Copper is a huge problem. I see so many people who have extraordinary high levels. One woman in particular, which we will call Anna, comes to mind. She had complaints of confusion, frustration, and feeling like garbage for the past several years. Her medical doctor would run labs but everything came back ‘fine’. For seven years, she was exhausted, her skin was covered in cystic acne that wouldn’t heal, and her brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton. She would clean up her diet, run hormone panels, and try to sleep more, but nothing helped. She then stumbled upon my website and read about HTMA. I ran an HTMA test on her and she came back with a 4 low pattern and copper that looked ‘normal’.
The thing about copper toxicity that makes things tricky is when your adrenals are burned out and your liver is sluggish, the body can’t mobilize copper into the hair so it hides. It accumulates in the brain, the liver, the joints. It drives up calcium, tanks potassium, steals zinc, slows the thyroid, stimulates adrenaline, and wrecks the nervous system.
Copper needs three things in order to move through the body and show up in hair. It needs
- Functional adrenal glands (because the adrenals support the production of ceruloplasmin, the protein responsible for 95% of copper transport.)
- A functioning liver (because the liver is where ceruloplasmin is actually made and it needs adequate bile flow, because copper leaves the body through the bile.)
This is called hidden copper or latent copper toxicity and it is very common. This is where a good HTMA practitioner would need to put on the detective hat and see the full constellation of clues the HTMA panel gives. There are 12 indicators I use to assess for hidden copper.
- 1-Calcium above 50.
- 2-Sodium below 12.
- 3-Potassium below 4.
- 4-Copper that’s unusually high or unusually low.
- 5-Zinc that’s unusually high or unusually low.
- 6-Low phosphorus.
- 7-An elevated thyroid ratio (calcium/potassium above 10).
- 8-An inverted sodium/potassium ratio.
- 9-A zinc/copper ratio outside of the 4 to 12 range.
- 10-Elevated mercury, because mercury directly interferes with copper metabolism.
- 11-An elevated copper/molybdenum ratio.
- 12-Confirmed history of copper exposure, whether that’s hormonal birth control, a copper IUD, vegetarian or vegan diet, or a mother who was on the pill.
The more of the above you check, the more likely copper is part of the picture. Eight out of twelve and you’re placing bets. Six out of twelve and you’re keeping a close eye on it. Even at three or four, if the symptom picture matches, copper stays on the table.
Here’s the thing that makes this even more confusing. Copper toxic people are often simultaneously copper deficient. When copper can’t be transported or utilized, it’s not bioavailable-the body has too much of it and can’t use any of it. So you get symptoms of excess, like anxiety, insomnia, racing thoughts, and skin issues, alongside symptoms of deficiency, like fatigue, iron deficiency anemia, poor collagen production, and chronic fungal infections. They look like a contradiction on paper but they make perfect sense through the lens of copper dysregulation.
So back to Anna. Anna began balancing her 4 lows. It took a year and a half. Her body was slowly rebuilding. She would go through spurts of feeling good and then feeling terrible again. Constipation, headaches, anxiety, insomnia, debilitating fatigue, etc. This is called the copper dump and i’m not going to lie…its brutal. Her body had finally gotten strong enough to start pushing copper out of her tissues. An HTMA retest confirmed it. Her copper went from an optimal level to 5.4. At this stage, I recommended binders and cofactors (zeolite) and an iodine protocol. Over the next three months, her copper came down, her minerals kept rebalancing, and her symptoms started lifting.
Her skin stopped breaking out, she actually slept when she laid down, and her energy came back. Every person will look different with the detoxing and mineral rebuilding. Some take a shorter time, some can take a couple of years. When I say copper is not good….i really mean it. We are exposed to this in so many ways. Copper cups, copper pipes, copper lined mattresses, copper IUD’s, copper in birth control pills, etc.
And the sad thing is, typical western medicine has no clue. The REALLY sad thing is, most people think their medical doctor or nurse practitioner is God and must do everything they say. I realize this is a generational mindset, however if you are open to understanding your body outside of what typical diagnostic labs tell you, you could uncover health and wellness like you’ve never had before.
Find out more about an HTMA test by going to www.theweeddoc.net