peterants

Chelation therapy has been around for better than 50 years. It is the current standard treatment for heavy metal poisoning, such as removing lead from the body. When chelation therapy was first being tested, it was noticed that people who had lead poisoning and heart problems lost the heart problems as well as the lead. It seemed to clear out blocked blood vessels as it removed the lead from the blood. Many doctors now recommend chelation instead of bypass surgery for plaque removal. This appears to be a rather controversial procedure for mainstream medicine, and many doctors also swear it is quackery.

Chelation is normally administered by drip directly into a blood vessel over approximately two hours. This is usually done in a doctor’s office. The chelation therapy course of treatment for anyone with blood vessel blockage is approximately 30 treatments. Treatments need to be at least two days apart, so most people start by taking three treatments per week, until they reach thirty. Many people then continue one a month treatments for the rest of their lives, as a preventive measure.

While sitting in chairs in a room with other people, all watching the solution drip into their veins, its natural for people to talk. Often, they tell the story of their experience with heart and blood vessel problems. While these stories are not absolute proof that chelation works, they do give food for thought. Here are two that I personally heard while doing my own chelation treatments.

The one I remember best was told by a man of about 84 years. I’ll call him Gunther, because he was originally from Germany. The day Gunther told me his story, he was taking his 80th chelation treatment. His heart problems had been diagnosed about five years earlier. At that time, Gunther was beginning to have more and more problems. He was only able to walk a quarter of a block without resting, because of the pain in his legs. When Gunther finally went to the doctor for tests, they told him that he needed to have bypass surgery as soon as possible, or he would die.

The surgery was scheduled, but Gunther declined. He started chelation treatments instead. Just after his 28th treatment, he began to experience a very warm feeling in his chest. At first, he thought he was having a heart attack, but no pain ever came. Gunther now attributes this warm feeling to blood vessels opening and blood getting back to parts of his body which had seen very little of it for many years. On the day he told me his story, Gunther said he had walked two miles with no pain, and no need to rest to catch his breath. He was a robust old man, who had all his wits about him. He attributed his health and well being to chelation therapy and exercise.

The other man who told me his story was 75. He was of Dutch ancestry, and still spoke with an accent. I’ll call him Ryk. He had finished his first thirty treatments about a year earlier, and was taking his once a month treatment when he told his story.

A few years before Ryk began chelation, he had quadruple bypass surgery. He said it was really rough, but he came through it, and thought he was healed. Then he began to have problems with the blood vessels in his legs. His legs were turning black from lack of circulation. The doctors operated on them as well, and again he thought he was healed. Ryk later noticed that his legs were starting to turn black again, and looking unhealthy. This time the doctor told him that the next operation would be to amputate his legs, but they would put off that surgery as long as possible.

Then a friend of his wife told Ryk about chelation. He immediately started chelation, with the result that his leg problems cleared up. His legs were now pink and healthy looking, he was able to exercise, and his surgeon could not believe how good his legs looked. Ryk’s only regret is that he didn’t know about chelation before his bypass surgery.

Julian Whitaker, M.D., www.drwhitaker.com has written about trials with chelation therapy:

In 1988, James Carter, MD, chief of the nutrition section at Tulane Medical School, and Efrain Olszewer, MD, a clinical cardiologist from Sao Paulo, Brazil, published the results of clinic use of EDTA chelation therapy in close to 3,000 patients, 1,970 of them with cardiovascular disease. Using objective measurements such as treadmill performance, EKG, drug use, and blood pressure, 94 percent of 840 heart patients had either good or marked improvement, and a whopping 98.7 percent of 1,130 patients with leg pain from blocked arteries had either good or marked improvement.

Dr. Whitaker also had these words about the safety of chelation therapy:

As to chelation’s record of safety, over the last 30 years, approximately 600,000 patients have had about 12 million EDTA infusions in this country, and the FDA has found no evidence of any significant toxicity. In spite of claims of kidney or other organ damage by opponents of this therapy, the FDA concluded that “safety was not an issue.”

What are the problems with chelation therapy? First, since it is not a recognized treatment for blocked arteries, it will not be covered by insurance, so you will need to pay the cost of $5,000.00 to $7,500.00 for a course of treatment. You also may have to travel some distance to find an M.D. who will administer chelation.

On the positive side, however, the main benefits are no operation, so less pain and discomfort. Also, 1.5% to 3% of the people undergoing bypass surgery leave the hospital in a hearse. Chelation won’t do that to you.