memory issues with mysql_query

hi there , i am having insane memory issues with mysql_query under php 4.3.1 , i am basically processing 100,000 rows from raw data of an access dump import into mysql and then basically wacking the data into shape , so slecting each row do the php processing of the data then insert into the real table , i am trying to do between 1000 - 5000 at a time as i am noticing that its keeping the query in memory even those i use mysql_free_result , how can i basically free the result from memory after each insert statement ? its basically buffering it into memory and caching it on disk it looks like i dont know , but the unbuffered query function will not work in this case as i am doing other selects inside the loop to get data from other tables to insert into the fields. let me know thanks