Heavy Metals the Hard Way, Part 2

A Controversy that Has No Reason to Exist, My Personal Experience

I never dreamt I’d be back in the unenviable position of trying to navigate a broken medical system with a neglected illness that doctors disparage—Again. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

May what I’ve learned the hard way help someone out there.

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When we left off in Part 1, the painful realization had just settled in on me that I was likely being poisoned by something in those sage, rosemary, and thyme teas—Y’know, the ones I’d been drinking for their…um…health benefits. I’d leaned hard into drinking them, so it was the one variable that made sense to explain my acute onset debilitating neurologic symptoms.

Common toxins that can be present in teas include heavy metals and pesticides, but since the teas were organic, I went down the heavy metal rabbit holes first, horrified by what I learned down there.

I’m quick to criticize how doctors are taught because I think med schools can do a lot better, but I’m grateful for my medical education at the end of the day, because without it, I wouldn’t have had a chance. I don’t know how anyone without a medical background can make sense of all this—I wouldn’t have been able to.

Don’t Know, Don’t Care

It doesn’t seem to matter that it’s been incredibly well-documented in our best medical journals that heavy metals cause major negative health impacts. They act by increasing oxidative stress and decreasing the activity of multiple enzymes, which can impact almost every system in the body. But despite their broad-based and very serious toxicities, the topic is treated by the medical community with utter indifference, like a stray sock found in the dryer.