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This month I plan to discuss the use of DMPS (dimercapto-propanyl-sulfonate) as it relates to neural therapy. It is a subject that neural therapists sooner or later will encounter, as it is the most powerful chelating agent for mercury. And at least in the industrialized world, mercury raises its ugly head over and over again in the practice of neural therapy. The most common cause of low-grade chronic mercury toxicity in first world countries is from dental amalgam, either past or present. The typical scenario is interference fields that do not respond lastingly to treatment, or multiple interference fields, one after another. When this occurs, neurotoxins must be searched for and mercury is one of the most common. Diagnosis and treatment of chronic mercury toxicity is a complex subject, and I do not plan to discuss this here, (although you can read about it in Chapter 9 of my neural therapy book). Rather I intend to address the subject of DMPS and its utilization, paying particular attention to safety. DMPS has been around for a long time. The safety of DMPS itself is well documented in the 1000 article monograph "Dimaval" (1997) published by one of its manufacturers. And in Germany it is now an over‐the‐counter drug. Nevertheless reports have surfaced in the internet (mostly by patients who have been hurt by DMPS injections) indicating that it is not as safe as we have been lead to believe. I take these reports seriously and believe that we can and should learn from them. DMPS is a powerful chelator. I have used it many thousands of times over at least 20 years and I have seen its benefits over and over again. Adverse reactions are rare if adequate precautions are taken. The most important thing to remember about DMPS is that it mobilizes mercury but ultimately the kidneys and liver must deal with this mobilization. This means that the physiological detoxification functions of the liver and kidneys must be working optimally to deal with the pharmacological movement of mercury. This preceding statement is in some ways a paradox, as the patients that we see having trouble with mercury toxicity have almost by definition problems with detoxification. The opposite - very old patients with mouths full of amalgam have survived because of their excellent detoxification ability. In practice, when confronted by a patient who is mercury toxic, the first task at hand is to assess the patient's detoxification capacity. This means careful study of the patient's biochemistry and sometimes specialized testing, such as the Quicksilver Tritest. Last, but not least, the patient should be checked by autonomic response testing for interference fields in the liver and kidneys and associated autonomic ganglia. Only after careful preparation, sometimes taking many months, should DMPS be administered. And soon after administration, the excretory organs should be rechecked by autonomic response testing to make sure that they are not overwhelmed by the mercury load. A recent patient experience demonstrated some of these vulnerabilities: A relatively healthy 49‐year old woman decided to have her five dental amalgam fillings replaced because of mild chronic fatigue and low-grade hypertension. After careful biochemical workup and preparation, a well-trained biological dentist removed and replaced her fillings with composite material in one session. Immediately afterward she came to my office for an intravenous infusion of 25 gm vitamin C and 250 mgm of DMPS in 500cc of Ringer's lactate. After the infusion she was carefully checked for interference fields and discharged with the advice to return immediately if any adverse symptoms should occur. One week later she returned "not feeling that great", with fatigue and a mild elevation of blood pressure. No interference fields could be detected at first, but after another intravenous infusion of vitamin C, kidney interference fields could be detected bilaterally and were treated by neural therapy. She felt immediately "much better". Interestingly the lab urinalysis after the first DMPS injection showed almost no mercury - suggesting that the kidneys had refused to cooperate. A second DMPS injection 5 weeks later resulted in a significant excretion (12 micrograms/g creatinine in a 6 hour collection). This patient has gone on to recover nicely, but she stands as a warning that DMPS must be handled with skill and respect even after careful preparation. The mild hypertension was a warning sign. Hypertension can be caused by mercury toxicity and weak kidneys can impair detoxification. As in a previous report on this subject, I feel that DMPS should only be used by those able to deal with its complications. Neural therapy is probably the best tool that we have to make DMPS utilization safe. Sincerely, Robert F. Kidd, MD, CM |