As I do (almost) every week, I’ll first start off with the times for the previous round preparation, round 14:

And here are tonight’s numbers:

The increase of three-minutes for the supplements preparation can be attributed to the fact that I exhausted six different supplements mid-fill and had to open new bottles. An average of 30-seconds per bottle isn’t bad, considering the manufacturer makes them more than merely tamper proof. I swear, they use super glue on these things.

I am happy to shave six-minutes (~21%) off of my ALA / DMSA preparation time. The quick reference matrix is really paying off. While I would like to relish this small victory, I have to be realistic and realize that any further improvements for this specific dosage won’t come anywhere close to this. I would not be surprised if I am now over the hump and fighting against the law of diminishing returns.

Par for the course, first off are the times for round 13:

And here are tonight’s numbers:

Looks like I made positive strides for both preparation regimens. The biggest surprise was the two-minute (or 18%) improvement in the supplements preparation time. I figured that would’ve stayed at ~10-minutes, so a reduction of two is a pleasant surprise. The ALA / DMSA preparation time was something I expected to improve this round, seeing as I created a matrix to help improve my efficiency from last week. What I didn’t take into account was the need to modify a tool I use, so I believe that next week’s results should show additional improvement.

Round 13 has brought another change to my regimen, the introduction of Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA). With this change comes the need to once again pack my own capsules, since I need to start with 12.5mg of ALA per dose, yet the capsules come in 25mg. It’s been a while since I recorded my preparation times, so here are the times for round 9:

Since I no longer needed to split DMSA capsules the time dropped from 11-minutes to one. This, of course changed when I started splitting ALA capsules. Here are tonight’s numbers:

Yes, you read that correctly, it took me 41-minutes to pack my ALA/DMSA capsules. This is in large part to having to do math for each capsule weight, leading to an insane amount of time in between each two capsules being filled. I plan on creating a matrix (much like I have done for DMSA) to alleviate this slowdown and get it back (hopefully) to where I once was.

It’s time to prepare my supplements and DMSA for the week. Last week’s numbers:

With my titrating up to 25 mg per dose of DMSA, I no longer need to pack my own pills. Yay time savings for me! Tonight’s numbers:

Even with an increase of one-minute preparing supplements, I still come out nine-minutes ahead. That’s nine-minutes I can use typing up this post.

It’s Sunday night, so that can mean only one thing: time to prepare my supplements and DMSA for the week. Last week’s numbers:

Somehow I managed to knock another minute off of my supplements preparation time tonight:

If all goes well, week eight should be the last week where I take 18.75 mg of DMSA. Starting with week nine, I intend to titrate up to 25 mg. Not only is this the next increase in strength (nearly my half-way point for DMSA strengths), I also do not need to create my own DMSA capsules for the next few rounds.

Last week was a surprise, seeing as I came in with a whopping four-minute improvement. Last week’s numbers:

Not only was I unable to best last week’s time, but tonight’s exercise came in with an additional minute of work:

The extra minute shows up in supplements packing, which makes sense. I had to open three new bottle of supplements, which is more than I had to do last week (two, I believe).

At this point I am splitting hairs, but it’s something to make the process fun; a challenge I face each week while I patiently wait for the symptoms to start subsiding. Could I attribute it to OCD? Sure, but if that’s also linked to mercury poisoning then this exercise will hopefully fade away in the future, even while I am still chelating.

Last week, like the week before, I came in with a total preparation time of 24 minutes. I figured I plateaued and would not see any significant gains moving forward. Last week’s numbers:

Tonight’s preparation exercise came in dramatically lower; four-minutes to be exact:

I am not exactly sure what wiped nearly 17% of my preparation time off, but I am not complaining. It appears the majority of savings came from preparing DMSA, but I am surprised to see a minute shaved off when packing supplements. This week I introduced another supplement—a probiotic—into the mix. If anything, I figured I would lose time, not save it.

Continuing the competition, I timed my Sunday night ritual tonight to see how it compared to last week’s time; my personal best. Here are last week’s numbers:

And here are the new numbers from tonight’s exercise:

Amazingly enough, my overall time hasn’t budged a bit since last week. I did manage to save a minute when preparing my supplements, only to lose it when I created my DMSA capsules. I am surprised that it only took me a minute longer to create the DMSA capsules when compared to last week; after all this is my first time creating 18.75 mg capsules and I created 20 instead of 18.

Now comes the fun part: taking 18.75 mg doses this round in place of 25 mg. I’ll find out soon enough how I fair with the increase. If everything goes fine, you’ll hear about it Wednesday night at the earliest.

In the spirit of competition, I decided to time myself (again) preparing my supplements and DMSA for the week ahead. Here are last week’s numbers:

And here are the new numbers from tonight’s exercise:

It appears I have plateaued when filling my supplements pill planner, but managed to eek out another two-minutes when creating my DMSA capsules. That’s a reduction of 15%. Not too bad. I doubt I will see much more improvements moving forward, and wouldn’t be surprised if the time increases when I switch my dosing from every four-hours to every three-hours.

Last week I timed myself preparing my supplements and DMSA for the week and published my results. The following table is a quick refresher on the results from last week:

I believed that I could shave some time off if I created “a matrix of common weights, allowing me to simply glance at a chart rather than reach for the pencil.” That is exactly what I did and I have the results to share with you. What follows are my times from tonight’s exercise:

I managed to reduce my supplements preparation time by three-minutes, a reduction of 21%. I did nothing different last week, so I can only assume that repetition has shown its reward tonight.

I also shaved 13-minutes off when creating my DMSA capsules. That’s a 46% reduction in time utilized. By simply using a prepared matrix in place of realtime calculations I managed to almost cut preparation time in half. Even if repetition played a part (taking into account the 21% improvement from the supplements time), the matrix still delivered a seven-minute (or 23%) improvement to last week’s effort.

Not all news is good: I managed to lose a handful of vitamin E capsules in the process. Because vitamin E capsules seem to stick together when left alone for a while I decided to vigorously shake the bottle before opening it. It appears the flip top lid Puritan’s Pride uses is not that strong, leading to 15 gel capsules going airborne.