I've done a search here but you can imagine the number of results and disparate discussions so it proved tricky to find the specific answers to my questions.
I think I'm now feeling the effects of my last round of antibiotics. I thought I'd got away unscathed but over the last month I've developed various symptoms which aren't going away, specifically rashes/skin problems (not itchy but sore and inflamed, like nappy rash) and a very gurgly, windy stomach.
I'm going to have a go at an anti-candida strategy but I'm not able to go down the diet route at this moment due to extremely low energy. I have probiotics and HCl/pepsin (which has been great at helping the almost chronic heartburn I've suffered with the last few months). Should I be taking these together or separately or does it not matter?
I think I will take an anti-fungal as well. Can anyone help with dosage? Is it just the capsule you get for thrush? I believe Dr P recommends three weeks of treatment, but does that mean one capsule per week?
Thanks al for your help.
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puncturedbicycle
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I've found digestive enzymes (in addition to HCl/Pepsin) to be helpful. I take a couple every time I eat something. I take both of them just after eating.
I also used caprylic acid tablets for a few months - I think caprylic acid is a substance made from coconuts. It doesn't require prescription and is an anti-fungal of some kind. I thought it was effective.
And, strangely enough, I have actually found probiotics to be most helpful when I take them just before bed. I am hoping that what they do is push out/displace the unhealthy bacteria and fungi while I sleep. But that is possibly just me being fanciful.
Another thing you could try is kefir to introduce a wider range of healthy bacteria. A lot of people make their own, and you can use virtually any kind of milk - cow, sheep, goat, coconut, almond, rice, soy (not recommended for people with dodgy thyroids). There is even a kind of kefir grains you can buy which can be made just with water, but I don't understand how that works.
I believe that eating fermented vegetables is supposed to be good too although I haven't gone far in experimenting on this. The only one I have tried was sauerkraut, which I've decided is a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it - I was of the "hate it" group.
Thank you humanbean. I did read about the caprylic acid. I think it is meant to punch holes in the surface of the fungus? And I plan to pick up some plain live yogurt. They do a goat's yogurt which is great in savoury stuff in place of creme fraiche or mayonnaise but I find it a bit sour to eat on its own.
I will have to get my head around kefir. I keep hearing how marvellous it is but the idea is repulsive. Why, when I eat yogurt, does it put me off? I have no idea.
Hmm, right now I could murder a choucroute garnie but probably not every day.
"So if you put Lufenuron in your pet gorilla's food to treat its fungal infection and you mistakenly mix up the plates and you eat its meal instead, then you should be totally OK." Best quote ever.
Hi PB, you might like to skim through this thread. (You need to click on each response or scroll down to read) This shows the difficulty in treating this condition as Dr. Stoll points out, we are flooded with candida every day. Some try to treat it naturally with whole foods (which is more technical than one might think) and some feel pharmaceuticals are absolutely necessary. It's an interesting discussion. This BB was active for many years until the death of Dr. Stoll who was brilliant and a practicing physician for 35 years. Thankfully the archives are still available.
Many thanks Heloise, though I must admit I'm perplexed by the thread.
Sorry if this sounds dim but is he saying that if you cut out all processed carbs that it will help or is he saying that only antifungals will help? Or is it something like, you can try a diet but only if you cut out every last molecule of refined carbs you can do it but it takes time? (Not that I am considering this as an option. )
I didn't go over the whole thread so there are some different opinions. Dr. Stoll was a great proponent of meditation (the type where you relieve stored stress in the hypothalamus) and reach the relaxation response. This is too far out for some people but your digestion would heal and work better if it has a good blood supply which is one of the problems stress creates. Anyway, I digress, lol. Doc Stoll did believe in Nystatin because it only kills candida. The other ones can be troublesome as was mentioned with liver and kidney hardships. I don't know a whole lot about that. You need a prescription for nystatin but it will kill candida but do you know about the herxheimer reaction? Die off can be very debilitating.
So, you don't really need other antifungals if you are just working on candida. Refined carbs because it acts like sugar as it breaks down as you can tell would be counterproductive if you continue eating those. You could also continue with probiotics....primal defense....by Garden O Life would touted back then as some people actually went to the plant that Mr. Rubin used to manufacture his products.
Thanks for your reply Heloise, I really appreciate you taking me through this.
My chances of getting my doc to prescribe Nystatin are, I think, slim, but I wonder if they'd prescribe it for thrush if I said I didn't get on with Diflucan, hmm. Maybe just the once.
I must confess that I feel that a lot of candida discussion is, as you say, "too far out" for me but I can't deny that I have yet another symptom today (manky fungal navel, bleurgh, what will I not disclose on this forum?) as well as having had a succession of sinus issues ('infections' which never responded to antibiotics) and this awful 'nappy rash' which I've tried and failed to eradicate with Trimovate for about a month. So I need to attack it systemically and therefore must keep my mind open enough to take things in but not so open that my brains fall out.
Dr. Stoll was wonderful answering every one who posted a question with a personal reply. So many times they were discarded by the medical profession
(after they spent loads). He often put their mind at ease when doctors would scare them silly.
One of his basic concepts was a matter of bracing. He often told people with "so called sinus infections" that bracing was often the cause. Relief could be found by that form of meditation I was talking about. It's a way of discarding muscle tension. A little test right now is to check your shoulders. Can you lower them right now? If you can, you actually have been bracing. This type of meditation is actually becoming mainline. You can buy cd's which can help you produce the response. There was a segment on TV about it just the other day on a news show. ... not an alternative health show.
So many health concepts have been hidden from us because of massive propaganda from conventional medicine. It's an ugly truth that they prefer we remain unhealthy and dependent upon them. Of course when it comes to surgery or bad infections, we are but chronic illnesses are a different story.
Dr. Stoll's home page has a Glossary and some basic articles that everyone should read.
I would take your HCl/pepsin with protein meals, and your probiotics with meals containing soluble fibre. The HCl/pepsin is needed for protein digestion (pepsin is an enzyme to break down proteins). The soluble fiber is mostly food for colon bacteria, and gives the probiotics something to cling to as they make their way through your digestive tract to the colon. I don't think it's a good idea to take the HCl/pepsin at the same time as the probiotics, because the increased acid will probably kill off more of them and what's the point of that.
I hear interesting things about undyclenic acid for candida. When candida is starved, it turns into a fungal form, which shoots out "hyphae" or roots into your stomach lining as it goes in search of food - and that's the really damaging form of candida. Undyclenic acid apparently prevents the candida from turning into the hyphal form.
Also, garlic is a very effective natural antifungal. Not everyone can eat raw garlic, but I quite like it. You can always get it in capsule form, but for some reason I prefer the "food" approach whenever possible, even if it does make me smell garlicy. Bizarrely, I find it's almost as good as fluconazole.
If you do take fluconazole then it's one tablet every seven days. It lasts a good long time in the body - I think the half life is about three days, and might even be longer in someone who is hypo because of the slower metabolism. I don't know that there's much benefit taking more, except that you would be more likely to get side effects, which include impaired liver function and reduced adrenal and sex hormone production. Some people are more badly affected than others, depending on how robust they are in the first place.
Many thanks. I used to take garlic cloves when I felt a cold coming on - I would chop them up and swallow them like tablets - but I don't think I could do that now.
Last night I swabbed myself generously with yogurt and tea tree oil - everyone should try it once - and have had some relief. Will see how long that lasts.
Have also ordered some antifungal shampoo for the new foster dog (just in case even though vet assures me it is not translatable from canine to human form). Coincidentally (I guess?) dog has that lovely toasty popcorn smell which is a sure sign that he is also covered in creepy-crawlies.
My daughter gets it from time to time. She just takes one pill and it's gone. I think things like diet are good for helping stop recurrence but so long as you don't react badly to them the anti-fungals are brilliant. It might even clear up your athlete's foot too (if you have it).
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