When Paul came to my office one night, he was complaining that his parents forced him to go to graduate school when all he wanted to do was work full time, relax and play video games, and just take it easy. Instead he was now going for his master’s degree, working full time and handling a recent promotion, and living independently by himself. In spite of all this, he still had time to do yoga and meditation. He said he was unhappy.

I softly reminded him where he was just three years ago. At that time he had dropped out of college because of depression and psychosis after smoking pot and using LSD. He was on several psychotropic medications, which made him worse. Just recently he had been discharged from Long Island Jewish Hospital where he received 21 ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) treatments. He had big memory gaps and was quite depressed. His life was going nowhere. Several psychiatrists, in no ambivalent terms, told him that he would be on medications for the rest of his life and that he might never be able to function like everybody else. He felt empty, exhausted and hopeless.

The agreement we made at the start was that he would not use any street drugs. He kept his promise. It required a year to get him off all medications, but he was able to return to college in the autumn. He responded well to several supplements and fish oil. But we needed to go further. He had several amalgam fillings replaced. He was eager to do so. He had an unusual experience when amalgam was removed; he felt as though a radio receiver in his mouth suddenly got shut up.

His provocation test was not that high, but compared with the random test it was significant.

He was placed on a process of biological support removing mercury from his brain and organs. He responded well. Within 3-4 months of initiation chelation he was able to get off the remainder of his medications and supplements. He has been quite stable since. He returned to college and graduated the next year. He worked after college, and then spent several months travelling and exploring what he wants in his life. He lived with his parents for a while, but was very unsettled. He enrolled in graduate school and is going for a master’s degree. His life is very busy now; working full time, going to school and supporting himself.

And yes, he has not taken any medications for almost two years, and just occasionally takes supplements. He wants to be natural. His new passion is yoga.

Additional remarks: This case illustrates several important points. Using mind altering drugs is very dangerous; it can cause psychosis in somebody who is predisposed. Paul had several factors that caused his condition:

• long lasting stress as a child due to several surgical interventions
• use of marijuana and LSD
• mercury toxicity

Treatment with ECT can be helpful short term; however, in the long run it does not work effectively. Every day after treatment, the patient loses 5% of its effectiveness and the treatment itself can create significant neurotransmitter imbalance. That is one reason it took about a year to get Paul off medications.One of the most important factors in his recovery was Paul’s agreement to completely stop using drugs.

Donna’s story:

Donna, a 34 year old married white female, came to see me in December of 2007. For the last twenty years she has had issues with multiple infections, fatigue, pain and depression. Due to constant fatigue, an inability to concentrate, mental fog and a need to sleep 15 hours a day, along with multiple digestive tract and reproductive system symptoms, she has not been able to work for more than two years. Instead, she concentrated on her health issues, seeking help from different physicians. A year ago she got pregnant, but the fetus could not develop. Several physicians diagnosed her as suffering from a mysterious condition — chronic fatigue syndrome.

During my examination it was discovered that she had multiple amalgam fillings and apparent signs of hypothyroidism. Muscle testing revealed mercury in her brain, thyroid, liver, kidneys and ovaries.

During January and February of 2008 she replaced her amalgam fillings and soon noticed some improvement. It was not until April, however, after further progress had stopped in spite of taking multiple supplements, that she was ready to start chelation therapy with DMSA and antioxidants. Initially, the chelation process caused some minor problems of being tired. By June she was feeling more energetic. She was sleeping only 10 hours per day, down from 15. Kinesiological testing showed that mercury was now only slightly detectable in her brain.

In July, Donna appeared to be quite optimistic and very energetic. She was able to tolerate thyroid hormone, something that she could not do before. She started two businesses and was losing weight. Kinesiological testing detected no mercury. Chelation was complete.

Anna is a 44 year old dentist, a mother of 2, who came to my office two years ago. For the last nine years she has had significant obsessive compulsive symptoms. She has tried several psychotropic medications and has been in psychotherapy twice a week without much improvement. She felt scattered, unable to focus, overwhelmed, her “house was a mess”, she was unable to make simple decisions, had no sex drive and poor sleep patterns. Her children were acting out and disorganized. Her life was unmanageable. She has had symptoms of anxiety since she was 11 years old. As a child she had poor dental hygiene and had several amalgam fillings placed between the ages of 11 to 14. Several of her relatives suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.

Anna was overweight, spoke very fast, and was restless and anxious. She had multiple amalgam fillings, TMJ, and tension pain in her shoulders and neck. She was looking for alternatives to get off medication. She was currently taking Luvox but it was ineffective and causing her side effects.

For the first several months I attempted to use several different supplements which are known to help OCD, but only mild improvement was achieved. She was able to reduce Luvox, but was unable to stop it. Because she had so many amalgam fillings and her kinesiological testing was pointing toward mercury toxicity in her brain, we ordered a DMPS provocation test. The results surprised us: her level was 100 mcg/ g Creat. It was a much higher level than would be expected from just having amalgam fillings.

She recollected that when she began her dentistry work, she was placed in charge of the amalgam mixing machine, work that she hated. Several times a day, the machine would break and she would have to take everything out, including mercury, fix the machine and then put it back together again. It was also a challenging time for her personally. She got married, bought a house and was about to start a family. She began experiencing OCD symptoms. Everybody blamed stress for the onset. Nobody even considered mercury as a suspect. As a conventional dentist she knew nothing about mercury toxicity; according to her sources of information from conferences, it was a safe material.

Anna was placed on oral biological support with garlic, Vit. C, EDTA, MSM, acidophilus, and liver support. She went to see a holistic dentist who replaced her amalgam fillings during the next two months. She began to feel better and within four months she stopped taking Luvox completely. In the next several months all supplements that were originally administered for OCD were stopped. She continues to enjoy improvements in her confidence, energy, and lack of anxiety. Everybody in her family, including her children, is doing better. Kinesiological testing showed that mercury was no longer present in her brain; in the next four –five months it was undetectable in her liver and gall bladder but continued to show strong presence in her kidneys. By May of 2007, her level was only 33 mcg/ g Creat, but then in December it rose again to 110 mcg/ g Creat. We changed her treatment to DMSA, but there was no significant change.

In June of 2008 we compared the results of the provocation tests by giving her the provocation test first with DMPS intravenously, mercury level of 98 mcg/ g Creat; then provocation testing with DMSA 500 mg, mercury level was only 13 mcg/ g Creat. It was clear that DMSA was not an effective agent in pulling mercury from her kidneys so she was switched to oral DMPS.

It is important to note that Anna has absolutely no symptoms but her total body burden of mercury remains high as attested to by her latest test results.

Anna made an interesting observation: several months ago she had changed how she worked with her mask. It was uncomfortable, so she changed how she kept it on her face, however her nose was exposed to dust and fumes from the patient’s teeth, including their mercury fillings.

This case shows that dentists are at risk when they set up and repair amalgam mixing machines and when they work with patients placing new amalgam fillings and removing old ones. Because they ignore the risks that they are exposed to, and they lack education on the hazards of exposure to mercury, they remain cavalier around dangerous substances and neglect protecting measures. It is impossible to remove mercury completely while dentists continue to be exposed to the fumes of mercury.

Psychological symptoms are resolved first when chelation begins.

How a banker was able to recover from thirty years of addiction and chronic pain using Applied Psycho-Neurobiology(APN) method

Dan was a part time banker in his early seventies. When I first say him, he was walking with a wooden cane, holding a pipe in his hand, disheveled, and dressed in dirty khaki trousers. He wanted to get off multiple prescription drugs he had been abusing for over 30 years. He had a long history of manipulating multiple doctors into giving him prescriptions for insomnia, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse. He had failed multiple treatment attempts. His last attempt was in the highly respected Beth Israel hospital program. Yet, he relapsed 3 days after completing their two-month inpatient and outpatient treatment and once again started taking several barbiturates, benzodiazepines, muscle relaxants and opioid medications. He was at the end of his rope.

I was unsure if he could stay committed to my care. His wife looked dismayed but Dan insisted. There was something very warm and human in him so I decided to give it a try. I put him on Phenobarbital to prevent withdrawal from the benzodiazepines and barbiturates and called all his doctors requesting them to consult me before writing any more prescriptions.

At our next meeting we started an Applied Psycho-Neurobiology treatment. Psycho-kinesiological testing identified the Bladder as an initial issue and the Gall bladder meridian as a secondary issue; the associated emotions were shame and resentment. Other cues were the color red( usually signifies an acute problem); the temple (Gall Bladder 1) acupuncture taping point and an eye movement direction to the left. I put red color glasses on his face and asked him to focus on the word “shame” while resting his hand on top of his bladder. I began to tap his temple point with my left hand, moving my right hand in front of his eyes. He suddenly became severely enraged, grinding his teeth with resentment and making strong sounds. He was furious.

“What happened,” I asked. “Oh this bastard, I hate him…” he groaned.

He than told me a story going back more than thirty years ago. While Dan was working as a bank investigator, he uncovered fraud that was being perpetrated by prominent politicians. It was a big story but his boss, a political appointee, dismissed his discovery and did not allow Dan to report it. Dan wanted to quit his job in anger but his wife forced him to stay saying “We need the money to raise our family.” He felt anger, shame, and resentment. He began experiencing persistent groin pain—a sense of being castrated—and started to drink heavily. Multiple doctors investigated his mysterious groin pain but no physical explanation could be found. They gave him multiple prescriptions for pain, anxiety, depression and anger and he abused them all. Yet he never shared his story because nobody ever asked.

At the end of our meeting Dan felt a sense of relief and relaxation. He had entered a Yin state, a state of healing.

In the next four weeks we uncovered several more layers connected to his issues of shame and resentment. The colors of his glasses changed from red to orange to yellow to green and finally to violet as we dealt with different aspects of his psycho-emotional trauma, resolving them one by one as if peeling layers of an onion. As we did so, Dan began to change. He followed his part of the bargain by taking only those medications that I prescribed, gradually reduced the number of different pills he was taking. He cut his coffee from 20 cups a day to none and decreased his smoking. He began walking without a cane and even his groin pain subsided, first time in thirty years. He developed an interest in music and started listening to Gregorian chants every moment he could. He got involved in a men’s spiritual group in his church, developed a zest for life and an excitement about women.

Two years later he still remains free of any habit-forming medications, alcohol and any groin pain.

There were several treatment approaches used in this case, but Applied Psycho-Neurobiology played a central role. Dan continues his psychotherapy with a gifted therapist, Sharon Cope-Diaz, CSW (516-674-6155). He also received several acupuncture treatments and was placed on a homeopathic remedy by Norman Suhu, L.Ac, ND (516-759-5916). He received several different supplements such as fish oil and herbs. His medications were tapered and gradually reduced over a 6-week period. He was re-introduced to spirituality and given reading and writing assignments. He benefited from Systemic Family Constellation, resolving grief over his son’s death. In his treatment we addressed all 5 levels of healing.

The story of transformation and healing of an aggressive businessman/survivor of a heart attack

Rob was an unlikely patient in my office. He was a hard driven, type A businessman who was impatient, angry, and demanding of himself, his business and his son. He always had to be a winner: playing soccer, raging on roads, or screaming at his employees.

But his life suddenly changed after his father died of a heart attack. Rob unexpectedly became aware of his health and mortality, his high cholesterol and some strange sensations in his heart. He eventually suffered a heart attack himself, and had three stents put into his coronary arteries because of severe obstructions.

A formerly fearless man now became frightened every time he had an unusual sensation in his heart. He wanted to win, to beat his heart illness, but the more he tried, the more his heart rebelled, responding with waves of sensations that Rob feared were signs of another heart attack. In desperation, he turned to alternative approaches such as massage and yoga, but there was little improvement. It was his yoga therapist, a friend of mine, who sent him to me.

Rob was a tough customer. He had no idea about his emotions and no mind-body connection. In his first month of treatment, his anxiety was so severe that he was put on a tranquilizer and an antidepressant. He refused to take any alternative homeopathic or herbal remedies because his cardiologist would not approve any of them, considering homeopathy and herbs to be unproven and dangerous. I got to work on him and he soon gave me a new, lovely name: “My crazy Russian psychiatrist.”

At first, I could not do Kinesiological testing. Every time I tried to press his arm, it was like we were arm-wrestling, and he was always the winner. However, he was eager and open to learning, and even though meditation was a challenge for him, he thrived on challenges. After three weeks he became amenable to Kinesiological testing.

Applied Psycho-Neurobiology (APN) testing revealed a primary imbalance in the energetic organ of the Gall Bladder, a primary negative emotion of resentment and the color red.

APN is like the digging of an archeologist who is removing layers of past traumas, trying to uncover deeper wounds under them and then putting those old injuries in a museum of memories, separate from emotions. When a memory is just a memory, without any underlying emotion, Kinesiological testing does not show any reaction or weakness. This is when you know that it has been resolved for good.

Every new layer of emotions and past memories reveals itself by a progression of colors from red to violet. Digging into Rob’s layers of resentment we found that he was angry at various things such as his illness, losing his fight with the strange sensations around his heart, his laid-back son, not playing as hard as he would expect, his friend betraying him, and his father dying. It took us several visits to resolve most of these layers.

By doing Kinesiological testing, I would find an eye movement, color, tapping point, and emotion. It usually takes just a couple of minutes. Then, I would give him glasses with a selected color and rhythmically wave my hand in front of his eyes while tapping a kinesiologically chosen acupuncture point. This would bring him into a very deep emotional, energetic and spiritual experience. I would ask him about what he was experiencing and this would elicit deep, hidden emotions and cascades of thoughts, memories, and sensations in his body. I would guide him through a healing dialog, asking him to face his past issues.

The solutions would come by themselves or with a bit of my guidance. Self-healing is a rule and not an exception in this treatment. He would breathe very deeply, letting go of past resentments, forgiving and resolving, and seeing new possibilities in his life. Following that, he would usually develop strong energetic sensations and movements in his body followed by a deep sense of relaxation or the Yin state – a state of healing. Following his sessions, I would give him writing and reading assignments.

Rob began to change, gradually learning new ways of relating to life without anger and frustration. He became open to spirituality and energetic work.

The other energetic organ that was affected was his heart. The disturbed emotion was self-protection. It seemed logical since he was afraid of death. As we progressed with the layers of healing, it revealed his deep connection to his father. He was carrying a fear and self-protection for his father. His father, always a “mench”, was a survivor of the holocaust and the communist regime in Romania. His father was never afraid of anything in life. He was a wise man, deeply respected by everybody, ready to help anybody in trouble and ready to fight if anybody insulted Jews. Only in the last days of his life did he show a fear of death. But it was Rob who carried a deep fear for his own and his father’s life, manifesting in an emotion of self-protection. Through APN work we were able to resolve this entanglement.

Rob was doing much better. He eagerly took on energetic exercises and spirituality. He was excited about the Power vs. Force book. We did less APN work, and instead spent most of the time exploring the horizons of spirituality. Rob was becoming a different man. He found a Chi Gong teacher and began to practice. Even his soccer-coaching style changed. He taught kids how to meditate and took them to a yoga course. He was beginning a new life for himself. We began decreasing his psychotropic medications and he was able to decrease his cardiac medications as well. His cardiologist was very pleased with his progress. Physically he was in top shape.

But as we went though the last layers of his energetic heart disharmony, something unexpected was revealed. Rob never talked about his mother – she was always in the background, supportive, loving, and there when she was needed. He was at a dark violet color when the connection with her emotion of self-protection became obvious. But it was not just his mother. The Kinesiological testing was actually pointing to her mother, Rob’s grandmother. When I asked what had happened to her he suddenly began to cry and felt powerful energetic movements around his heart area.

“She died when my mother was just two,” he said. It was his grandmother’s deep attachment and concern for her daughter’s – Rob’s mother’s – survival, which was at the bottom of the emotional pyramid. The resolution of this last emotional layer of his energetic heart wound was very powerful for Rob.

Since that session, I rarely see Rob. He is doing great. We have the same Chi Gong teacher, Pit, that Rob introduced me to. Rob is very diligent in studying his Chi Gong – at least his old competitive habits are serving him well.