Candida is no fun. Many adults and children have been in a chronic state with candida for quite some time, but because of their youth, their pH has fought to stay alkaline and sustained them. But when a person’s pH starts to shift from alkaline (where it should be) to acid (where it shouldn’t be), a person will shift from a chronic state to an acute state and then recovery will become quite complex. Some of the symptoms of candida are extreme fatigue and brain fog after you’ve eaten (especially if you’ve eaten some of the kinds of foods that especially feed candida, as we’ll note below).
I have found medical doctors to be of little or no help in diagnosing and treating this condition. For one thing, it seems that the great majority of them don’t know about this condition, or don’t believe in it, and/or, two, they have no way to alleviate it. They will not talk to you about diet. Instead, they will send you home with a prescription, and later, when it gets quite bad, they will start cutting things out of you. So if you or your child has this condition, attack you must – relentlessly and consistently, all by yourself. (You can find ample advice on the Web about natural approaches to fighting candida.) You’ll have to face it head on, on a number of different levels.
- The psychological. Right now, you’re not just you. You are you, and you are host to another entire microscopic kingdom. Colonies of destructive microorganisms are multiplying inside of you that demand to be fed and will be fed—even if you are not fed. The candida rudely jump to your table first. They even tell you what kinds of food they demand (i.e., most simple sugars), which creates very toxic, strong addictions inside you. This is why your resolves keep breaking down. There is a fierce addict inside of you. This is what they want—and this is what you shan’t give them! You’re in a war, and you’ve got to starve off the enemy – cut off his supply lines. They want simple carbohydrates – which all turn into sugars. These may be found in (or are exacerbated by the presence of ) the following categories of items in the Standard American Diet:
White flour (including crackers, bagels, spaghetti, pizza, etc.).
White sugar (it takes many forms, frequently as corn syrup and is found in many processed foods).
White table salt (turns your system acid and they thrive in acid—to say nothing of salt turning your arteries brittle and forming into rocks in your organs) (use Celtic salt instead).
Caffeine – inflames the mucosal lining of the entire digestive tract.
Dead, processed, boxed, canned foods. These make your system work with no pay – which puts you into a state of malnutrition – extremely taxing on your limited energy.
The flesh of scavengers. Click here for a one-page fact sheet on the problems of eating pig and pork.
And finally, avoid all potato chips, corn chips, rice chips (even from the health food store). Consider all of these to be lethal at this point in your battle. Most are made with vegetable oils, which turn carcinogenic under high heat. Instead, eat whole grain corn, and whole raw sweet potato slices or jicama for your chips (but do not eat even these if you taste any mold on them).
Bottom line: you’ve got to say with your mind and spirit, “I’m the boss, I’m in the driver’s seat, and I’m not going to fuel your party!”
- The physical. You want to feed your body real nutrition. For more help on getting off of the SAD Standard American Diet, order our QuickBook on Turbo-Charged Nutrition for Peak Performance Kids. You might want to take barley green powder 3x a day – mark it off on a little chart – otherwise you’ll take it once and think you took it 3. You’ve got to feed on complex carbohydrates. “Pig-out” on bags of frozen broccoli, bags of frozen green peas, string beans, and cauliflower (you can make them into soup), baby spinach, brown rice, celery, avocados, chard, kale, parsley, spirulina tablets, nori, lentils and mung beans that you’ve soaked overnight to add to your diet daily, and grass-fed, clean organic meat (if you’re a meat eater). Regular meats and all dairy products (unless they’re organic) are apt to be charged with antibiotics–which exasperates the problem. It is undoing all the work you’re trying to accomplish, because it continually kills the good guys and feeds the bad guys. Wrong scenario. Antibiotic usage is one of the major reasons you got into this fix. The only difference is that now they are floating in white liquid instead of clear capsules. Oral contraceptives do the same mischief.
- Your culminating attack. Bring in the big artillery. By diet alone, you cannot kill it off fast enough. Diet will keep you from multiplying more of the stuff, give you the enzymatic fuel to keep up the fight on some level, and sustain you afterwards, but it can’t finish the job off. Your own few good guys, on the ground, in the bush, can’t keep up. They need several big bombs dropped from the air, to obliterate the stuff.
Enter acidophilus! Tadah!!! Acidophilus, which is available at any health food store, will make it loud and clear that the game is over. We’re under new management. We’re shoveling out the junkyard and bringing in new dirt. Loaded with 1,000’s of beneficial bacteria which we need them by the truckload. Eating cultured veggies and kimchee will do the same thing.
Begin with one 3x a day on an empty stomach. Take the first one right when you wake up in the morning. Roll over and take one, so that you don’t have to wait to have real food when you do get up! Then in a few days up it to two 3x a day – sustain for a week – then up it as far as you can tolerate it. Some have taken 15 a day, and in six weeks noticed outstanding improvement, if not total remission. Also take enzymes. (I can’t tell you what to do, dosage wise, and I take no responsibility for it; I’m just telling you what has worked for others in this condition.)
If I had known about this years ago, I would have felt that heaven had arrived!!! Wow! A way out! I’ll do whatever it takes, and I’ll start today. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’ll be way cheaper than your hubby having to hire a nanny and a maid later when you can no longer function. The primary thing diet wise, remember, is to get off all sugar…start eating tons of real veggies, and drink salads…i.e. grind them up, add water and just get them down your suffering digestive track.
If you’ll massively hit it now, you won’t have to sustain these costs very long. If you don’t, sometime in the near future, it’ll break out like a brush fire, and you’re apt to go downhill fast – then it’ll cost you a fortune. Digestive disorders are epidemic in the U.S., and Crohns Disease and colon cancer are a royal nightmare. Scores of people are hitting the skids with these diseases. This is hard-ball. Onward and upward.
Note: This is not medical advice, and cannot be construed as such. This is merely sharing my personal experience.