DS (5.5) has severe chronic asthma not so far remedied by chiro, homeopathy, supplements, NAET. I don't think he absorbs anything, fails the beet test despite multiple supplements (b6, mo, zn). He is extremely small for his age. He's very bright but doesn't cope well with stress. Here are his hair test results...I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what direction to go in.

Aluminum 4.8 green
Antimony .083 barely yellow
Arsenic .074 green
Barium .32 green
Beryllium <.01 green
Bismuth .052 green
Cadmium .053 green
Lead 1.2 barely yellow (tested normal 1 year ago in blood sample)
Mercury .35 green
Platinum <..003 green
Thallium <.001 green
Thorium </001 green
Uranium .11 yellow
Nickel .12 green
Silver .09 green
Tin .36 barely yellow
Titanium .42 green
Total toxic representation yellow

Calcium 207 range 125-370
Mg 50 range 12-30
Sodium 17 range 20-200
Potassium <3 12-200
Copper 86 range 11-18
Zinc 170 range 100-190
Manganese .17 range .1-.5
Chromium .57 range .43-.8
Vanadium .11 range .03-.1
Molybdenum .3 range .05-.13
Boron .49 range .7-5
Iodine .47 range .25-1.3
Lithium .004 range .007-.02
Phosphorus 138 range 150-220
Selenium .68 range .7-1.1
Strontium .44 range .16-1.0
Sulfur 51400 range 45500-53000
Cobalt .007 range .004-.02
Iron 10 range 7.0-16
Germanium .032 range .03-.04
Rubidium .004 range .016-.18
Zirconium .17 range .04-1

Elements
Ca/Mg ratio 4.14 expected range 4-30
Ca/P ratio 1.5 expected range .8-8
Na/K 5.67 expected range .5-10
Zn/Cu 1.98 expected range 4-20
Zn/Cd >999 expcted range >800

Can you post a visual? The colors of the essential elements are important. Free sites abound if you have a hard copy and a digital camera. If not, can you include the direction (left or right from the midline) and color (white, green, yellow, red)?

But first, holy sh!t, that's a lot of copper. That's a problem. I think that's almost as high as chlobo (chlobo, how do you like being the bar to beat? :wink). Um, that's worth investigating. I don't have my book right here, so I don't have a good list of sources, I'll try to do that later tonight.

Can you post a visual? The colors of the essential elements are important. Free sites abound if you have a hard copy and a digital camera. If not, can you include the direction (left or right from the midline) and color (white, green, yellow, red)?

But first, holy sh!t, that's a lot of copper. That's a problem. I think that's almost as high as chlobo (chlobo, how do you like being the bar to beat? :wink). Um, that's worth investigating. I don't have my book right here, so I don't have a good list of sources, I'll try to do that later tonight.

That was my first reaction too - holy shit on the copper. And yeah, a visual of the test would help.

Googling online for asthma and copper, there seems to be several studies that find elevated copper and low zinc & selenium in people with asthma. Not sure whether the imbalances are a symptom or cause of the asthma, but it does fit what you see in your son's hair test.

I think the other thing to be considering is whether the high copper is due to an issue specific to your son (like low bile flow, copper is excreted in bile), or environmental exposure (copper water pipes, for example). I found it really helpful to hair test DS' sister when I was trying to tease out this stuff - she has very low toxicity in everything, which meant in most cases we didn't have unusual environmental exposure, DS just didn't clear things well. Can you hair test someone else in your family to see if the high copper level is shared, or unique to your DS?

Can you post a visual? The colors of the essential elements are important. Free sites abound if you have a hard copy and a digital camera. If not, can you include the direction (left or right from the midline) and color (white, green, yellow, red)?

But first, holy sh!t, that's a lot of copper. That's a problem. I think that's almost as high as chlobo (chlobo, how do you like being the bar to beat? :wink). Um, that's worth investigating. I don't have my book right here, so I don't have a good list of sources, I'll try to do that later tonight.

Well she's going to have to try a little harder than that. That isn't even close to my copper. lol. Well not really funny, I guess.

I'll try to post a photo later today.

Does anyone know where I can get my water tested? Dh's was 36 so also high, but we haven't done the other family members. I'd like to do mine but had my hair colored in July so I'm not sure if it's worth doing (& I"m also nursing a 3 mo w/issues so I'd like to see if copper is a problem for me). DS1 is the oldest & I had been vegetarian & on bcp for years before his conception so I'm sure I had a copper imbalance going into the pregnancy with him. DS definitely fits the copper toxicity profile emotionally but not the adhd part, he's more the opposite of adhd. DH doesn't seem to fit the copper toxicity profile at all.

link to copper toxicity (I know nothing about this guy):
http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/copper_toxicity_syndrome.htm

chlobo, why was yours so high & what have you done about it?

I'll try to post a photo later today.

Does anyone know where I can get my water tested? Dh's was 36 so also high, but we haven't done the other family members. I'd like to do mine but had my hair colored in July so I'm not sure if it's worth doing (& I"m also nursing a 3 mo w/issues so I'd like to see if copper is a problem for me). DS1 is the oldest & I had been vegetarian & on bcp for years before his conception so I'm sure I had a copper imbalance going into the pregnancy with him. DS definitely fits the copper toxicity profile emotionally but not the adhd part, he's more the opposite of adhd. DH doesn't seem to fit the copper toxicity profile at all.

link to copper toxicity (I know nothing about this guy):
http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/copper_toxicity_syndrome.htm

chlobo, why was yours so high & what have you done about it?

I have no idea why mine is high. I grew up in a 100 year old house so I'm wondering if the pipes might have contributed. I'm sure I'm a poor detoxer.

Since I"m nursing I've been worried about doing any real "chelating" so I've been doing some copper reducing supplements. I have no idea if they've had an effect b/c I haven't done a followup test yet. I'm due.

Well she's going to have to try a little harder than that. That isn't even close to my copper. lol. Well not really funny, I guess.

Whoops. Well, it's possible that by now you're almost down to his level.

OP--since two people have elevated copper, an environmental source is possible, but there's a rare genetic thing that involves copper too (wait--DH is 36? That's less, maybe less likely, but it's still pretty elevated). The genetic thing causes people to not excrete copper well, but it sounds like once you know it, there are reasonable ways to deal with it. Will look up more after bedtime, Cutler discusses short-term and long-term copper toxicity fairly well (different symptoms, I think, depending on the age of exposure).

eta: and I don't know when symptoms start, is it 36, or higher? And how much does it vary from person-to-person?

My copper is 97 and I know Chlobo's was a lot higher than mine. DS's was was 44, and DD2's was 62. So we're a family of high copper too. I haven't gotten my water tested yet here (though our summer place is mega-filtered and I already know there's nothing in that, and the kids' hair tests were done right at the end of the summer, so 3 months of good water). I know Home Depot has a water test, because that's what I used for the summer water. It was about $75 and you sent it off to a lab. It tested a whole bunch of stuff.

Copper stuff from Cutler...he says people with very high or very low hair copper w/o an obvious explanation as to where the copper is coming from should test family members for genetic quirks that allow accumulation of copper.

Blood copper levels are actively controlled and don't increase due to toxicity until a life-threatening crisis is imminent. They can go up and down due to inflammatory processes however (like allergy or infection), so high blood copper levels don't necessarily mean toxicity, it could be a transient state.

Mild liver impairments, history of gallbladder issues or hepatitis or other liver disease can lead to accumulation of copper. Copper has synergistic effects with other heavy metals, making the effects more than just the sum of the two (something to consider with lead creeping into the yellow range--lead is problematic at lower levels than most other toxic metals).

Behavioral effects of copper poisoning are almost indistinguishable from mercury. Among other things, it may tend to increase spaciness, detachment from reality, and goes along with intelligent, creative childlike and artistic personality traits.

Copper sources--inborn problems with copper metabolism; copper sulfate is used in pool maintenance and can be absorbed that way; it's common in wiring, piping and mechanical parts; treated wood (green-colored stuff) may be a copper-arsenic salt though the arsenic is worse there, though some new versions of treated wood are just copper. That was not a long list.

Let me know if you want Cutler's recs for supps aimed at reducing copper. It sounds like, for most people, reducing copper is fairly quick, less than 6 months (except for the fortunate few like Chlobo :hug). The autism-mercury and especially the frequent dose chelation yahoo groups would be places to read more about people who've used supps for copper reduction, most at the latter would be adults, but possibly some kids too.

The half life of copper in the body is about 1 month. Interventions to modify copper body burden take more or less a month (1 half-life) to show their beneficial effects.

So could the copper just be because we're all inflamed? Which comes first, the copper or the inflammation?

So could the copper just be because we're all inflamed? Which comes first, the copper or the inflammation?

Blood copper varies with inflammation, hair copper is supposed to accurately reflect body burden. I still vote gallbladder issues for you.

eta: I was worrying last night that I didn't write that paragraph well. Should've been in bed, bad me.

Tanya, thank you for taking the time to post that. I finally got a paper copy of the results today that I should be able to photo since I couldn't seem to make a copy of the online results w/o a name on them.

Pointing out copper was really helpful to me...since I was on bcp & veg for so long, I decided that maybe I had a copper/zn imbalance. I decided to try supplementing hcl instead of just supping zinc & I have seen improvement in my little reflus baby. Despite the fact that I've been taking enzymes & zinc, adding in hcl seems to have made a difference.