Lead Toxicity

[GreenMachineX]

Not really sure where to post this, but something interesting happened recently. My mom has some health issues and recently had urine tests that showed very high levels of lead which prompted us to retest our well water with a send-away lab test. The results showed the lead level to be at “cause for concern.” I don’t have the exact number yet but I’ll post back with that when I get it. When reading about heavy metal toxicity, it seems like there’s a line between quackery and real science that I can’t find.
Does anyone have any reliable knowledge on this or experience?

I’m wondering if this is the cause for a lot of my symptoms for the past few years (middle of the night insomnia, elevated blood pressure, poor memory, and others). I haven’t lived in that house for 6 months and my insomnia has began to resolve.

For a long time, I thought maybe my cortisol (blood and saliva tests showed low-normal levels) was too low and causing midnight surges of adrenaline while low carb. I thought it was abstinence from things that lowered cortisol too low like ashwagandha or holy basil. But now, I can sleep straight through, dream hard, and blood pressure is the lowest it’s been in years (it still surges up to 140-150/80 at the doctor office), but this morning it was 118/68. Memory still isn’t great though. Doesn’t seem to have effected the rest of my family, likely because they didn’t drink that water as religiously as I. I have a doctor appointment on Monday anyway so I’ll ask there as well. But any thoughts at all here would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kisaj]

The only thing I know about it is based on a buddy of ours that was going through some real health issues- feeling constantly lethargic, memory was deteriorating, losing weight, and getting colds all the time. They tested everything and could never find the issue, then they started looking environmental. They found extremely high levels of lead in the water and worked to remediate that. About 3 months after, his symptoms started to improve slowly. There still is no definitive answer and he is still recovering over a year later, suffering from poor memory and still gets tired a lot. But way better than he was.

So, that is my experience- probably not much help but thought I'd share.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Thanks. By remediation, do you mean treating the water or detoxing him?

 

[kisaj]

Treating the water.

 

[jswain34]

Directly from my Goldfrank’s toxicology textbook.

 

[Aleksandar37]

Lead toxicity in water is a very real thing. The quackery you might find online about heavy metal toxicity has more to do with it being in certain products like antiperspirants. Here's a link to a free review that includes others, but addresses lead https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144270/

 

[GreenMachineX]

Thanks all. I’ll probably still have my whole family tested.