Hi LindaLou.
My logic behind "what feels worse helps most" is supported by that what has happened to myself, The worse I feel momentarily after a detox reaction the better I feel afterwards and some long-term progress has been made. I have bad days and good days, but I can notice that I still keep getting better and better, and my worse days keep getting less worse.
I have never made any long-term progress unless I get these bad reactions (or have bad days), they seem to be part of the healing process, and many others are also getting them. You might think these bad reactions are useless, and best to be avoided, but I think it is these reactions that are essential and actually the reason for making real progress in healing. Therefore I say "what feels worst helps most". Of course you want to keep down the suffering at a managable level, it's a question about what risks you are willing to take. Going slowly is safest, but your healing also takes longest then.

If you're doing well on DMSA, you may actually be doing what slows down your healing; DMSA slows down the immune system activity, and in that way you may feel well. This is what I have been trying to tell. As far as I know, there is no evidence that taking DMSA with ALA speeds up the recovery process, than going on ALA alone.

I haven't been taking DMSA, but I'd guess If I did that, I would also start feeling better. Would it do me any good? I'd say no, because my mercury load wasn't ever great, parasites have been my main problem. I guess I would have to do this experiment, but I dont have access easily to DMSA here.

Regarding the candida - it's really hard to know whether they are the problem or not. It depends on how good the immune system
is at dealing with them. The only thing you can do is to try the whole battery of supplements and see if you get any side-effects. Often, something bites, like ALA, and you know you have at least some problem then, perhaps candida or some other pathogens. If mercury is your problem, it is highly unlikely that pathogens wouldn't also be. But finding the right supplement was never a problem for me, even vit C bites, I got so sick after one week of taking 1 g of vit C per day.

Hard to be more specific, I'm just trying to do good guesswork, but still basing them on real experience, and more experimentation is definitely needed.