I am pretty sure I have candida overgrowth. I’m pretty sure my kids and husband have it, too. In fact, I think it is very possible that the majority of human beings these days probably have an overgrowth of candida. If you’ve ever had antibiotics, ingested sugar and had a mildly suppressed immune system, you’ve probably got it.
I would even go as far as to say that candida is possibly the biggest health threat to human health that there is. Big call, I know. But the more I read about this thing the more I believe that it is an incredibly dangerous thing. I also believe that many diseases that plague us today are merely symptoms or perhaps the end result of an overburdened, toxic body and a damaged gut.
But I digress…here are some of the delightful symptoms I have that lead me to believe that yeast is undoubtedly my beast:
Bleeding gums, receding on some teeth
Irritability (but only at home, not at work…what is up with that?)
Aching legs since childhood (not bones, just muscles)
Headaches (last few weeks have become more frequent)
Painful periods
Carb cravings
Anxiety
Bleeding gums when cleaning teeth
Tinea corporis/fungal rash on foot/ankle which nothing gets rid of after 7 years
Severe hangovers from not a lot of alcohol
Dandruff (could be from hair-washing daily, who knows?)
Vertical ridges on nails
Tongue – crack up middle and weird lines on sides
Tinnitus that I’ve had forever
Mild anaemia
Low body temp (get cold easily)
Lately - low blood sugar/hypoglycemia
Failed the "spit test" abysmally - had legs that literally went on forever
Now, most of these things could be caused by a number of different ailments. But, logically, when you put them all together, the picture is looking very….yeasty…yes? I don’t, however, have the debilitating, god-awful symptoms that many candida sufferers claim to have. I’m not constantly tired, I rarely get sick and if I do, it’s short-lived, I don’t get yeast infections (you know, “those” ones), and I don’t have brain fog. Mind you, maybe I’ve had brain fog my whole life and I just don’t know any better? It does occur to me quite regularly that I might not have candida, and I’m doing all this for nothing, but common sense would tell me that the way I treated my body in my 20s and the symptoms I have now, are candida related.
So I’ve been courting the whole candida diet for about 9 months now. I became a member of Bee Wilder’s “Candida Support” group back in November last year and threw myself into the diet wholeheartedly. Giving up just about everything you’re used to eating, right around Christmas/New Year time is not fun, let me tell you. Suffice to say by February, stuff started creeping back in. And I was still having wine on the weekends. Stupid, I know. Bee’s diet is incredibly strict; you pretty much need to live on low carb vegetables and meat (all organic, of course) and nothing else. As terrible as it sounds, I’d almost prefer a dastardly disease than to live like that for the next 41 months. Bee’s rationale/opinion/whatever you want to call it is that you need one month of healing for every year you’ve had candida, and that is, for most people, since birth. How ridiculously depressing. Some of her ideas are, however, in my opinion at least, completely ludicrous, and makes me question ALL of her information, because of the ideas she has about some things. For instance, she believes you cannot “catch” a virus and that all symptoms of illness are just your body “detoxifying” or healing. There is much contention on her group about this subject with many of even her most die-hard followers questioning how, for instance, if one family member becomes sick with a virus (that she doesn't believe exists), the whole household often becomes sick. Bee’s response is that because most households are eating the same foods, their symptoms of illness are just everyone “detoxing” at the same time. Is it just me, or does that not sound like the biggest load of crap you've ever heard? She goes on to say that the theory that sexually transmitted disease can be spread from person to person is “totally false”, as she puts it. Telling vulnerable, foggy headed, sick people who are desperate for answers, that they’re safe to screw around at least (because they sure as hell can’t eat anything), that you “can’t catch” sexually transmittable diseases is really quite irresponsible, verging on psychotic.
Anyway, fast forward to mid 2010. I’ve started to have hypoglycaemia symptoms, feeling weak and lethargic before meals (and after sometimes), which really, really scares me. There is evidence that diabetes is caused by candida so these new symptoms were a big wake up call. So. Mid June I made the momentous decision to quit my beloved wine until Christmas, or as long as it takes to beat this thing. Cold turkey. Not a drop. I love my wine and this has been hard. But I know while I’m drinking something that is pure glucose and also has yeast as its founding ingredient, is only going to guarantee that I am never free of candida.
So while I am not following the aforementioned candida diet quite as strictly as I probably should, I’ve given up wine, dairy, wheat, sugar, anything with yeast, anything fermented, fruit, high-carb vegetables and am only eating organic meat. I figure if I’m so staunchly against antibiotics, I probably shouldn’t be ingesting them everyday in my food. Organic meat is extortionately expensive here in Australia, but I feel I have no choice. Perhaps if I were "sicker" I'd whittle my diet down a bit more, but how on earth do you do that with two kids and a husband?
I guess this blog is to document my and my family’s “journey” (I hate that word, it’s just so “Oprah” but there’s unfortunately no better way to describe this process) on the candida diet.
I know I can beat this, if it is candida that I’m dealing with. I am nothing if not tenacious and the prospect of, at best, being diagnosed with a nasty autoimmune disease, or, at worst, cancer, inspires me to stick with this until I figure it out. But, god, it’s hard.
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