Challenges to Healing

Despite all the efforts to provide the public (and practitioners) with guidance on how to address and heal through copper toxicity, there remain several widespread myths, misconceptions and factors that hold back people’s healing.  These misconceptions and factors include:

1. Even with Copper Toxicity, the goal is to detox all copper out of the body.
No. Copper is an essential nutrient. We don't want to get rid of all the copper in our bodies.  Depending on one’s condition with copper, there may be an element of detox involved for sure.  However, we also cannot ignore the importance of supporting the availability of copper for good health (for which supporting the adrenals, liver, magnesium, retinol, ceruloplasmin are all part of the process). 

2. "Fixing" copper toxicity just involves taking supplements.
Absolutely not.  A supplement protocol intelligently guided by properly assayed HTMA (hair analysis) is an excellent place to start, without which any detox approach is being done, at least in part, blindly.  However, there are those who simply take supplements for a couple of months and then complain that they're not 'healed'.  Supplements are just one layer of the onion, they are there to "supplement" all the other aspects of healing as laid out in our comprehensive Roadmap to Healing.  All the supplement guidance in the world won't do much if you (a) don't take them, and (b) continue to have ongoing exposure, unrelenting stressors, negative beliefs about being able to heal, poor diet, etc.  For healing and restoring whole body wellness, both mind and body, along with one's environment and lifestyle choices, need to be addressed and nurtured.  

3. People need to avoid all copper.  
No. Once again copper is an essential nutrient. Those with clear cut copper toxicity will generally do better avoiding high copper foods for a while.  However, there is no need to microscopically examine the nutrient profile of every food in order to avoid copper 100%.  Tolerance to copper will be an individual thing, and some people will be able to handle more copper than others.  However, as a general rule of thumb with copper toxicity, aim for a 'low copper' diet, NOT a 'no copper' diet.

4. All one's symptoms stem from copper.

Certainly not.  For many whose symptoms developed after making the one change of going on a copper IUD, it's quite easy to point all fingers at copper as being the only imbalance.  Indeed, the cytotoxic nature of copper can certainly have a negative effect. However, minerals do not operate in isolation, and as a copper imbalance develops, it throws off other mineral levels too. Each of those other imbalances carries its own set of symptoms. It is almost never "just" about copper.  

5. Mass confusion and anxiety proliferated on Facebook support groups, contributing to a psychosomatic response. 

While Facebook and social media offer the potential to dramatically increase reach, awareness, and education on this topic, the social media environment in recent years, especially in one of the largest Facebook groups dedicated to copper toxicity, has become a nightmare of  confusion and anxiety. The largest copper toxicity support group, currently with nearly 20,000 members, has become one of the most difficult places to provide education and is one of the most toxic places for people to find clarity and healing. 

While the group does offer the benefit of “community”,  helping those affected realize that they are not alone, it is also filled with a daily stream of so blatantly wrong information and incorrect suggestions.  Rather than providing clarity to members, it has added immensely to the confusion (and panic) surrounding copper toxicity.  With more and more people today now aware of copper toxicity and offering their "advice", it's become nearly impossible for leading experts to teach in that group, like standing in the middle of a mass riot and calmly asking people to listen.  Rather than referring to all the professional resources provided (for example all those available at www.coppertoxicitysupport.com), the panic of the group creates a barrier to people being able to “receive” the information.  

It’s worth contemplating why such forums are so filled with people still struggling and not recovering.  Could the forum itself be part of the problem?  Could the constant feed of other people’s issues cause one’s own symptoms to persist?   

That is an important question that deserves reflection.  In fact, it leads into an interesting study of human psychology, and how social media itself may be contributing to a psychosomatic response in certain susceptible people that holds back their own healing.  It is well recognized that certain events can trigger emotions felt from past traumas, just as a person can also experience a psychosomatic inflammatory response just by thinking about  something they  might be sensitive to[1].   Scientific research too shows the power of how even thinking (or remembering) a particular response can trigger that response.  For example, in mice, researchers induced:

“inflammation in the colon and using genetic manipulation techniques, “captured” groups of neurons in the insular cortex that showed increased activity during the inflammation... Once the mice were healthy, the researchers triggered these “captured” neurons artificially. Without any outside stimulus other than this triggering of cells in the brain, inflammation re-emerged, in the exact same area where it was before. “Remembering” the inflammation was enough to reactivate it.[2]

In a copper toxicity support group, where the energy of the group is one of people grasping at straws without clear direction and stories of horrible symptoms and struggle flooding the feed, what psychosomatic influence is that having on the members?  Yes, a community is found which brings a sense of relief in knowing one is not alone, yet a group without clear direction can easily become lost.