Chelation Therapy

Chelation is a therapy where synthetic amino acids are administered intravenously to treat mercury and lead poisoning and other heavy metals as well as calcium buildup. There are two types of chelators used for in-clinic treatments at the DaSilva Institute: heavy metal poisoning and mercury poisoning.

Heavy-metal Poisoning

We treat cadmium and lead poisoning with Calcium-EDTA.  When EDTA (Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid, a powerful antioxidant) enters the bloodstream, it binds to the metal atoms and flushes them out with the urine.  This is usually within the first 24 hours of the chelation treatment.

Mercury Poisoning

For mercury poisoning, the best type of chelation is DMPS (Dimercaptopropane sodium sulfonate).

How Do We Test?

Our chelation therapy begins with a urine test conducted after the patient has been given a small amount of chelate. The test will assess whether or not you have high levels of metals in your system.  We refer to this as metal retention.  The metals that have accumulated in your body fat and tissues over time that are no longer found in the blood (blood test will only show exposure of metals within the last 23 to 30 days).  We test for 13 different metals as well as mercury, lead, arsenic, and uranium.

This test can be performed anywhere in the United States through our national laboratory partner, but for optimal results, you will have to get a dose of IV chelation to better detect the metals in your tissues.

In the testing phase, we give you DMPS in an IV push as the initial chelator. This type of testing, known as a “provocative” test, extracts metals from fat and soft tissues and makes them water soluble so that they can leave the body through the urine.  

After the DMPS chelation, you will be provided with a Urine Toxic Metal test kit that you will bring home with you.  We ask that you collect all urine in the provided container over the next six hours and send a portion of the specimen to the lab using the kit provided.

How Long Does Treatment Take?

A complete course of EDTA chelation therapy for heart disease consists of about 30 treatments, usually done one to three times per week. A urine test should be performed for heavy metals after the first chelation.

EDTA treatment lasts one-and-a-half to three hours.  During this time ,you’ll relax in a recliner while EDTA is administered slowly through an IV.

It is generally given weekly for a period of time based on the individual case.   Kidney and liver functions are monitored from occasionally since all the metals the chelation process has collected throughout the bloodstream exit your body through your urine.

In general, after 10 chelations, the urine is collected again to see if the chelation is still removing heavy metals. If clear, the chelation is stopped.  But if heavy metals such as lead or mercury are still present, then we’ll perform another 10 chelation treatments followed by another urine test.

DMPS chelation therapy, for mercury poisoning, takes about 15 to 20 minutes and is administered as an IV push.