The retest document from Analytical Research Labs (ARL) gives this instruction for a client who has forgotten the original complaints: “it is always wise to keep a written record of all symptoms and conditions at the beginning.” When that list is read back item by item at a later review, ARL reports, “often half are gone and forgotten.” I write my symptoms down for that reason. Over months, a person forgets the symptoms that disappear, and only the written list shows they were there.
Why the chart and the list are read together
A hair tissue mineral analysis reports minerals in mg%, and each reading averages 2 to 3 months of hair growth. I retest every 3 to 5 months. ARL’s retest documents describe four outcomes in which the chart and the person’s experience move in different directions:
- Feels better, test looks worse: toxic metals surfacing on the way out, or compensations the body no longer needs. ARL states that a higher toxic metal on a retest “usually means one is actively eliminating metals, not a worsening of toxicity.”
- No change in the test, feels better: a diet or lifestyle change that has not yet moved the chemistry, or a sample cut too far from the scalp to show recent change.
- Test looks better, feels worse: a retracing reaction, new life demands as energy rises, or a person who has forgotten the original complaints.
- Test looks better, feels the same: the new energy spent on more activity, so needing fewer naps becomes the evidence.
Two of the four outcomes depend on a symptom record made before the program began, and one depends on how the sample was cut. Trace Elements, Inc. (TEI) specifies about 250 mg of scalp hair, cut at the scalp, no more than 1.5 inches long, and analyzed unwashed, because washing removes over 90 percent of the sodium and potassium. In TEI’s 22-inch strand study, calcium read 27 mg% at the scalp and over 200 mg% at the far end, so a long sample reports years of past exposure instead of the current trend.
What the record should hold
ARL’s fatigue document gives a symptom list that works as a starting checklist: cold hands and feet, constipation, cravings for sweets or salt, difficulty concentrating, diminished perspiration, distaste for animal protein and fat, sensitivity to stress, intestinal gas and bloating, joint pains, low blood pressure, muscle weakness, poor digestion and proneness to infection. Each item written down with its date becomes a line that can be checked at the 3-to-5-month review.
ARL also tells practitioners to ask about activity, not only feeling. Its retest guidance detects the “test better, feels the same” case by asking about naps, activity and stamina, so those 3 belong in the record beside the symptoms.
The same document set makes a point about diet records. Americans eat 12 to 16 foods consistently, against 60 to 65 among the traditional populations ARL cites, and ARL notes that a person who writes down a week of meals will usually see the same foods repeated. A week of food written at the start is a baseline for that pattern too.
Old symptoms that come back
ARL divides retracing reactions into 3 categories: the reappearance of old symptoms, the aggravation of present symptoms, and the appearance of new ones. Joint pain that subsided years ago, pain at an old injury site, or an old infection reactivating briefly all fall in the first category. ARL calls the first two categories completion, the body handling a condition it lacked the energy to resolve earlier. Its worked example is a person whose intestinal flu symptoms all returned a month into a program, lasted a single day, and then cleared, leaving normal digestion.
A written history of past conditions lets a returning symptom be recognized as one that existed before, instead of read as a new problem caused by the program.
The three questions a reaction is checked against
ARL screens a reaction with 3 questions: whether the person is on a properly designed program with both diet and supplements, whether the lifestyle is healthy, and whether the person was feeling better just before the reaction. A yes to the third makes a retracing reaction more likely, because ARL states that energy is required for one to occur. A dated entry showing energy rising in the week before a reaction answers that third question from the record instead of from memory.
ARL’s reaction documents give the expected durations to compare against the record: copper reactions generally last a day or two, some last a month or more, and Lonsdale, quoted in the same material, puts the range at a few days to a few months, related to how chronic and severe the original problem was.
ARL also states that a hair analysis can help predict which toxic metals are being eliminated or will be, and therefore some of the symptoms that may appear. A written list of what was present at the start is what those predictions are checked against at each retest.
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This article is for educational purposes only.
