Wellness Wednesday - Are you suffering from candida?

I briefly spoke about Candida in this post but I thought it was something worth doing a whole post about because I think there are so many people suffering from it and they aren't even aware of it. It's something I used to suffer with permanently when my IBS was particularly bad and, unless someone had told me about it, I would never have known. It's not like the flu where it only hangs around for a week or so and has very recognisable symptoms. You can have Candida for months and not even know. You'll feel "off" but it's so easy to explain away that that's what you do, and you just feel worse and worse over time.

Firstly, what is Candida? Candida is a fungus, which is a form of yeast, and you are meant to have a very small amount of it in your mouth and intestines. Its job is to aid digestion and nutrient absorption. It becomes a problem when you have too much of it. The good bacteria in your intestines are assigned with the task of keeping your candida levels in check but sometimes things go beyond their control and the repercussions are far from pleasant.

So, what causes Candida to suddenly start overproducing?

• A diet high in processed foods, refined carbohydrates and sugar (they all feed the yeast)
• Consuming a lot of alcohol 
• Taking oral contraceptives 
• Living a high-stress lifestyle
• Taking antibiotics
• Mercury fillings
• Constant exposure to chlorine and fluoride (that's why you should avoid tap water)
• Diabetics are susceptible

How would you know if you had Candida? Well, if you recognise any of these symptoms below and you are guilty of one or more of the causes above, you may very well have Candida:

• Skin and nail fungal infections (such as athlete’s foot or toenail fungus) 
• Feeling tired and worn out or suffering from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia
• Digestive issues such as bloating, constipation, or diarrhea
• Dandruff
• Oral candidiasis
• Autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Ulcerative colitis, Lupus, Psoriasis, Scleroderma or Multiple sclerosis
• Difficulty concentrating, poor memory, lack of focus, ADD, ADHD and brain fog
• Skin issues such as eczema, psoriasis, hives, and rashes
• Irritability, mood swings, anxiety, or depression
• Vaginal infections like thrush, urinary tract infections, rectal itching or vaginal itching
• Severe seasonal allergies or itchy ears
• Strong sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings

Some symptoms are more extreme and you may not be at that stage yet, but most of these are fairly common symptoms. The worse your Candida gets, the worse your symptoms will get. The problem with Candida is that, unless you treat it, it's not going to simply go away. People can have it for years without being aware until one of the symptoms becomes worse and they end up with an autoimmune disease. 

I've said it many times and I'll continue to say it. When you get sick, it's never an isolated incident. It's a small part of a much bigger picture. You can go to a doctor and get medicine or surgery, but ultimately, unless you get to the root of the problem, you are just going to get sick again eventually.

I'll give you an example: a few years back, I discovered that I had Endometriosis quite badly. Like Candida, so many women suffer from it and have no idea until, for some or other reason, they need to go for a checkup. There is actually strong a link between Candida and Endometriosis. A candida infection can interact with your hormones and that can stimulate endometriosis growth. (There's a really good reason to find out if you have Candida, and get rid of it!) The specialist told me I'd need an operation to get it all out. It involved a very unpleasant surgery that left me "woman-down" for 2 weeks.

When I went for my follow up appointment, I asked the doctor if it would come back and, if so, when. He very bluntly told me it would and probably in about a year! I was horrified. He never told me how I could avoid it, he just accepted that it WOULD come back. (I have said before that doctors are only interested in medicine and it's true. It doesn't enter their heads to consider telling a patient to try a lifestyle change. Their solution is always to cut it out or mask it.) Over the following few months I started doing serious research into diet and lifestyle and it dawned on me that I was really not doing myself any favours by eating the way I was eating. I thought I was healthy but most of my diet consisted of so-called "healthy", processed, low-fat foods. Processed foods always have hidden sugars and other nasties you don't want to be eating. I was giving MYSELF Endometriosis. Surely that meant I could cure it too?

Over a period of a few months, I started cleaning up my diet. Then I took it a step further and I started replacing all of my chemical beauty products with organic, natural products. Then I started replacing my household cleaning products with organic, natural products as well. If you've been following my blog, you know I've been chemical-free for over a year now. As a direct result of all that, I have remained endometriosis-free! I went for a check-up today, incidentally, and I am in perfect health:)

So, as I said 4 paragraphs up, if you don't treat an illness holistically, and get to the root of it, it will never really go away. You'll mask it, or give yourself a year's grace, but you'll get sick again, unless you get to the heart of it.

So, if it's not obvious yet what it is you need to do to cure your Candida, I'll spell it for you: F-O-O-D. Change the food you eat, and you can fix yourself. You don't need a doctor. You just need a bit of willpower and a bit of knowledge about the foods you should and shouldn't be eating. 

If you google the candida diet, you will find several links giving you a breakdown on what you should and shouldn't eat to cure Candida. I followed it for a while a few years back and I did get better, but guess what? It came back. It fixes the immediate problem, but it doesn't get to the root of the problem.

On the Candida diet, you'll feel better almost immediately, because the diet cuts out ALL sugar which feeds Candida, even raw honey. Fresh fruit, however, is allowed. Candida can trigger an allergy to molds and other types of fungi, so fermented foods including cheese and dairy are also eliminated along with any breads and other foods containing yeast. Other foods excluded from the Candida Diet include vinegar, mushrooms, tea, coffee, dried fruit and any form of fruit juices.

But the Candida diet has 2 fatal flaws:

• It allows foods like potato and other starchy vegetables. 
• It allows grain based foods.

Why are these foods going to give you Candida? Well, because they are made up predominantly of sugar! In fact, they contain DOUBLE sugars (disaccharides) Not only are you still feeding the Candida but, an inflamed, unbalanced intestine full of Candida is not able to digest double sugar molecules completely because the lack of good bacteria. So, while you may heal slightly, as long as you keep eating grains and starches, your Candida will never go away.

So, here is what you need to avoid for a while in order to get rid of your Candida: 

• All grains and any food that contains them. This includes wheat, rye, rice, corn, oats, amaranth, kamut, spelt, barley, buckwheat, millet, teff, triticale, bulgar, tapioca, quinoa and any others I might have left out. 
• Starchy vegetables like white and sweet potatoes, parsnip, arrowroot and taro, starchy beans and peas must also be avoided which includes pretty much all of them with the exception of green peas. 
• All sugars including the lactose in milk and cream. Honey and very ripe fruit are the only sweets allowed. 
• ALL processed foods

You CAN eat just about anything that is real food and isn't listed above. You can also eat things like fermented dairy (yogurt and kefir) as well as butter and ghee. For a very comprehensive list, click here.

It sounds like a nightmare, I know. If you can't eat grains and starches, won't you starve?! Well, no, because there are plenty of other things to fill you up. Vegetables are really filling. So is fat, and you CAN eat that. We have been brought up to believe that a meal without starch isn't a "proper" meal. It's not true at all. But mentally, we can't get our heads around it. I was chatting to a personal trainer a few months back who was trying to lose weight. He said he was absolutely starving because he'd cut out carbs completely. I said, "You're crazy, you  need vegetables!" He looked at me like I was nuts and said, of course he was eating vegetables, he just wasn't eating CARBS... Um, vegetables ARE carbs?! In his mind, carbs were starches and grains and he'd convinced himself that he was starving when really, all he had to do was double the amount of vegetables on his plate and add some nice, healthy fat, and he'd be so full he'd be bursting!

If you simply follow a real food diet for a few months, and make sure you stick to the above points, you WILL cure your Candida and you will feel so much better for it, it will make any sacrifices worth it. When you start reintroducing foods, your body will be strong enough to digest them because you will have given it the tools it needs and your Candida won't come back.