The Missing Piece: Heavy Metals, Depression, and Brain Health with Elyssa Schneider

Welcome, everybody, to Brain Health and Healing:

Receiving Adversity as Gifts. I have an amazing guest today.

She's got a wonderful story. First of all, of adversity

turned into healing, and the service that she now provides,

as well as information specific that's relevant to people who

are recovering from brain injuries. We are like half an

hour into our call, but we haven't started until now

because we've just been talking. It's been so fascinating talking

with her. So please meet . She is a health advocate and

educator, focusing on raising awareness about the connection

between environmental toxicity and mental health. Heavy metals

is her special area of expertise. Her work grew out of

her own 28-year struggle with depression, and her experience

addressing mercury and lead exposure as part of her personal

health journey. Elyssa, welcome to Brain Health and Healing.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey.

Oh, Sandra, where to begin? Thank you so

much for having me on the show. It's such a it was such a

privilege getting to know you. So many, so many points in

common, and yeah, where my journey started. I just remember

when I was nine years old, I could hear my mom in the living

room playing piano, and all of a sudden, I just had this feeling

like I I had to run to her, and I I run over and I say I say,

"Mommy, mommy, I'm crying, but I don't know why, and she says,

"Oh, come here. Let me give you a hug, you know, as as a good

mother would. But what my mom didn't realize is how many hugs

she would have to give me, over and over and over, when I was

10, when I was 11, when I was 12, when I was 15, when I was

20, when I was 30, because what started as this sort of sad

feeling as a child turned into crippling depression as I

grilled her. And Sandra, at first, I've just connected it

with, you know, I said, "Oh, I don't. We we had made a move,

and I thought, "Well, I just don't have very many friends.

That's why I'm sad all the time, and I'm homeschooled, and I

don't get out so much. and And then as I got older, it was

well, I think I'm sad because I don't have a boyfriend. You

know, everybody has a boyfriend right now, and I don't. So

that's why I'm feeling this sadness. This this every day I

wake up feeling like I can't get through the day, and then and

then later it was well, I think I don't. I'm not in the right

job, and that's why I'm feeling so much depression. And so you

find excuses, you find reasons why. Because what else are you

going to do? You connect it with what's happening. So that's

where my depression started, and it has been a long journey for

sure. So you have to tell the audience how you recovered. the

end of the story. Yes, so I started looking for answers, and

I just I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted my life

to count, and so by the time I was reached 23, I had a breaking

point, and it was like, okay, I cannot deal with this anymore.

If I do not find an answer, I cannot wake up another day and

keep functioning. My my my coping skills, my my mindset.

I'm gonna mindset through this. I'm I'm I'm done. Like I'm so

tired. Like if this doesn't get better, I I'm just done. I'm

done. And it's like okay, well let me start looking for

answers. So I went to the doctor at the hospital, and he takes

one quick look at me, and he goes, "Depression? You're too

young for depression. What you need is a boyfriend. So that was

his answer. He gave me a little bit of medication and sent me on

my way. Then I went to psychiatrist's office, and I

just the medication wasn't. It just didn't really take care of

the symptoms, and I just thought I want to know why do I feel

this way? What's going on? And so I, oh my goodness, Sandra, I

tried so many different approaches. I tried, I tried

diet and supplements and exercise and everything that

people tell you to do. I mean, I did it. I remember I went to

this depression clinic in California paid $5,000 because I

was I was desperate. I was feeling suicidal. That that's

how bad it was. And they do this hot cold plunge. So you climb in

the jacuzzi for 10 minutes, and you're you know you warm up, and

then you go and you do the the cold plunge with the ice cubes,

and it's supposed to shock your body and make you feel better.

And I mean, like when I say to people, I tried everything. I

mean, like I did try everything, and and it didn't work. And then

finally, it turned into autoimmune. I was having trouble

eating, trouble sleeping. Everything I ate was making me

super sick, to the point where I had to quit working. As I by

this time, I was like 28.

And so I even I even went to Mayo Clinic, and $25,000 of

testing, and the doctor, she walks out with the test results,

and she looks at me and she says, says everything looks

fine, you know. When you find out what you have, let me know.

And Sandra, in that moment, I just-I didn't know if to laugh

or cry because it's like I have gone to the best establishment

that I know to go to, and they have no answers for me. And so I

thought maybe this is, maybe I just-I don't know how much

longer I can do this. I'm only human. I can only deal with so

much pain. I'm gonna have a breaking point, but I kept

praying, and to to and to make this long story short, I found a

clinic in Dallas. Had so many symptoms by this point that I

called and I said, you know, can you treat all this? And I said,

oh yeah, I remember the lady on the phone. She was like she was

like this this older elderly woman, and I could hear her on

the other end. And she said, "She said, honey, she said we

treat people like you all the time. And I was like, "Okay. So

I climbed on a plane, headed for Dallas. They ran tests that none

of these other places had run over all the years that I've

been trying. They ran a heavy metal test. They ran a mold

test, and about a week or two later, this doctor at this

clinic, right of all the doctors, Doctor McCarter walks

in and she says, "She says, well, no wonder you're so sick.

You have heavy metal poisoning. You've got toxic levels of lead

and mercury. You know, they are fat soluble. They are

neurotoxic, which means that they are able to get into the

brain, and oftentimes that's where they like to stay. And

yeah, I talked to my doctor. I was like, "Can that explain the

depression? And they're like, "Yeah, absolutely. So, Sandra,

it's it's a crazy journey, but I think for every problem, there's

always a solution, and it's holding on to hope when you

can't see your way through, and believing that somewhere out

there there is a way forward. And I and I loved. I know that

in your episodes, you share your story of how you helped so many

people to find that hope, and and I think that's really

incredible because there are answers. We just we just have to

find them.

I'm shocked that the Mayo Clinic didn't know to do

heavy metal tests. Well, I'm glad you finally found someone.

And doing the treatment, I heard you say, "Hey, before doing the

treatment, depression's gone. That's amazing. Why do those

heavy metals, the mercury and the lead, why do those cause all

of these symptoms?

Oh, they are so toxic. Even now, I'm I'm at

the very, very, very end of my journey. I just take a little

pill, and it takes care of it. But when I get symptoms, I mean,

these are we're talking micro doses, but the symptoms are so

severe. I literally have to stop what I'm doing and go, "Wow, I

got to take, I got to take a pill. It's there. It's like it's

it's poison in your body, and worse when it gets into your

brain. And and what happens, and what no one tells you, is that

these metals accumulate over time. I said to my doctor, "How

long does it take for the body to get these out? Because I've

heard figures like, "Oh, it takes 40 years to get half of

what you got exposed to to get that out, and he said, "But in

our experience treating patients, once that metal goes

in, it doesn't go out; it just stays. And so our body is always

trying to protect us. It's it's it's here to save our life,

right? And so when it when it when that metal when you get

exposed, it goes into your body, and it's it's floating around in

your blood, and your your body's got to save your life, so it's

going to store it, and it likes to go to the fatty organs, but

the number one fatty organ is the brain, and so a lot of these

these these toxic metals, this lead, this mercury, that's where

it gets stored, and so it's it's up there causing inflammation.

Your body's trying to to get it out. It's attacking, and it

can't it can't pull it. And so it's like your body's in a

constant war. And what that does, Sandra, is that over time

it wears your immune system down, because it's it's like

this this battle that you can never win. And so your your your

immune system is creating inflammation, creating

inflammation, creating inflammation, but it never wins,

and so over time it gets weaker and weaker and weaker. And

that's why you see with people who are battling mental health,

you'll notice they also have physical symptoms. They start

having insomnia, trouble sleeping. They're fatigued all

the time. Oh, I wonder why. Maybe because their body's worn

out, you know. But nobody ever tells us this; they never tell

us. And so these these toxins are they're they're horrific,

you know. They're horrific, and they they we we just they should

not be they should not be there in our body and our brain.

Yeah. So what Elyssa is saying is so important.

Realizing that these substances are like it's a safety, it's a

survival mechanism that your body uses. This stuff is gonna

kill me in the bloodstream, so it gets it out of the

bloodstream as quickly as possible. But that puts it into

long term storage, which means you have to find a way to get it

out and then you know excreted, and so the process of actually

removing them is so long and so involved because of this, this,

this, you know, the the fine balance that you have to tread.

So it's like you have to take whatever is in circulation and

get rid of it, and then slowly, you know, the cells release some

more so that that can be released. But there's, you know,

there's that boundary. Too much symptoms. It's like, and so this

ongoing balance that you wind up having to to tread this path,

and you know, you said that you're towards the end of your

journey. I was like, thank goodness,

I

can't. Yeah, but yeah, there are a lot of people

out there who are experiencing heavy metal toxicity and have no

idea.

That's right. Yeah.

So if someone has, you know, unexplained symptoms,

and I mean, you know, with autoimmunity, because you said

you had some pretty extreme autoimmunity. It's infamous that

people go to 20 doctors before they get an accurate diagnosis,

and you know, all these places you go trying to find a solution

how to get well, and you just start to find the the doctor

that does the test that nobody else has done, that enables you

to finally start on the path of healing and recovery. So once

you realize that it was the the mercury and the lead, how long

was it for you to then start actually feeling better,

Sandra? I I was on a mission. I mean, once I

knew what it was, I was like, I was like, this is it. I I'm

getting this stuff out of me as fast as I can because it has

derailed my life for years. I mean, even as a child, I wasn't

fully functional, and it was shutting down my brain. I was

struggling in school. I was I was struggling with with the

assignments. I just couldn't keep up. Heavy metal, actually,

they've they've this is a study they've done that lead lowers

IQ, and I had lead and mercury. So anyway, I was I was on a

mission, and the good news is, you don't have to get all the

metal out to feel relief. I did about 12 treatments. I did one a

week for about 12 weeks, and by the end of it, oh my word,

Sandra! I felt like I could actually breathe. I looked at my

life before, and I was like, "How, how did I live with that

for so many years, I cannot believe that I was carrying like

this this 1000 pound weight on my shoulders, and I didn't know

it. It was it was unbelievable. So you don't have to get it all

out to start feeling relief. In fact, there are quite a few

people by the you know eight or ninth treatment they're feeling

better, and then they just they just they just feel better from

there. So it was just it was like this is it. This is what's

doing it this whole all this time, and I never knew. No one

told me. I know that a really common way that people get

their heavy metal exposure is from their mother,

you know, in utero. So the mother's body has stored all

these, you know, toxins and metals and things like that. And

unfortunately, the baby gets

it all. Yeah,

when the baby is in utero, and then you know,

there's whatever exposures you may have had in your

environment, after that food, you know exposures, paints, and

all these different things. Do you have an idea of where?

Because that's a lot for you to already be metal toxic when you

were young. Was it likely coming from your mother,

Sandra? I think I think that it probably

came from several places. I think there's a very good chance

I did get some from my mom when we tested her. She had three

times as much as me, my brother, and my dad.

Oh yeah, so you would have gotten a little from

her.

I would have gotten not just that. Here's

what's crazy: is she had trouble. With every single

pregnancy, they lost their first child, and then I was the next

one, and I I was a colicky baby. I was I was born crying, I was

born crying, and then for every pregnancy, she had to have

special assistance because her body wanted to kick the baby

out. When people are toxic, your body's not in a state of you

know let's let's let's have kids because it it says I'm not safe

and if it's not safe it's not focused on pregnancy so this is

just a layman's perspective but we wonder you know was that a

reason why but then from there it got worse because we found

out Later, talking to one of the scientists and doctors, that

okay, I'll tell I'll tell you how it happened. I was working

with a scientist trying to figure out what you know what

had happened, and she said, "When did your depression start?

And I said, "Well, it started when I was about nine years old.

She said, "Where were you? Where were you living? I said I was in

Spain in a town called San Lucar de Barrameda, and what year was

that? Oh, 1998. She types it into her computer. I'm sitting

there watching her, and she's right there behind her desk. And

then she hits enter, and she goes, "Oh, there it is! Massive

toxic spill, second worst land spill in Europe. And I just

looked at her like, "Are you, are you kidding me? Like, nah,

nah, because that that would be like a sci-fi movie. This is not

real. Like, this is not happening. She's like, yeah. She

turns the screen. She goes, there it is. I can't believe it.

And what's really sad is my brother went back to the same

town this March of 2026, and I was talking to some people that

we knew, they said, "Yeah, the area has become known as that

town, and and Seville and another town has become known as

the Triangle of Death because there is such a high cancer

rate. My my best friend from fourth grade lost her sister,

her 19 year old sister, to cancer. So, I think I think

that's probably where we all got it. Yeah, but but here's Sandra.

Here's what's here's what I I always I always worry that

people will hear that and they'll be like, well, there's

been no toxic spills in my area, so I'm sure I'm fine. Well,

here's what's crazy is when I found out that heavy metal was

causing my depression, I started calling up my friends because

just before I came to Dallas, I'm I'm getting ready to board

the airplane, and my friend calls me and he says, "Lisa, I

don't know how much longer I can keep going because he had

battled depression for like 35 years, and he's at the end of

his rope. He's tried everything just like I had, so as soon as I

saw that that it was heavy metal that I had, I called him. I was

like, "You got to come, and so he came and got tested. Sandra,

he had heavy metal. I was like, "This is crazy. This is like a

conspiracy theory. But I'm not even trying to. And so I started

calling other friends. I called a friend from San Diego, she had

defection for 28 years. Yeah, and she came. She got tested.

She had heavy metal, and then another friend from Maryland,

and then another friend from Michigan, and I was like, "This

is insane! Like, okay, so I guess we are a lot of us getting

exposed, and nobody is saying anything. We're not getting

tested for it, and so having that experience with with other

friends and family showed me that you don't have to have the

toxic pill to get toxic.

There are so there. I mean, I actually have some

like history of understanding of all this. There really are so

many ways that you can get it. So you probably got some from

your mother in maybe a substantial quantity, and then

that exposure in Spain certainly didn't help. But ongoing,

ongoing. So you know, a lot of people get you know amalgams

from their teeth, and which which

the amalgams are 50% mercury. Yes,

unbelievable. That they're putting poison. That's poison.

And I had to get mine out, by the way, before I could start

with the treatments. You get your amalgams out because if you

start doing treatment, you're trying to pull the metal. It's

going to pull it from the easiest place, which is going to

be the most accessible in your mouth. So you gotta get gotta

get those removed to be able to do the treatments. Yeah,

it's it's all, and there are so many people who

haven't.

Yes,

I would say it's more common than uncommon.

Yeah, yeah,

and that this is something that probably

contributes to a lot of people having, you know, mental issues,

clarity issues, health issues, health struggles.

Yeah,

and I mean, I'm going to say it's fortunate that

something happened. You blew your. Trigger and you got like

really sick, so that you like started really hunting and

finding out what was going on finally. But you know, a lot of

people are suffering

all the

time.

Yeah, and and Sandra, I people people don't

have to come to Dallas to get tested. There are a lot of

different treatment centers that offer the test, and when I was

looking for one of these clinics, I I came across one

website that said, yeah, in fact, we have 50% of our

patients that walk through the door end up testing positive for

heavy metal, and and and so I keep coming across this data,

and every time the the panorama in my mind is growing. Like this

is this is a big deal. People need to hear about this. This is

impacting people's lives. In my mom's case, she didn't want to

get tested at first because it was like, oh, you know, you're

you're worse and your dad's worse. Let's get you guys, you

know, first, and I'll come later. Until she got to a place

where she couldn't hold her coffee cup anymore, and my

grandfather died of Parkinson's. So it was like, oh, this is

getting serious. And then she came, and three times she had

three times what the rest of us had. Yeah. So crazy, crazy.

Everybody's got some, whether they're

symptomatic or not, because that's just life in the modern

world. Like you just can't completely get away from the

toxicity. Now let's let's switch our topic a little bit. Okay, so

here at Brain Health and Healing, we talk about brain

injuries and helping people recover from brain injuries, and

you gave me some information about that that I suspected was

probably the case. So why don't you share that with the

audience?

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I I'm um uh I'm a

survivor, and so I'm I'm not a doctor, but I am in touch with

doctors, and I asked my doctor about this question. And I said,

"What's your experience? They've been treating the sickest people

on the planet, the people that no one else could fix. I mean, I

have personally firsthand talked to patients who said I I arrived

unconscious, I had hours left to live, and they saved my life

because they had had some kind of a toxic exposure that nobody

had been able to diagnose them until they were on the store, so

they've seen the worst cases. And my doctor says when it comes

to brain injuries, people with brain injuries are especially

susceptible to toxins. And here's what he said: He said

those who have had brain injuries are more susceptible to

accumulation because the body focuses on resolving the injury,

and so when it does that, it then increases the circulation,

which then delivers more toxins that are already in the body.

So, people with brain injuries, their brain is especially

sensitive, and and and they they more than anybody would would

want to get tested.

Yeah. So thinking about you know one of the things

you said is that as the body pulls the metals out of

circulation because it has to do that because it's being poisoned

in the immediate, right? The body's solution is to put it

into the fat stores, into into the fatty organs, fatty tissues,

and the brain tons and tons and tons of fat and lots of energy

processing in the brain, so lots of circulation gets there. It's

not direct, but it does get there. And so, looking at the

brain as being an area that's very susceptible to it, and when

there's an active injury, you know, there's all kinds of other

things, you know, all sorts of other complications going on. So

recognizing that for people who have brain injuries, good time

to do the the test to see if there's metal toxicity issues

and to include metal treatment, metal metal, you know, there's

there's a variety of different ways that they use to remove the

metals. But

to

find a practitioner who is educated about working

with metals as part of your recovery process for healing

from brain injury, and looking at when the metals are present

and causing difficulties, it's going to just like impede the

progress of whatever healing it is that needs to occur. So it's

like Elyssa was talking about when you know she was at the

height of her you know her eye. Immune issues were just off the

charts. Immune system was going crazy because of all of the

metals, and so by helping your body to first identify and then

remove the metals, you're making it so much easier for your body

to do whatever other healing it needs.

Yeah, Sandra, that is so true. And and you and

I in our in our pre podcast conversation, we were talking

about that tipping point, and what can happen, and what what's

happened for for a lot of patients that I've met, and what

happened in my story too, is that your body is strong, and it

could handle those toxins for quite a while. I mean, it was

until I was almost 30 that that it was like I can't take this

anymore. So for a long time, your body's like hanging in

there, hanging in there, hanging in there, and then you get a

tipping point, and your tipping point could be some kind of you

know if you have some kind of a brain injury where before you

were okay, and then now you're not. And the toxins that your

body was tolerating, now it's not tolerating. And so, like you

said, Sandra, it's a great time to get tested for toxins if

you've had that sort of injury, because you want to make sure

that your body, your brain, is not having to deal with extra

inflammation on top of what you're already trying to heal.

Yes. Oh, thank you so much, Elyssa, for all the

wonderful things that you have shared. So I want you to imagine

that life and the world and your business are going as you want,

like the the vision that you have for the future. This is

like you are there and it's happening, and you know you're

out on the stage, and people are like appreciating you and

learning from you. What do you envision happening, and what are

you doing,

Sandra? I envision every single person

going to their doctor's office. They're getting their yearly

physical. They're checking their blood work. They're checking

their kidneys, making sure everything is up to date. And I

imagine and I envision the doctor saying, "And by the way,

we've added this these new tests. We're going to do this

every couple years. You know, we're going to test you for

heavy metal mycotoxins, which is the the poison from the mold and

chemicals, because we want to make sure that you're you're you

know clean inside and out. Sandra, that's my vision,

because I think that toxins are affecting so many people, and we

don't always have the ability to read those warning signs. And

so, right now, I'm trying to help people with depression

specifically. But if I started to tell you the stories of all

of the connections of how toxins are causing so many other

illnesses as well, the truth is that to be happy, healthy, and

safe, we really would do well to just why risk it? Go get your

annual toxin checkup and make sure that you're you're clean

and that you're all set. You'll save yourself years and years of

pain and struggle.

So here at Brain Health and Healing, we like

giving people practical tips that they can apply to their

life. So one is, oh, put that into your plan to get this

testing done, when next you are interacting with a doctor for

your, you know, maintenance care, and then if you have

intense symptoms, really good to put this into that evaluation

process. So it's like if during earlier in her process, Elyssa

had had a practitioner who said, "Oh, we need to test you for

heavy metals. Earlier in that journey, it would have been so

much easier. So it's like for you realizing, "Oh, this is

something I need to pay attention to, when you are in a

situation of having a condition, any condition that you are like,

what is this? Have that testing done.

And and Sandra, if I could, if I could

just add, sometimes it's it's just it makes me a little bit

sad because I had a friend, and she she has depression, and so

she went and got tested, and she came back and she said, "Well,

it's not heavy metal, and I said, "Oh, you got tested? She

said, "Yeah, and I said, "Well, what kind of test did you do?

She said, "I did a blood test. I just felt this sinking feeling

because in talking to the scientists and the doctors that

worked with environmental medicine, they will tell you

that the metal is not floating around in your blood. So,

whatever that blood test measures is whatever you got

exposed to in the last two weeks, but it will not tell you

what you picked up 1020, 30 years ago, and that

accumulation. Is the real problem. So when you're going to

run the test, just this is a practical tip. Just make sure

you run what's called a fabrication heavy metal test and

find a practitioner for that, because that will that will give

you the the picture, the accurate picture that you're

looking for to get those results. What do you what do you

think about hair tissue mineral analysis? If I recall correctly,

the scientist said that will show the last year of exposure.

So it can show a little bit. It's very easy. It costs like

$100. You just send in a you know little bit of your hair.

But if you're really sick and you want that full picture,

that's where that provocation test is is what's recommended

because it will absolutely pick up on anything and everything

that you might have, and and when you do a provocation test,

basically what they're doing is they're just giving you the

medication called chelation, and sometimes people are like, "Oh

my word, it's like chemo. I'm like, "No, no, it's not. It's

not chemo. What chelation does is it sticks to the metal

because again it's it's stuck in your organs so that that

medication just binds to the metal, pulls it out so that the

body can then get rid of it through the through the urine,

and that's how that's how you get it right out. So you do that

medication before taking the test, and then you measure for

six hours to see what comes out, and that can give you a very

accurate full picture. And like I said, it's like your first

treatment, so there you go, two and one.

Excellent! Ah, wonderful to get that

information. So, what is the last thing that you want to

share with the audience?

There is always hope. There is always a

way forward. There are answers out there. If you've gotten to

the end of your rope and you say, "I have tried everything,

nothing's worked, friends, there is always a way forward. Someone

out there, and hopefully, this information could could be the

information you've been looking for. There's always a way

forward, and I remember so many days I just wanted to. I just

wanted to give up. I was in so much pain, and I couldn't see my

way through. But I kept thinking,

I want to. I want to be here to make this world a

better place, and I'm not going to give up. I'm going to find a

way, and I did. So they're always answering. Yay! So,

audience contact information for Elyssa is in the show notes, and

she's also got a link to more information. So, if you want

more information, go to the show notes, and you can find that.

Thank you so much for being here, Elyssa, and for giving us

this amazing, important, important information. Thank you

for having me, Sandra. It's been such a pleasure and such a

privilege. And thank you for watching and listening,

audience. Moraine Health and Healing receiving adversity's

gifts, your brain heals itself every day of your life, and

imagine what's possible. Like if you are struggling, imagine what

more could be possible for you. Thank you. That was amazing.

Talking to Elyssa about heavy metals and the role of heavy

metals in really compromising anybody's health, whatever it is

you have going on, and so to understand the value of getting

that testing done, so that you can remove the metals, the

metals just like clogs up your wiring, keeps all sorts of

things from being able to work, and keeps you from being able to

be being able to be healthy and to be able to heal yourself, and

like she was saying, for people who have active brain injuries,

the likelihood of having heavy metal toxicity that is impeding

your progress, impeding your healing, is so great. So,

practical action to put into your plan, getting that testing

done, so that if there is an issue, you can have it taken

care of. Go to the Facebook group for brain health and

healing, and put in comments about what it is you liked, and

like the podcast, share the podcast so that more people get

to hear it. And if you want to talk with me, work with me. Then

can have a share your story call, and we can find time to

talk about what's possible for you. Imagine what's possible.

Your brain heals itself every day of your life.

Thanks.