In Part I we discussed Candida (yeast) in patients causing all sorts of grief, and focused on two major causative factors – antibiotics and alcohol. In Part III we will take a look at a few home tests you can do for determining your candida status and I’ll show you some typical examples of candida cases we find in the clinic.
In Part IV I will also explore a suitable eating plan and a plan to get rid of these bugs to a normal level once and for all. The eating plan may seem tough, well it is and it has to be if you want to get on top of this problem. The bigger the problem the bigger the hammer I say, and if your dysbiosis or yeast infection (or symptoms caused by “bad bugs”) has been going on for some time then you need to take action, and sometimes this action may need to be quite drastic.
Candida albicans is an “opportunistic” yeast that normally inhabits the mouth, throat, intestines and genitourinary tract of most humans and is usually considered to be a normal part of the bowel flora (a bug that happily co-exists with us in our lower digestive tract). In a healthy person, Candida in a healthy individual is numbered in millions, and without candida albicans in our intestines we would be defenceless against many bad bacteria.
Candida is controlled by a properly functioning immune system and “friendly” bacteria. However, if the number of friendly bacteria is decreased or weakened (generally antibiotics, alcohol, poor diet or a stressful lifestyle as mentioned in Part I), then the immune system becomes weakened or other conditions for yeast proliferation will occur such as having a diet high in sugars, alcohol, refined carbs, and an improper pH in the digestive system (too high in acid, not enough alkaline foods).
Candida albicans is sinister and can shift from yeast to a fungal form which starts to invade the body. When chronic candidiasis is left unchecked the rapidly multiplying candida may change form and morph into the more sinister fungal state that spreads well beyond the digestive tract. In the yeast state, Candida is a non-invasive, sugar-fermenting organism, while in fungal state it is invasive and can produce very long root-like structures called rhizoids.
Rhizoids can penetrate mucosa or intestinal walls, leaving microscopic holes and allowing toxins, undigested food particles and bacteria and yeast to enter your bloodstream. This condition is known as Leaky Gut Syndrome (LGS) and that is an explanation for an increasing amount of those food and environmental allergies we see on a daily basis in the clinic.
LGS allows toxins to leave the digestive tract and feed right into the bloodstream. It is also interesting to note that once someone begins treatment to kill the excess candida growth, the initial reaction to treatment will often result with the patient actually feeling worse! This is due to the fact that the fungal form of candida does not want to die and it fights like heck to survive, and when it does die it releases toxins which can make you feel quite unwell. This won’t happen in all cases, but some patients I have treated (the really bad cases) have told me they felt “stoned”, spaced out, sick, nauseous and generally quite unwell for three to four days.
Before you start treatment for your candida, you should try and read up about the subject and fully understand what is involved. I recommend that you work with your naturopath and find one who is conversant with candida treatment; there are many excellent naturopaths around NZ who can help.
If you don’t know of a suitable practitioner just contact me and I can point you in the right direction no matter where you live in NZ.
Here are a few simple home tests for candida.
The Itch Test
Become much more acutely aware of your body for two days –
- Do you have an itchy scalp, itchy eyes, and itchy patches anywhere in or on your body?
- Do your ears need a good scratch on the inside?
- Do your feet or toes itch?
- Does your anus itch?
- Do your feet or hands itch?
Write down when you need to itch ANY part of your body and when. You will be amazed at how often you touch your body without even being aware, particularly if you have a candida problem and are itchy. You become so used to itching your body that you actually become totally unaware of its presence. Look for recurrent itching anywhere and record them for two days.
The Craving Test
Become more aware of what you eat, but particularly what you LIKE to eat, how often and when. Those with yeast and especially a fungal overgrowth may well crave sweet foods without even knowing it. Do you want something sweet routinely after your evening meal? Do you want something sweet between meals? We could be looking at breads (especially white and refined) biscuits (any – they all contain sugar). It never ceases to amaze me how many people I speak to love sweet stuff and yet say to me “but Eric, I don’t eat any sugar!” or I’ll hear: “I don’t have sugar in my coffee or tea” but then an hour later they have a muffin, a biscuit, a muesli bar or a fruit drink which all contain sugar! These folk may even have a glass of wine each night yet they “don’t have any added sugar in their diet”.
At the turn of the century (1900) the average person consumed less than one kilo of sugar in one year. And today the average person eats one and a half times their bodyweight in sugar. Is it any wonder we have bugs in our digestive systems when we are busily feeding these bugs up several times daily?
Try this trick — eat NO sweet foods for three days and see how you feel. I am not talking about fruits and vegetables, but do avoid citrus. Just keep away from these sugars or any foods or drinks containing them for three days: sugar and other quick-acting carbohydrates including sucrose, high-glucose corn syrup, fructose, maltose, lactose, glycogen, glucose, mannitol, sorbitol, and galactose. Also avoid honey, molasses, maple syrup, maple sugar, and date sugar.
Look at labels and packaging and STOP these foods for 72 hours. Did you crash, develop a headache; feel tired or funny in any way? Then you were too dependent on sugar and may have an addiction here. This test will make a real candida sufferer feel terrible, they may literally feel like “climbing the wall” to get to their sugar fix on the other side. The point I am making here is the stronger the craving and withdrawal the bigger the problem and the more need for self restraint with the offending food or drink. Try it, you may be quite surprised and know exactly what I mean. Three days is all you need – but you have to be very strict and just focus on fresh vegetables, meats, whole grains, nuts and seeds and water.
In Chinese medicine they say that a person either likes sweet or likes bitter foods — if you love sweet foods you are less inclined to like bitter and the other way around. Try eating more bitter foods such as endive, chicory, silverbeet, radicchio, cos lettuce (outer leaves), mustard greens, dandelion leaf, dandelion root coffee, grapefruit and olive oil. Swedish bitters or bitter herbal medicines like gymnema, gentian or any of the liver or gall bladders herbal medicines are also good to take for a few weeks. The more bitter foods you become to like the less sweet foods you will begin crave, that is my experience with patients in the clinic.
And do you know what? Bitter foods stimulate digestion, improve bowel flora and allow your liver and gallbladder to function optimally. You will excrete more waste and toxins, burn more fat and kill more bad bugs in your digestive system as well. Isn’t that sweet, pardon the pun.
The Spit Test
Here is a saliva test you can easily do at home. Some say it is not effective, but I have found it to be accurate for many with candida. Whilst I have found a small percentage of people with candida issues who test negative with test, most with chronic infestations of yeast in their system will come up positive with this saliva test, so give it a go.
First thing in the morning, before you put anything in your mouth, get a clear glass fill with water and work up a bit of saliva, then spit it into the glass of water. Check the water every 15 minutes or so for up to one hour. If you have a problem with yeast, you will see strings (like legs) travelling down into the water from the saliva floating on the top, or “cloudy” saliva will sink to the bottom of the glass, or cloudy specks will seem to be suspended in the water. If there are no strings and the saliva is still floating after at least one hour, you may well have no yeast problem.
But do make sure you eat NOTHING before you do the spit test or you will not get the results you are looking for.
The Smell Test
Check you tongue in the mirror. Is it always coated and your breath offensive? This could be a key sign of dysbiosis or bacterial overgrowth in the intestinal tract. Your breath should not smell “putrid” in the morning.
You may have gum disease, but if your teeth and gums are fine then you may well have a bacterial issue somewhere in your digestive system. I don’t generally always find those who have body odour to have a candida problem, they may well need a good detox. If you have lots of flatus, burping, bloating and digestive discomfort you are probably fermenting bugs in your gut and producing gas as a by-product and in this case a candida control program is well indicated.
Healthy people with great digestive systems and proper bowel flora generally have a clean pinkish tongue (look at you dog’s tongue), their breath is sweet smelling and they hardly fart and burp at all. Can you say the same about your health, and do you pay much attention to these things?
It is the subtle things that we tend to overlook with regards to our health, but these are the markers of how our health really is. If we nip small things in the bud NOW (poor digestion for example) we can save ourselves plenty of misery as we age. One of my favourite sayings is: “If I’d know I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of my health”.
