When ACC Doesn’t Work—5 Mistakes Parents Make That Sabotage Chelation

(Even When They Think They’re Doing It Right)

Have you ever wondered if ACC really works—or if the success stories are just cherry-picked?

You’re not alone. I talk to moms all the time who are afraid to start because they’ve heard the glowing testimonials… but they’ve also seen families say, “We chelated and nothing changed.”

And that’s terrifying. None of us want to put our kids through a process that won’t help, or worse, could make things harder.

Here’s the truth: ACC works. That’s why it’s still here 25+ years later. Not because anyone is running slick marketing campaigns, but because parents told other parents what was happening in their homes, and word of mouth kept it alive. That doesn’t happen unless it’s real.

But here’s the part most people miss: when parents don’t see results, it’s almost never because ACC “doesn’t work.” It’s because of the way it’s being done. Mistakes in expectations, missing supports, or layering unsafe protocols on top, these things derail the process, leaving families stuck and frustrated.

And the saddest part?

Most of those mistakes are preventable.

That’s why I’m writing this post. I want you to know the five biggest mistakes I see parents make with chelation and how to avoid them.

So you don’t waste years,

so you don’t give up too soon,

and so you can finally see the progress your child is capable of.

Because while your child doesn’t need “perfect,” they do need you to keep going, and to keep going in the right direction. 

Mistake #1: Treating ACC Like It’s Just About Chelators

When Jan and I were helping parents in yahoo then facebook groups, we wrote a short brochure to introduce the key aspects of low, frequent dosing with ALA and DMSA. It was never meant to be the whole protocol, just a quick overview.

But here’s the problem: that same 10-page file is now circulating in WhatsApp chats and Facebook groups, and parents are being told “this is the book.”

It isn’t.

That brochure only covers the “how to give the chelators” part. It doesn’t explain what Andy called “What To Do About Metal Poisoning” —the adrenal, liver, yeast, mineral, mitochondrial, and thyroid, gut, amino acid, enzyme, nootropic, and the list goes on—supplements and diet changes that supports the body to heal the damage caused by the metals.

And what happens when parents think they’ve got “the book” but only have that handout?

• Progress looks bumpy and inconsistent.
• Kids get stuck in side effects that could have been avoided.
• Parents conclude ACC “doesn’t work,” when in reality, they were never given the full protocol.

I’m sure the first person who uploaded that file thought they were helping. But the reality is, it’s a huge disservice. Families are being set up to fail, or worse, to do harm, all because they don’t know they’re missing crucial information.

A True Story:
I first realized this was happening when a mom I was consulting with kept asking me questions that I knew were clearly answered in the book. She insisted she had read the whole thing and the answers wern’t there. When I gently asked a few follow-up questions, she told me she’d only ever been given the 10-page file. She was upset, and heartbroken, to realize she hadn’t even had the book in her hands. She thought she was “doing ACC,” but in reality, she’d been running rounds without half the information she needed to keep her child moving forward.

Chelators move the metals. But everything else you do—adrenal supports, antifungals, minerals, diet, PANS/PANDAS supports, etc—helps your child heal. Andy knew this, which is why more than half of Amalgam Illness is dedicated to the supports beyond chelation. We did the same when we wrote Fight Autism and Win for kids.

Compassionate Call-Out:
If you’ve been running ACC off that 10-page handout, please don’t blame yourself. You were doing the best you could with what you were given. But know this: your child deserves the whole protocol, not just half of it. The difference between “this doesn’t work” and “we’re finally seeing progress” is often in those missing pieces.

Mistake #2: Having the Wrong Expectations About Progress

Every once in a while I see a parent post in the group: “We’ve been chelating for a year and haven’t seen any progress.” And my heart hurts for them, not because ACC doesn’t work, but because it means that parent wasn’t given the right guidance on what to expect, and when. It’s important for people to know what to expect and have a solid way to track and measure outcomes.

Here’s the truth: not all kids respond the same way.

• Kids whose primary metal is mercury often see the quick, jaw-dropping “WOW” moments, huge jumps in speech, new skills, or behaviors calming down. These gains can show up round after round, especially in the first 6–12 months. Things may slow during the stall/dump phase, but then progress picks up again for year two with slower cumulative gains after the first two years. (which is when you should be layering in next level protocols like antivirals, lymes, and other things)
• Kids whose primary issue is lead (like those showing high red bars on hair tests) usually take a slower, more cumulative path. Their progress is real, but it shows up gradually over time. You only see it clearly when you journal and look back month-to-month, not week-to-week.
• Kids with seizures or abnormal brainwave activity often don’t get the flashy early “language explosion.” They still improve, but their gains may be smaller, subtler, or require additional supports layered in to help them stabilize and move forward.

The mistake isn’t in how these kids respond. The mistake is when parents don’t know what to expect, so they either:

• Give up too soon, thinking “this isn’t working.”
• Or worse, they keep running rounds for 100+ cycles without seeing progress because no one ever told them how to adjust supports.

Compassionate Call-Out:
It breaks my heart when a parent comes to me after two years and says, “We’ve done 100 rounds and haven’t seen any improvement.” That doesn’t mean their child couldn’t improve. It means they were never given the right expectations, tracking tools, or guidance on how to make adjustments when things didn’t follow the “classic” pattern.

What to do instead:

• Know what kind of gains are likely for your child based on their primary metal burden and neurological profile.
• Journal, track, and review—progress is often obvious only in hindsight.
• If things don’t match up with expectations, don’t quit—adjust. The protocol has built-in ways to troubleshoot and customize supports so every child has the best chance at progress.

Mini Case Story:
I once worked with a family whose son had high lead showing on his hair test. By round 25, they were discouraged because they hadn’t seen any “Big Wows”. But when we looked back at their notes, it was clear he was sleeping better, calmer in transitions, and having fewer meltdowns. Over time, those slow cumulative gains stacked, and by year two, his learning took off he wasn’t sick all the time and his social skills were improving. The progress was there; they just needed help seeing it and sticking with it.

Mistake #3: Running “ACC Lite” — Chelators + Core 4 Only

Some parents are told all they need is “ACC Lite”—the Core 4 supplements plus chelators, maybe with an antifungal or adrenal support thrown in. And yes, that’s better than doing nothing. It can even bring some improvements.

But here’s the mistake: metals disrupt far more than Core 4 alone can support.

Mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, they don’t just “sit there.” They wreak havoc on every system:

• Mercury interferes with cytochrome P450 enzymes, slowing detox of chemicals.
• Lead slows information transfer in the brain, while mercury speeds it up, creating chaos in processing, speech, and behavior.
• Metals trigger oxidative stress and damage mitochondria, draining your child’s energy.
• They damage the myelin sheath, interfering with nerve signaling and learning.
• They disrupt enzyme production in the gut, making it harder to digest gluten and casein.
• They sit on thyroid receptor sites, blocking T3 and altering metabolism.

And that’s just the beginning. Metals affect immunity, inflammation, methylation, hormones, even whether a child is “never sick” or “always sick.”

Why the “Core 4 Only” Idea Exists

Yes, you can chelate with only the Core 4. But here’s the truth: that was never meant to be a viable, long-term option for most families.

That guidance was written for people who had no other choice, those who literally could not access or afford additional supports. In those situations, Core 4-only was better than doing nothing at all. It was the “worst-case scenario” approach, and frankly, it was always more appropriate for adults who had relatively normal development until metals poisoned them later in life.

But for our kids

whose development was disrupted early,

whose bodies are still growing, and

who need every system supported?

Core 4 only sets them up for a very rocky road. It’s basically a hope-and-prayer strategy, not a pathway to real recovery.

What It Really Takes

Chelators move the metals, but unless you address the processes metals disrupt, the negatives may mask the benefits. That’s why I always emphasize that ACC is not chelation in a bubble.

It takes a whole-body approach:

• B vitamins and trace minerals in a good quality multivitamin.
• Antioxidants to fight oxidative stress.
• Methylation and mitochondrial support to restore energy and focus.
• Immune and inflammation regulation to calm autoimmunity and bring kids out of “always sick” or “never sick” extremes.
• Gut support to restore digestion and nutrient absorption.

Compassionate Call-Out:
If you’ve been told “Core 4 + chelators is all you need,” I want you to know it’s not your fault if your child hasn’t made the progress you hoped for. You weren’t given the full picture. But now that you know metals touch every system, you can start building the supports that let your child’s body heal itself.

ACC is not a one-size-fits-all, “take two and call me in the morning” approach. Our kids are too complex for that. To see real progress you have to address the whole body, not just toss in a couple supplements with the chelators and hope for the best.

Mini Case Story:
I worked with a family who had been running Core 4 plus chelators for several months. They were about to give up, their child’s behavior was actually getting worse, sleep was broken, energy was down, and gut issues were flaring nonstop. But when they finally began adding the additional supports that observation suggested—mitochondrial support, L-carnitine, B6 and mag, trace minerals, antifungals, and adrenal support—everything changed. For the first time, they saw gains that stayed and stacked on each other. Looking back, they told me they were so glad they hadn’t quit, because they had been this close to walking away.

Mistake #4: Mixing ACC With Unsafe Protocols

A lot of parents come to ACC after trying other detox or biomedical approaches. And some are tempted to keep layering those things in “just in case.” But here’s the bottom line:

From an ACC perspective, many of those approaches are not just unhelpful, they’re unsafe.

That’s why you see such strong emotions around this topic. Families who’ve invested time, money, and hope into things like IV chelation, HBOT, cilantro, homoepathic detox or zeolites don’t want to hear that those methods may have caused harm. Practitioners selling these protocols push back too, because their reputation or income is tied up in them.

But the hard truth is: unsafe methods can set your child back. Sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.

Examples of “Not Safe” Approaches

Some of the most common include:

• IV chelators (too high, too infrequent, destabilizing and risky)
• MMS detoxes (oxidative, possibly harmful)
• Cilantro, zeolites, chlorella (redistribute metals instead of safely removing them)
• Glutathione creams or high-dose precursors (increase monthiols with can ping mentals causing redistribution and flares)
• EDTA supplements (combines with mercury to make hgEDTA a chemical more toxic to cells than mercury alone)
• Supplements containing ALA (when not dosed on schedule, can cause redistribution)
• Daily binders or “end of round” binders (absorb the antioxidants and other supports the body needs to actually handle toxins)
• HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) Mercury causes oxidative stress, especially in sensitive areas of the brain. When you add concentrated oxygen to that mix, it can amplify that stress. Some kids respond beautifully. Others suffer lasting damage. And here’s the terrifying part: you don’t know which one your child will be until it’s too late. In the presence of mercury it’s not a healing protocol, it’s Russian roulette with your child’s brain.
• ‘Gut protocols’ that sneak in “What Not To Do” ingredients into their multivitamins and other supplement suggestions.

The Repackaging Trap

Here’s the especially frustrating part: unsafe methods don’t always look unsafe at first glance.

I recently listened to a gut protocol that sounded promising, the science sounded great. The creators seemed sincere and they are parents of kids on the specxtrum. I even felt hopeful it might be something that could be combined with ACC. But when I dug into the details, it turned out to be the same old story: a test that funnels parents into buying supplements containing ALA (dosed unsafely) and glutathione promoted as “detox.”

And this isn’t a one-off. Over and over, I see the same pattern: lots of “new science talk” and “theory talk”, but when you strip away the branding, it’s the same unsafe methods, repackaged and resold.

That’s why we have to be vigilant. Not every protocol that sounds scientific is safe. And no amount of marketing changes the reality that these approaches can hurt kids.

Why This Matters

Unsafe protocols can:

• Cause regressions that leave parents feeling ACC “doesn’t work.”
• Create damage that slows recovery.
• In some cases, create issues that aren’t fully reversible.

Andy was blunt about this. When I once asked about a popular but unsafe protocol, he didn’t just say “do ACC instead.” He said:

“Stop paying practitioners who don’t know anything about medicine so you don’t hurt your child anymore.”

Read more about that story here.

He didn’t ask for blind trust. He challenged us to dig into the science, compare theories, and make informed decisions. That’s still the call today.

Where to See It For Yourself

If you want real parent experiences with what goes wrong when unsafe methods are used, check out:

• The What Not To Do page on Cutler Success Stories: cutlersuccessstories.weebly.com/what-not-to-do
  
• The Autism-Mercury Yahoo group archives at onibasu.com — decades of unfiltered parent reports, plus Andy’s own replies (including his debates with a couple of wellknown names about their unsafe protocols).

Compassionate Call-Out

If you’ve tried some of these other approaches, please don’t feel ashamed. Most parents have (I did), because when you’re desperate to help your child, you’ll try anything that’s promised to you. Stop spending time and money on what isn’t safe. Choose the path that protects your child and compounds progress instead of undoing it.

Mistake #5: Ignoring Current Exposures

You can follow the protocol perfectly, right doses, right intervals, right supports, and still feel like you’re spinning your wheels if your child is constantly being re-exposed to metals and toxins.

I’ve seen families chelate faithfully for months, but never see the results they hoped for. Not because ACC doesn’t work, but because they were still pouring toxins in while trying to pull them out.

Common Ongoing Exposure Sources Parents Miss

• Mold in the home or school environment. (In a senstivie child ongoing mold exposure can cover gains or even bring too many negatives. Their body is trying to deal with too much at one time)
• Lead-based paint or old toys (especially imported or secondhand).
• High-mercury fish like tuna, swordfish, and king mackerel.
• Flame-retardant clothing or bedding (which off-gas chemicals).
• Broken CFL bulbs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs contain mercury vapor).
• Medications containing mercury, aluminum, or other adjuvants/immune irritants.
• Pipes and plumbing, lead or copper pipes can leach metals into water.
• Water supply contamination, arsenic and other metals.
• Arsenic in rice, even organic varieties (source carefully, especially for kids who eat a lot of rice products).

Why This Matters

Detoxing while re-exposing is like trying to empty a bathtub with the faucet wide open. You work hard, but the level never goes down.

Identifying and eliminating exposures doesn’t just make chelation more effective, it protects the gains your child is making, and prevents new damage from piling on.

Compassionate Call-Out:
No one hands you a checklist of hidden exposures. Most parents only find out after months of frustration. Don’t blame yourself if you’ve missed some of these, they’re sneaky. But once you know, you can fix them, and suddenly your child’s progress starts to accelerate.

What To Do Instead

If you want ACC to work for your child, here’s the path forward:

• Get the full protocol. Don’t rely on brochures or piecemeal handouts. You need the whole roadmap, not half a map.
• Set the right expectations. Mercury kids may wow you early; lead or seizure kids may progress more slowly. Both are healing.
• Support the whole body. Chelators move metals, but supports repair the damage. Core 4 alone isn’t enough for most kids.
• Avoid unsafe add-ons. Don’t sabotage your progress with incompatible or harmful protocols, even if they come in shiny new packaging.
• Eliminate current exposures. Plug the leaks (water, toys, food, meds, environment) so the bathtub can finally drain.

Healing isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing the right things consistently, and in the right way.

The Bottom Line

The reason ACC has survived for 25+ years isn’t luck, it’s results. Not cherry-picked stories, not hype. Real parents sharing real progress, word of mouth keeping the protocol alive decade after decade.

If you’ve been frustrated, stuck, or scared to start, here’s what I want you to know:

• It’s not your fault if you were handed the wrong information.
• It’s not too late if you’ve protocol-hopped or gotten burned.
• And you don’t have to figure this out alone.

You can start fresh. You can do this safely. And you can finally see the progress you’ve been waiting for.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Still Feeling Stuck with Chelation?
If you’re piecing together ACC from Facebook posts, PDFs, and hearsay… you’re not alone. But there’s a better way.

Fight Autism and Win is the only book written for parents that teaches how to chelate safely, using Andy Cutler’s protocol. It’s the guide families rely on when they’re tired of guessing, and ready to protect their child while seeing real progress.

They tried to ban this book. Parents kept passing it on anyway.

—and finally chelate with confidence.