Pgm, just responding to your comments:
"Mercury is a potent immune system supressor, but your exposure must be continuous to it, so that it will make a difference. Otherwise your immune system is back in business once the exposure stops (provided you haven't gotten other parasites meanwhile that weakens your immune system). With mercury in amalgam fillings you cant stop the continuous exposure, until you remove them all, so there you go".

I don't agree. Many children who have had a one off vaccination have become seriously poisoned by mercury long term. It does not have to be a continuous exposure to cause long term serious effects. Andy works with autistic children around the world who are responding to chelation. Candida treatment helps them too, but chelating the mercury has been most helpful in many cases. This also goes for someone who has had a massive acute exposure in one go. Unfortunately the effects are not always short lived. It would be great if removing the source was the cure.

Even if one removes the amalgams, nobody knows how much mercury they have in them and how long it will take to remove. Mercury is not just a potent poison in itself, it is an accummulative poison building up in blood/tissues/organs/brain. It is not just about it's direct effect on the immune system, but the fact it can poison every area of the body and build up.

So if Shawn has had a one off dose, it does not mean it has not caused a long term problem. Just as a child can become poisoned by a Mother's amalgams in the womb. Mercury does not come out of the brain by itself enough and takes an entire lifetime just to remove a small amount.

ALA is the chelating agent that can cross over the blood brain barrier and chelate mercury from the brain as it can other organs, it is not just about candida. ALA can apparently feed and flare up yeast rather than act as any kind of antifungal. It is not an antifungal, it does not kill yeast. Indirectly it increases glutathione which may help, but many people have to increase their candida control treatement during it's use which indicates it can be problematic, rather than a help in treating yeast. But the fact it removes metals is the ultimate goal, which then allows the body to better handle yeast in the long run. I'd prefer short term flare ups of yeast to gain the long term benefits of less metals.

You say DMSA lowers immune response which accounts for improvements? DMSA is also a potent chelator of mercury and lead, again it is not just about "yeast" or immune response. Plenty of people have had increased detox symptoms from using DMSA, as I did. So far from creating any kind of placebo response, it is an effective chelator and symptoms correspond with that. I did sometimes gain control of some metal symptoms during DMSA chelation when it would grab enough mercury in an even manner to allow for that to occur, but often I had a slight increase in symptoms. No way was this the immune lowering response because everytime I took DMSA, I never knew what to expect. It was always a roller coaster ride, but certainly more tolerable than other chelating protocols i had used.

The proof is when over time you start to notice permanent improvements, even after stopping DMSA, which happens in plenty of cases, which again proves it is not about the lowered immune response giving temporary suppression of symptoms, but rather the chelating of metals allowing for healing to take place.

Even if DMSA does act on the immune system in this way, it still chelates metals which is the reason to use it and the reason why people gain ultimate benefits from it.