluminum really easily. When you're doing kind of the challenge test with DMSA or EDTA with urine, you won't see those metals typically. You'll see the mercury from mercury amalgam fillings, but not so much the methylmercury from fish.
Wendy Myers:
But you see other metals you don't see. You'll see cesium, you'll see thallium, and you'll see other metals that you won't see in the hair. It's just kind of comparing apples to oranges. There's lots and lots of research to validate hair mineral analysis that's used in many, many areas of science. It's totally valid. It's just people have to know how to read them. It took me years to figure out how to read them. There's a lot more than just meets the eye. There's lots of hidden analysis that you can do that indicate metals that aren't visibly apparent on the hair test.
Wendy Myers:
Then in stool, the stool is where I look for cadmium toxicity and silver toxicity, which you don't see in hair or urine. Just in an ideal world, you want all three.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. That makes sense. Exactly. Look at all aspects, especially if you're going to go through a chelation protocol so you can safely eliminate and make sure you're eliminating them, right?
Wendy Myers:
Yes, exactly.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Now Wendy, tell me, with being able to remove toxins safely, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how the approach is to remove toxins safely, but for one second, before we go there, how do we know if we're toxic? What are some physical signs and symptoms? I know you've got a heavy metal quiz that we're going to provide a link for in the show notes to send people to so they can test, but what are some things that ... I'm holding up my nails because I know nails is one of them. What are some things that are a big hint? What are some things that we can look for physically that could give us an idea, "Look, heavy metals could be an issue here"?
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot of potential signs, and this is one of the things that can be confusing for people is that maybe they don't feel well or they go to the doctor or they get a diagnosis, maybe low thyroid or something else, and the doctor typically is never cluing them in to the fact that it could be heavy metal toxicity. Maybe they don't know about that or really focusing on that at all in their practice.
Wendy Myers:
But heavy metals can cause almost every imaginable symptom in diagnosis. They can either outright cause it or contribute to it in some way directly or indirectly. Fatigue is a huge one. Brain fog is a huge one. Acne can be one. Low libido is a huge one. These are ones related to sex hormones now, but trouble sleeping, sagging skin, weight gain, trouble losing weight, resistant weight loss, irritability. Anger is a huge one.
Wendy Myers:
Anxiety, depression, difficult periods or irregular periods, PMS, migraine headaches, fibroids, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, infertility. Any kind of reproductive health issue can be caused by heavy metals. Breast cancer, lots of other different ... Any kind of cancer can have heavy metals or chemicals as an underlying root cause. Autoimmune conditions, thyroid conditions, low blood sugar problems, diabetes.
Wendy Myers:
I can keep going, but I have a blog post on my website called the Toxic Metals Sources and Symptoms Guide. You can actually search that for your symptoms and see which exact heavy metals cause that. I have every single metal and all the sources of them and the potential symptoms, so that's a really good resource. It's just a working document over the last decade that I've been adding to as I research.
Dr. Anna:
That's excellent. Say the name of that document. That's going to be at myersdetox.com. What's the name of that document?
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. You can search for it. It is the Toxic Metals Sources and Symptoms Guide. We also have that as a free PDF download too.
Dr. Anna:
Perfect. That sounds good. That sounds like a good resource. Thank you for creating that. That's awesome. I knew that's a lot of work.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. It was.
Dr. Anna:
What about physical signs and symptoms? Besides like ... What about like what can we look at on our nails? What do you usually like say for nails, skin, eyes? Anything specifically that we should be concerned about?
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. People can have little white spots on their nails. That can be zinc deficiency. A lot of people that have zinc deficiency have cadmium toxicity or mercury toxicity. People can have large ridges in their nails or really brittle nails, but those can also be signs of mineral deficiencies as well. Where you have mineral deficiencies, your body is forced to retain metals because metals and minerals can do some of the same jobs in the body. A foundational part of any detoxification program is flooding the body with minerals, and that pushes metals out of the body, but also gets the body working better and detoxing better.
Wendy Myers:
Back to your question. Signs of like your skin, you can have black circles under your eyes. You can have floaters in your eyes. Those can be signs of mercury toxicity. You can have lots of red spots on your skin, these cherry angiomas. Those can be from cadmium toxicity. The body uses zinc to repair the skin, and if you don't have adequate zinc, it'll use cadmium instead. Cadmium also is used to repair arteries. Cadmium's very hard and brittle. If that's used to repair arteries, you can have hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure and heart disease. If you don't have enough zinc, the American Heart Association is telling people don't eat red meat, but that has zinc in it. That's why it's dark-colored, and that is needed to repair your arteries. It's kind of this catch-22. People retain cadmium, and that's used repairs their arteries in their skin. Those are just a few of the signs and symptoms physically that people can have.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. I didn't think of those spider hemangiomas or those little angiomas, so that can be from cadmium or zinc deficiency? Interesting.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah, zinc deficiency, and copper excess also because copper makes veins weak and zinc makes them strong. It can be any kind of place where you have a bursting of a vein on your face. If you have any red splotches on your face, that can be the veins have burst and whatnot. Those can be lasered to repair. I definitely had a couple repaired, but it's a sign of zinc deficiency.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Fascinating. I'm just thinking I need to increase my zinc. Zinc helps with the decreased 5-alpha hydroxylase to action so that we're not converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and having that androgenic hair loss. That's definitely one of my key supplements. I'm like, "Maybe I need to increase my zinc." Plus, it pushes out copper. We need to have that zinc-copper balance. Usually, zinc is on the heavier side, so we want to look at that as well. Just a shout out to people with copper T IUDs, you want a zinc supplement. Zinc supplement those copper T IUD.
Wendy Myers:
Absolutely.
Dr. Anna:
Okay. You were on a journey. You had suffered these health consequences and that early hormonal hypogonadism essentially, low hormone levels all the way around. You went on this journey, did some amazing self-discovery, found out that you had toxic metals, and so everyone can do that journey, right? If you don't have a doctor that's going to run these different tests, you can do very easily a hair mineral analysis and get a gestalt what's going on, right?
Wendy Myers:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Anna:
A single piece of the picture. Then from there, we recognize ... Again, anyone who has high cholesterol, who has yeast infections, and has thyroid issues, you got to rule out heavy metals. 100% you need heavy metal testing. Ten now you know. What's the next step of the protocol?
Wendy Myers:
If someone wants to find out what their relative levels of heavy metals may be in their body, they can take my quiz. I just created this simple quiz based on some lifestyle factors at heavymetalsquiz.com. It takes a couple of minutes, and they'll go from there and they'll be told, "Here's the next thing to do. Here's the next thing to do."
Wendy Myers:
The first step is a hair mineral analysis. That will tell us what metals you have, what minerals you need, what minerals you may be deficient in. Most people are deficient in magnesium, zinc, and selenium, which are all needed for detoxification. Most people are deficient in trace minerals. We get a picture of what you need to do. You can get it interpreted by one of our team of practitioners to figure out what exact supplements you need to do the sniper approach to supplementation and detoxification, but we give lots and lots of educational videos and information following doing the heavy metals quiz.
Dr. Anna:
Excellent. Okay. From there, it's kind of fine-tuning your detoxification regimen because the way we did it in my medical practice was chelation. We used oral chelation for the most part, or if my client couldn't tolerate oral chelation, we went to rectal suppositories to help them remove some toxins as we were healing whatever hormonal imbalance that we were addressing at the time. There was that way, as well as a colleague performing IV chelation.
Dr. Anna:
A lot of controversy around these different modalities, at least they were a decade ago. I'm wondering where we're at right now as far as chelation, chelation therapies and some ... Again, if we don't have a doctor who's doing chelation, just thinking too, on a daily basis, "These certain things will help me chelate what I'm exposed to."
Wendy Myers:
Yes. Everyone is different. There are some people that are too sick to do chelation therapy. There's some people that need to do chelation therapy if they have like a life-threatening level of metals in their body or they're just not able to get it out, get the metals out in other ways. We also do suppository chelation as well. We use a lot of natural chelators.
Wendy Myers:
Really, I try to work with people to do it safely and slowly. We're not in a race. People have spent decades accumulating these metals. It's going to take time to get them out. There's foundational things people need to do. They need to mineralize their bodies first. Just doing that alone is going to help push metals out of the body. People also need to open up the detox pathways, get their liver working better, their digestion working better.
Wendy Myers:
We help people do like a pre-tox almost in opening up their detox pathways, taking binders, which anyone can do, no matter how ill they are or how genetically compromised they are in their ability to detox. Then mineralizing. Then I recommend people do testing and then take specific supplements that are shown in the research to remove the specific metals that they have because different metals remove different substances. It really depends on what metals you have.
Wendy Myers:
We do a very kind of customized detox approach based on what metals people have. It's a sniper approach, as opposed to kind of a shotgun approach, which is doing a 10-day detox and hopes that it works, which a lot of people are doing spring detoxes or ... For me, I really try to educate people that detoxification is a lifestyle. We are exposed to so many metals and chemicals, you have to be doing something on really almost a daily basis to be thinking about adding detoxification to your already healthy lifestyle, whether that's an infrared sauna or maybe coffee enemas, binders, substances that remove heavy metals, green juices. There's lots of different things that you can do to be thinking about pushing metals out of your body.
Dr. Anna:
When you talk about binders, what are you referring to?
Wendy Myers:
Different binders work for different people. I use modified citrus pectin, which has about 50 research studies behind it showing it removes different metals and chemicals. Some people that doesn't work for them, so we also for some people recommend charcoal on occasion, but there's lots of different binders that work that are great.
Dr. Anna:
Okay. Yeah, no, that's good to know. Citrus pectin, charcoal, we're all familiar with. Been around for a long, long, long time. What can people expect to feel? What we expect to feel and how long does it take? I just will say, I think it's just really critical what Wendy's saying here is test don't guess. Let's make it targeted, the sniper approach. Let's really address what's affecting us, be very efficient about it, and keep up fortifying our defense lines through minerals and nutrients. Yeah. Where does this take us?
Wendy Myers:
We have lots of things that people can do if they maybe can't afford testing or can't afford to work with a practitioner. There's lots of things on myersdetox.com people can do. They can take binders. They can do increasing salt and taking minerals. There's lots of things that they can do. They can remove all the toxins in their home. We have articles about removing toxins in every single room in your home. Stop the influx of toxins, control what you can.
Wendy Myers:
But for many people, they need to do testing and then they need to work with a practitioner, especially if they've had trouble detoxing or they're really sensitive to supplements or they have multiple health diagnoses or they've tried detoxes and they haven't worked and they feel bad. Those people need to work with a practitioner to troubleshoot and course-correct when they're not feeling well. We have lots of tools in our tool chest to be able to work with people to lay that foundation. Some people aren't ready to detox yet.
Wendy Myers:
There's lots of things they need to do first before they're ready to detox, but most people when they start a detox if they're doing it correctly, if they're doing it with binders, if they're doing it by taking minerals, they'll feel really, really good. If they start not to feel well, that means they need to kind of pull back a little bit. I tell people we want to put the foot on the gas pedal and we want them detoxing in a rate that feels good to them where they can still function, but some people have to pull back a little bit. We want them to push as much as they can, as much as they're comfortable doing, while still being able to enjoy their life, enjoy their activities, exercising work. If people are trying to do detoxing and they just feel terrible, we need to pull back and course-correct and do something else.
Wendy Myers:
But most people feel great when they're detoxing. They might feel a little bit tired occasionally, maybe a little nauseous, but we have an action plan in place for whatever you're feeling. Here's what it is that you need to do to stop that.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, yeah, no. Good point. That's good. Let's jump back to the amalgams in our mouth. What if you have amalgams in your mouth from childhood or from whenever and how do we approach that now?
Wendy Myers:
You have to get them out of your mouth. They are just not doing you any favors at all. They contribute ... I've heard so many people remove them and their non-Hodgkin's lymphoma clears up, their autoimmune disease clears up, their chronic fatigue clears up. The mercury fillings are causing a lot of different health issues. Not to mention the silver in them kills your good gut bacteria. The mercury in them contributes to candida overgrowth because of the candida-
Dr. Anna:
Neurologic.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. The candida parasites clean up the mercury and metals in your body. That's why the body allows them to proliferate and why if you're doing cleanses, candida cleanses and parasite protocols, that's why they keep coming back. It's the metals in your body, so you have to get them out. If you can't afford them, there's places in Mexico you can go that there's a biological dentist in Mexico. It's a 10th of the cost. Robyn Openshaw just created a biological dentist program where they called 800 biological dentists across the country to help people, navigate people toward using a biological dentist. It's not cheap. It's not an inexpensive endeavor. You don't have anything if you don't have your health. You are worth the investment, and I encourage people to do whatever they can to get the mercury fillings out of their mouths.
Dr. Anna:
Yep. I hear you on that loud and clear. I think that really resonates loudly with a lot of us, a lot of our listeners too. From here, who should not detox? Who should not detox? Who should leave the metals where they are and not attempt to start moving them out? That's a really big point to get clear.
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. If people have active cancer, they probably want to ... There's some things they can do like taking binders and doing infrared saunas and things like that, but they typically have to be very, very careful with detoxification. Women that are pregnant or breastfeeding, that's not the time to be mobilizing metals, not the time. You just need to wait until ... You can take binders though. You can start cleaning up your tissues and cleaning up your blood, and that will prevent toxins from going to the breast milk and whatnot, which is great. Really, that's really the only maybe population that I'd say shouldn't or should avoid detoxing. For children under seven, they need to avoid infrared saunas. Their heating systems to cool down aren't developed yet. That's really the only people I'd say avoid detox.
Dr. Anna:
I would just add cardiac arrhythmias, Wolff-Parkinson-White, other cardiac arrhythmias, just really go slow. You can definitely do it, and it probably will help you for certain cardiac arrhythmia, but you have to go really, really slow and cautiously.
Dr. Anna:
Again, you have to make sure you're eliminating in all ways to get these metals and toxins out of your body. That's for everyone that's listening. I think heavy metal detoxification is really a reality nowadays. We have to continually detox on a daily basis. I always tell my listeners, "You got to check your urine pH. You got to really focus on the alkalinizers, the nutrients that help your body, chlorella, vitamin C, milk thistle, things that also support your liver and your body's natural detoxification pathways." That's really critical.
Dr. Anna:
On a daily basis, you're detoxing. Then if you are dealing with any issues doing a heavy metal analysis, looking at that and comparing it over time, it's not that expensive to do. You can definitely do like how you've got the heavy metal quiz. That's free. Then get a hair mineral analysis or further follow up testing with stool and urine for further investigation of heavy metals, especially if you're dealing with a condition. I just know that it helps so many of my patients that were struggling with infertility, with endometriosis, with thyroid disease, and certainly post-cancer therapy. Looking at what was the cause of cancer, to begin with, and heavy metals usually had a foot in the door.
Wendy Myers:
Oh yes. Yeah. Cadmium is really the metal that causes more cancers than all of the other metals combined. We have arsenic and mercury and nickel and other metals that cause it, but cadmium is the real issue. That's why people that smoke, that smoke too much marijuana, even if it's medical marijuana, they get [inaudible 00:35:00] are very high in cadmium, but we also get cadmium wherever we have mercury, in shellfish, in large migratory fish. It's in the air as well. A lot of people have cadmium and it's just a real problem. I think it's one of the biggest causes of cancers out there.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your time today, Wendy, and share with our listeners just one final thought, one message that you definitely want everyone listening to know and go home with.
Wendy Myers:
I want them to listen to their body because even if you are eating an amazingly healthy diet, you're taking amazing supplements, you're exercising every day, and you're trying to sleep and reduce stress, today it's not enough. If you are doing all of the above and you still feel tired, you still feel brain fog, you still feel angry or depressed or anxious and you just feel like something is not quite right in your body, I urge people to listen to that, to heed that call because usually metals and chemicals are playing some role in that happening and you need to add detoxification to your health regimen to relieve those symptoms.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Great. Thank you. People can get ... How can people get ahold of you and take that quiz?
Wendy Myers:
Yeah. You can go to heavymetalsquiz.com to take my heavy metals quiz and get lots of information on what the next steps are to start adding detoxification to your life. You can go to myersdetox.com. I have hundreds of podcasts and hundreds of articles about how to start detoxing on your own at home.
Dr. Anna:
Thank you so much, Wendy, for being here with us. Today for our listeners, I want to thank all of you for being here and joining us. I certainly thank you guys for your reviews. You guys have been doing me great honor with your reviews. I love to read them. I read every single one of them, so if you're listening on iTunes or Podcast Addict or Stitcher or wherever you're listening. Share this episode. I just encourage you to share this episode. We need to hear about this and start connecting the dots and figure out, "Okay. What is the underlying cause of some of the things that we've been struggling with or someone we love is struggling with?" Definitely share and be back in touch. I look forward to seeing you on our next episode of Couch Talk.
