Jorge, interesting on the Cimetidine. Have you tried it with any success? If its an anti-acid did you take it in between meals?
Sounds like its worth a try. That would be nice if it could reduce histamine levels. The main battle is trying to rebalance/restore the beneficial flora that has been lost / minimizing candida population. Finishing the battle is to reactivate/increase the immune response.
It would be nice if this could be an immunomodulator. This would help an overactive immune response and maybe decrease some of our sensitivites.
Most people have developed chronic "fungal" candida due to antibiotics/antibacterials first and then the immune response becomes impaired because of the "fungal" candida crowding out our beneficial flora and overwhelming our immune system. If the candida population outnumbers our white blood cells 10:1 it doesn't really matter how efficient our immune response is...its a losing battle. Its like trying to train an army of 10,000 soldiers to go against 100, 000 soldiers. Not to mention how strong the cell wall of fungal candida can be against our white blood cells. Remember the slides of the the white blood cells trying to engulf candida and the candida bounces right out or turns fungal and its roots pierce the white blood cell. The chitin cell wall of fungal candida makes it extremely difficult for our immune system. Fungal candida is very well armored because it is suited for decomposition.
I agree that eventually the immune response has to be restored, but for some that have a gut that has been overtaken by fungal candida it takes more than just detoxing of heavy metals and increasing immune response to win the battle. Restoring immune function is usually the last step in most candida programs. But anything that will help cut down on an hypersensitive or overactive immune function is well worth exploring.
I think there can be different levels of chronic candida depending on how much of the beneficial flora has been wiped out and how much of the fungal candida has overtaken the gut. What I'm finding out about a lot of medical literature is you have to ask yourself is this a long term study or a short term study that they are doing when they are experimenting with Candida. Some of these very short term medical literatures on candida do not indicate candida's ability to adapt or resist to certain substances. Good medical literature will provide a long term study done on the experiments. For example, one study might show an antifungal to be very effective for one week, but another study shows the same substance to be ineffective after one week. So it might be necessary to rotate certain anti-fungals. Fungal Candida's resilience and ability to adapt can be overwhelming. That's why for some of us it doesn't matter what we eat or what we take it seems to be incurable. The more the candida has turned fungal and dominated the GI tract the more this battle becomes a nightmare.