Yeast Infection

[danfitz]

I was wondering how many other PD sufferers have yeast infections. I have suffered from a chronic yeast infection which began a couple years before I was diagnosed with PD. I recently started to aggressively combat the yeast infection and noticed my PD symptoms diminished. Out of curiousity I googled yeast infections and PD and discovered there is recent research that links the two. In any event I was wondering if any others had yeast infections.

[beauxreflets]

What are you taking to combat the Yeast problem ?

[danfitz in reply to beauxreflets]

I am not taking anything orally. That is why I am excited. Although I am going to begin with an oral program today. I have been treating the yeast infection topically. This includes:

1. Soaking in water with bleach added.

2. Washing with tea tree oil/eucalyptus soap.

3. Wiping genital area with ethyl alcohol several times per day (no fun)😟

4. Applying coconut oil with oregano oil mixed in to genital area.

My PD symptoms improved dramatically and rapidly so I got curious and discovered the link between yeast infections and PD symptoms. I waited a couple days to see if the improvement was sustained. And it has been. So I am going to start with an anti fungal oral regime today.

It seems very odd to me that the topical treatment for the yeast infection has diminished my symptoms but it has so I am pursuing the oral treatment as well.

Best wishes.

[margie in reply to danfitz]

Not a good idea to soak in water with bleach.

Don't forget your muscles in that area could be tightening and creating a hot moist irritation. Cranberry pills help many. Should not place oil in and around vagina area- can hold in moisture and create a habitat for growth.Yogurt with live culture helps.

Bleach can harm your skin and dry it out., creating other problems

elsewhere.

Honestly,I would discuss this with your doctor about your frequent yeast infections.

I am not a doctor, I just care. I went through a time of frequent yeast infections and went to the doctors each time. It is a miserable time.

Please check with your doctor.

[yellowhumpy]

Yeast is a structural complex for the formation of biofilms of bacteria. Read "The Biocommunication of Fungi" if you can find it in a library. I am working on research related to gut bacteria and PD (my husband has PD). It is my hunch that chronic yeast has formed a biofilm of multiple pathogenic bacteria in the PD gut that are producing neurotoxins. One of the things my husband and his PD support group have discussed is the fact that they are all addicted to sugar. Sugar, of course, feeds yeast. I believe that your observations are important. I'm not sure where your treatment protocols came from but some herbal treatments are berberine and garlic. I recently heard from a Caribbean native that they but garlic cloves in the vagina to treat yeast. An odd it interesting comment since I did not bring up the subject.

I am very interested to find more with PD who suspect yeast involvement in their disease pathology.

[e-mail]

[danfitz in reply to yellowhumpy]

I eat a fair amount of sugar. I also eat a lot of grains and legumes as I am vegetarian. I don't drink much. I have started wrestling with how to change my diet and get sufficient protein without grains.

[answerseeker in reply to danfitz]

Try Quinoa and Kasha (Buckwheat) which are actually seeds but cook up like grains. Also healthy fat sources such as ground flax, chia and hemp hearts are good supplementary sources of protein along with moderate amounts of nuts. You can soak about 10 almonds, a few Pecans and 1 Brazil nut with a Tablespoon each of Chia, Hempseed and Ground Flax overnight in water and add some fruit in the morning for an alternative breaskfast. Adding 2-4 ounces of Unflavored Hemp Milk adds some additional taste.

[yellowhumpy in reply to danfitz]

I am not an expert on the grain issue but I think it may be more that the grains we have today are stripped of their husks and that non-digestible fiber and the fat stored just underneath it are what was healthy for our guts. Our grains are highly processed with "nutrients" added back but no fiber. Just my thoughts though.

[wifeofparky in reply to danfitz]

Do you eat tofu or Siggi yogurt? They are great sources of protein. You must stay hydrated so drink water. Add a slice of lemon or lime to it. Sugar is the main food source for yeast infections. Reducing sugar intake including other simple carbs will help. Taking acidophyllus tablets also helps combat yeast infections by aiding the normal flora in the gut to combat it.

[danfitz in reply to yellowhumpy]

Does a bowel cleaning regime remove the biofilm in the intestines?

[yellowhumpy in reply to danfitz]

I do not know but I would be careful about that sort of cleansing as it can remove all of the bacteria and a balanced healthy flora is critical to health. I'm not sure if anyone has studied the long term impact of this. I am reading a paper on biofilms. Will report back after I wade through it. It is quite dense reading.

[yellowhumpy]

Did you use antibiotics prior to your chronic yeast infections? This is another area I am exploring. I've had some help pulling data that show a higher correlation to chronic strep infections and PD. About 20% of those with PD have had 4 or more strep infections treated with betalactam antibiotics.

[danfitz in reply to yellowhumpy]

I have rarely used antibiotics. I don't recall the use of antibiotics within a few years of the onset of the chronic yeast infection.

[danfitz in reply to danfitz]

Years ago I had a nasty cryptosporidium infection for which I took heavy doses of antibiotics. But this predates any PD symptoms by several years.

[yellowhumpy in reply to danfitz]

Do you recall which antibiotic you took? In the case of the history of strep, these patients took the antibiotics many years before the diagnosis. It seems there is a possibility that the antibiotics result in antibiotic resistant strains of various bacteria, some pathogenic that over time slowly take over a crowd out the good bacteria. At least this is the theory I am working on.

[danfitz in reply to danfitz]

Sorry. I have no clue as to which antibiotic I took. BTW I am a bit over one week into a candidia diet and antifungal regime and my PD symptoms, while definitely still here, have diminished considerably. I am also taking enzymes and supplements to attack the biofilm that yeast builds up as well as ramping up the antifungals later this week.

[Hikoi in reply to yellowhumpy]

Interested that 20% people with PD have had strep infections and have used antibiotics, that would be difficult to measure I would have thought.

Yellow bumpy I guess you are familiar with the heliobacter pylori research. It is all a fascinating area and looks like some interesting leads in the work of the Finnish researcher.

Re sugar, many people report a desire for sweet food that they didn't have before PD I don't know why, but I think there is a thread on here discussing it.

What are betalactam antibiotics?

[yellowhumpy in reply to Hikoi]

I am familiar with the H pylori research. The microbiome (gut bacteria) are a critical piece of the puzzle of our health. I think the sugar craving comes from the yeast. Yeast is fed by sugar and thus generates cravings for more sugar. I have gotten some good feedback to the question. I would be interested also to know if there are family histories of other neurodegenerative diseases other than PD. For examples one of my partners works with ME/CFS and has found a number of the participants in her CFS study have siblings or parents with PD. Perhaps there is a connection in some way to system failure that evolves one way in one family member and a different way in someone else depending on other environmental factors and genetics. We are exploring this through some research projects we are putting together.

β-lactam antibiotics (beta-lactam antibiotics) are a broad class of antibiotics, consisting of all antibiotic agents that contain a β-lactam ring in their molecular structures. This includes penicillin derivatives (penams), cephalosporins (cephems), monobactams, and carbapenems.[1] Most β-lactam antibiotics work by inhibiting cell wall biosynthesis in the bacterial organism and are the most widely used group of antibiotics. Up until 2003, when measured by sales, more than half of all commercially available antibiotics in use were β-lactam compounds.[2]

Bacteria often develop resistance to β-lactam antibiotics by synthesizing a β-lactamase, an enzyme that attacks the β-lactam ring. To overcome this resistance, β-lactam antibiotics are often given with β-lactamase inhibitors such as clavulanic acid.

[Hikoi in reply to yellowhumpy]

Thanks for your reply yellowhumpy I have tried to find out more about what you are doing but your site doesn't have that info or am I missing something?

Im curious if your research is antibiotic use and causal connection to PD or infection as casual or something completely different!

[yellowhumpy in reply to Hikoi]

It is not on the website. The research entity is BioCollective Research and we are a very new non-profit. I am raising funds currently for this research and self funding the work I have been doing along with collaborating with Dr. Scheperjans and a couple of other researchers with existing data sets. I am also collaborating with 23andme the consumer genome company. My theory is complex but it starts with the antibiotics leaving behind the antibiotic resistant strains of pathogens which slowly over time crowd out the good bacteria. As this occurs other systems of the body start to experience the cascade of disease. But essentially the theory is primarily tied to the gut bacteria such as Enterobacter cloacae, clostridium botulinum, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella, streptococcus, staphylococcus forming a biofilm with yeast - chronic low grade infection in the gut causing permeability and high loads of LPS which raises cholesterol as lipids attempt to clear the body of LPS.

[Hikoi in reply to yellowhumpy]

Thanks for taking the time to reply so fully. I follow - mostly. So am I correct, your hypothesis starts in the gut (following Braak?) and a ab resistant strain of bacteria may be causal.? That's very simplistic as there is then the action of the bacteria on body systems is this kind of right? now naive question-

I wonder about the role of abs given that pwp didn't all take abs before diagnosis. Also PD was around before Abs. Are they critical to your theory?

[yellowhumpy in reply to Hikoi]

It's not that simplistic but the antibiotics are a key piece of the theory. It involves antibiotic resistance, possible impact on proteins, Histone remodeling from chronic low grade infection, LPS produced by gram beg species requiring more lipids to attempt to prevent overload/sepsis (high cholesterol), glucose metabolism, fungal infection/yeast. I am working on some large data sets that have some early indications to the strength of the theory.

[Hikoi in reply to yellowhumpy]

Oh dear just re read my comment, I didn't mean to imply your theory was simplistic, but my attempted explanation of it. I hope to hear more as time goes on.

[yellowhumpy in reply to Hikoi]

The antibiotics are critical to my theory but I don't believe it applies to al PwP. IT IT the chronic low grade infection producing LPS consistently that is critical. There could be a chronic infection without the previous antibiotics but I believe antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria are involved. Those could also be acquired in the gut by the food supply. There are a number of genes that I believe may be involved including LRBA which is involved in LPS trafficking. Early viral exposure and chromatin remodeling by HSV1 is also part of the theory. Dr David Knipe at Harvard has several papers on Chrimatin remodeling by the virus. I am over simplifying here.

[maeskinny]

I have found success with extra B vitamins esp with the addition of biotin. Increasing the use if yogurt in my daily diet is also helpful.

[answerseeker]

If you haven't read it already, I suggest Dr. Permutter's book 'Brain Maker.'

[yellowhumpy]

Thanks for the feedback. Changing diet is critical to success. Sugar must be eliminated entirely.

[danfitz in reply to yellowhumpy]

Update. I have completely gotten rid of the yeast infection following a dramatic diet change and a full course of antifungals. My next steps are to gradually return to an easier diet to sustain and to incorporate neurogenisis activity into my routines. My PD symptoms seem to be slightly improved but are still present.