A Small Easter Miracle. Great improvement despite imperfect DTPA chelation

I usually do not post 2 blogs in one day. This event merited posting. Last morning on Easter sunday I received a call. It was from one of my favorite patients, but his chelation treatment was marred, basically because he could not afford my recommendation of regular chelations spaced not greater than 4 weeks apart, and a minimum of 5 chelations per GBCA injection. Because he (like most GDD sufferers) had little money, he went at times with 3 month intervals between chelations, and was using steroids to compensate for delayed chelations, with doses of at least 64 mg of methylprednisolone. I generally recommend 24 mg methylprednisolone as the maximum daily dose, and only on the two days immediately after chelation. He had received 4 GBCA injections within a couple of months as the cause of GDD. He should have received then a minimum of 20 chelations and spaced 4 weeks apart. Instead, I believe he ended up with 6 chelations and some spaced 3 months apart. I considered him one of my treatment failures, but one not because the treatment did not work, but because financial difficulties made it impossible for him to do what I wanted him to do.

My iphone identified him as the caller, and with trepidation I answered the call. He started by saying Dr Semelka I love you, and you saved my life. This he has said before, but because he had taken so much steroids (against my advice), but it was what he needed to control re-equilibration Flare, since he could not afford regularly scheduled chelation. The he said that after two years following the last chelation, he has largely recovered from GDD, and the Cushings Syndrome from excess steroid use had greatly improved. I told him I loved him too, and I was so happy for him that he was so much better. I wished him back Happy Easter, and this was the happiest Easter greeting I have received.

I have noticed amongst less rigorous researchers they focus only on their successes and not their losses. 37 years of highly accomplished research and publications... I have always paid attention to successes, but critically also to losses. You cannot do better, if you do not pay attention to losses. That is one reason I do not like showing or seeing people show anecdotes... Is this 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 who got better, or is the 70% who got better? Since I don't know and they don't say, I don't like the showing of anecdotes unless they reflect at least the mean of results..

This person was one of the 4 or so, who I have suffered from regarding failure. Not because the treatment didn't work though, but because he could not afford the treatment that would have worked. Others have complained to me, just a few, regarding taking steroids. He is the only one though that was clear to me excess steroids caused him harm.... but he was taking easily 8 times the amount I had recommended.

It is also interesting to reflect, as a radiologist, and perhaps the most scholarship accomplished abdominal radiologist, certainly body MRI radiologist, of all time, Doing radiology, and making diagnoses that perhaps only I could make at the time, I have never had a patient thank me for saving their life. Chelating with DTPA for the last 8 years, at least 100 people have told me I saved their life and thanked me for it, and perhaps 500 or 1000 more think and understand that. So this level of gratification and recognition is worth much more than all the money I have not made by not sticking with just doing radiology, and by turning a blind eye to all the Oliver Twists with GDD.

It also made me realize that the emails I have received from other patients who underwent DTPA chelation (and most often without steroids) at other centers who said they were getting worse with chelation, and then stopped after 5 or 10. I am certain all of them feel a lot better now, but not because they stopped chelation (which I believe they may still think may be the explanation), but they are better because chelation removed so much Gd, their body was able to recover the rest of the way on its own.

A couple of people have died while on chelation, but the reality is that most of them have been old men, and the nature of life is old men die - so I am doubtful that chelation was directly responsible - GDD yes, chelation, no.

So this reminded me, nothing will surpass a treatment for any disease that involves removal of the offended agent. For heavy metals, this is chelation. There can always be more refinement, which includes a still better chelator, and still better immune dampening then steroids.

A small Easter miracle

Richard Semelka, MD