Yeah, some people's body's seem much more adept at dealing with and eliminating mercury than others. Glutathione is definitely one of keys to that. The way to increase it apparently is by taking things like selenium, milk thistle, undenatured whey powder (the best for increasing glutathione), alpha lipoic acid etc and a good diet which naturally aids everything.

And also depends on immune status, overall toxic load, and whether someone is dealing with another injury. All those things come into play. Too many things wrong at once and you won't get anywhere or you won't get far. I've unfortunately found that out the hard way.

Blicero, the alpha lipoic acid you took with amalgams was risky but evidentally you are ok. I would not worry much about it at all, main thing is to go ahead as you are and it seems you are coping fine. Plenty of people have done stuff they wished they hadn't and you wonder if it did damage or not. But the body can heal itself amazingly well with the right support, unless there are other problems that are there 24/7 preventing it from doing it's job properly.

I think ALA is a strong chelator yes, but it also aids the liver and helps glutathione production. But it's just too risky to use too early on in mercury toxicity as it can cross the blood brain barrier. Great for when your ready to remove organ/brain mercury but not so great if your blood/tissue levels of mercury are still too high which need to be reduced first by amalgam removal and then by waiting it out for the first few months so the body can reduce those levels naturally (or you can use something to reduce it more effectively and faster, like DMSA).