Your Candida Experiences
Suffered for as long as I can remember
“I believe I have had Candida since I was little. I always has bad digestion even as a kid. I was always told I had bad breath even though I brushed my teeth and had regular dentist visits. I had eczema since I was young and constantly had post nasal drip and bronchitis several times a year. When I was in my twenties, I missed periods. I knew I was too young for pre-menopause and the doctors could not find anything wrong. I suffered from anxiety attacks in my teens and was told it was “in my head”. I had cradle cap when I was in my teens. I had chronic ear infections. I had tried the diet on and off for many years, never really sticking to it for very long. Last year I had a sinus infection and was given a heavy dose of antibiotics. It just about killed me. My sinus were worse, I developed ringing in my ears, my hair started to fall out again (third time in 10 years) and I developed food allergies. After discovering this web site and diet, I am giving it a try. I bought coconut oil and grapefruit seed extract. I am not working much, so I don’t have a lot of money to spend on supplements. I cannot take vitamin pills since my body does not absorb them very well. Any recommendation for a sub-lingual vitamin?”
Shared by Jean
My mystery illness!
“Since I can remember I have not had the best of health! I Had lots of antibiotics as a child due to ear, nose and throat infections and at 9 I had a tonsillectomy. When I was 14 I also had a diagnosis of shingles probably due to stress as I was being bullied at the time. Following shingles I began to feel week, joint pains and I was very pale. After months of feeling drained I eventually had a diagnosis of M.E. I managed to carry on with life the best I could but have never felt “well”.
In 1998 I gave birth to my son, I had a normal pregnancy but following the birth I had all the symptoms of an overactive thyroid although blood tests were normal. Again in 2004 after the birth of my daughter I had those symptoms again and this time it was confirmed that my thyroid was indeed overactive. To cut a long story short I was put on medication and told I had possible Graves disease and that I would be on medication for the rest of my life .I reacted to the medication and I swung from over active to under active in the space of a week. After taking the suggested medication and feeling a whole lot worse I decided to stop all meds and see where my body was at. This was the best thing I could have done as I haven’t had a problem with my thyroid since!
Then when my daughter was 15 months old she accidently threw her head back and hit me very hard with the back of her head on the bridge of my nose. I forgot about the incident although at a later date she did this again! A few days later I developed a nagging pain in my gums which over time turned to burning. Obviously I went to the dentist and he said my gums looked inflamed and put me on antibiotics. A week later I was still in pain and so the dose was increased. This did not work so my GP changed the antibiotic and I was given this for 2 weeks. Things didn’t improve. I was sent to ENT as I began to experience burning pain in my sinuses tongue and gums, fluid showed in a scan but apparently not enough to be causing me all the pain I was in.
I was also dizzy at this point and had no sense of balance. I was sent to see a neurologist who again couldn’t work out why I was in pain. In total I had 7 sinus operations and during my last surgery my consultant had wondered if I had a fungal infection as I had thick black mucus in my sinus. The annoying thing was he didn’t test it! He gave me a prescription for fungal drug Ketoconazole but my GP told me not to take it as without any proof that I need it I could risk damaging my liver.
I have had 7 years with constant pain and developed a palatal myoclonus which again nobody can explain. I have pain in my teeth, pain in my gums. My palate makes loud audible clicking sounds which is very uncomfortable, I have had to take Fluconazole for a vaginal thrush infection and after having it it seemed to help with my pain in my face. I have tried the candida diet a year ago and found that my symptoms became so much better. I ended up losing too much weight and stupidly resorted back to old habits only to find all my pain back full force. I believe I have a candida overgrowth and am now ready to get my life back on track. Trouble is I am only one day into the diet and already I am experiencing the worst die off symptoms! I am in so much pain and my blood sugar keeps going really low and I don’t know how I am going to get through this horrible phase.”
Shared by Kate
There is hope
“Hello There. I am 32 years old. 8 mercury fillings and years of antibiotics and birth control has really hurt my health. I am trying to fight this but it’s so hard and expensive. I often feel alone. IF there is anyone out there who wants someone to talk to about this please email me – Amandaea@aol.com. Good luck to everyone in this struggle!”
Shared by Amanda
Grateful for Candida
“I am grateful my private practitioner started treating me for Candida a while back as this is a huge opportunity for me to change my life for the better for good! I have had stomach troubles since I was a child due to stressful environment I grew up in, high sugar diet and constantly taking antibiotics. At the age of 21 I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and was on steroid medication for some time, which brought on a lot of anxiety and other undesirable side effect on top of everything else. About 5 years ago I started attending an alternative medicine clinic. My doctor suspected candida involved and put me on a mild anti candida diet. For five years I was getting better, then slipped into a colitis flare up a few times and then got better again.
About 6 months ago I got a bad flare up and had constant funny taste in my mouth, couldn’t keep anything in my stomach, all the food went right through. My practitioner decided it is time to kick the Candida out of my system and this time seriously. For two months I was on antifungal medication. The first two weeks were very hard and I had to stay in bed for 3 days. I started proper anticandida diet as found on this website and I have been sticking to it and will for as long as I live. That is the healthiest diet one can follow and even now when I am nearly Candida overgrowth free, I am decided to stick to it. I feel unbelievably great. I have so much energy and sleep like a baby most nights. I don’t really get sick and my colitis is non existent. I am very grateful for Candida. If it wasn’t for that and for getting so ill for so long I would have never discovered this diet and would still put my body through so much unnecessary food abuse. ”
Shared by Suz
Scary. Starting this thing right now, this very second.
“After two babies in under fifteen months, my immune system is shagged. I have been exercising like a machine the last four months, and weight has plateaued at 74 kilos, when I used to be a healthy 63. Have had over 85% of the symptoms listed on your site, and the final realization of what has been going on with me came tonight when I realized I have a bad case of oral thrush, and started googling that for treatment and diet, and saw that the candida is a much bigger underlying issue behind it. I have had everything from the brain figs to the eye aches, to the itchy skin, to the upset gut and bowel, to the mouth thrush, to the UTIs, to the dermatitis, to the athletes foot, to the thinning hair, post nasal drip, chronic sinus infections where I was ALWAYS on increasingly stronger antibiotics, hay fever symptoms, sudden loss of sexual appetite, night sweats, b.o, gut cramps particularly from eating breads, really bad dry mouth for as long as I can remember… I now realize that I have probably had this for years. Day one of candida battle starts in a few hours. Wish me luck.”
Shared by Melissa
My one year pledge
“So in fact I started the candida diet 32 days ago, and I proudly say that I have not failed once. While to start I had nothing to go on; only what I could google so I have make a few mistakes. Those mistakes I personally don’t count towards failure simply I consider them accidents due to lack of knowledge. But how did I get here? Let me tell you a story. At the end of the summer I was probably around 200 pounds. I knew I had candida and I knew that alcohol and sweat stuff caused it to become so bad. Mostly I thought it was a simple rash. I know see how badly I was ill informed. Back eight months ago I was working 90 hour work weeks or more and I was on fire. I loved it. I was 17 I had everything lined up in my life, I lived in an apartment with my sister, I had a job I loved, I knew what and who I wanted to be and how I would get there. I was happy after many years of struggling with image issues and emotional issues I finally was letting go of my past and moving on towards my bright future.
But that came crashing down… I spent eight months over worked, With an average of 8 hours of sleep for every 24. I was ready to slow down, when September came around and I moved from my sisters to my own place, and I had my job, and I was working 20 hours instead of 90 hours. I was so ready to become who I wanted it was all part of the great PLAN. I can’t tell you when I stopped being able to do my job, it was some where in September. I work in a kitchen, and if stress is the root cause of candida there is the source. At seventeen my boss asked me to step up and run the kitchen, which turned out to be a very stressful experience. It is only there in flash backs, I know I did not stay at my position in the kitchen very long. I went from being a good worker who will take over the line and boss the boys around to being one of the bottom feeders very fast. Partially to the unfortunate truth that I was using marijuana to help with this unknown pain I started feeling. There was a day I couldn’t batter a fish, I got placed back in prep and was removed from weekend work. At last unless you work in a kitchen you probably would not understand but lets just say my demotion effects me still, and regaining what I lost will take 10x more work then it took to lose it. I had brain fog to the max, I could not manage the multi tasking my job required. I also had much difficulty with the awesome aceheldhyde, as it converted into alcohol. I actually had many people ask me if I was drunk! I never thought much of it. I had my ups and downs, I far to easily accepted my strange behaviors as just part of me.
It took my four months to finally realize something was badly wrong. It was the last two, that were the most important. My sister stayed with me for a couple weeks, mostly I was bead ridden at this point, and I started to question my self. What was going on. Why couldn’t I relax? Why was I not eating? Why had I suddenly dropped in weight? Where was my energy? What was happening with my memory? Why was I throwing up every morning? And most importantly what was going on with me and my job? I googled every symptom. I came across a magnesium deficiency, and it fit. I went out and I got a Powdered magnesium supplement I thought all problems were soon to pass. It was only the beginning. Suddenly I was paying attention to my self, my strange and erratic behaviors stared to scare me, I even started to think I was going CRAZY. I didn’t trust any decision I made, I lost track of everything and my stomach and back hurt constantly. Every part on my body hurt to this heightened extreme and while the Magnesium was working I knew there was more and google led me to candida. I did my research, I spent seven hours in the library reading every medical journal every periodical every simple article and thousands of accounts from candida sufferers. I fit all the categories, and it scared my shit less.
Funny enough after being in the library I was hungry and I went to subway! And that ladies and gentlemen was my last meal. Instantly my stomach hated its self, I felt incredibly bloated and disgusting. I ran home and I emptied my fridge I purged my disastrous apartment and removed all the food. Half went to the food donation center and the rest went to the trash. I went on the stricter soup diet, I did eat one meal a day to help me through work. That first week was the largest eye opener of my life. First day bloating went away, second day fever was gone, third day head ache and back ache were eliminated, fourth day I could breath, sixth day I could take deep breaths and no longer felt the need to sigh. Also the day I explained to my bosses what had been going on. It was still another four days until I was no longer baby sat while closing at night…I must have been missing a lot of stuff at night! The second week detox spread, and that is definitely something like hell. I pushed through it, I have made cookies, cut brownies, worked around fries and caesar salad dressing, sour cream, bacon, anything good imaginable I also have been around the intoxicating effects of the aroma of beer, and still I have succeeded.”
Shared by Melody
Remarkable progress!
“For several years, I have been dissatisfied with myself. I had gained over forty pounds, and though I went on several different diets and exercised, the weight just stayed. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I was half resigned to being overweight the rest of my life, and the other half of me said “no way!” I had a toenail that had separated from the nail bed, and really looked horrible. I had tried several different treatments in the past, but none of them even seemed to faze it. It was uglier each year, and I had to keep it painted to keep people from noticing it. Then I began to have itchy, peeling feet! I knew that somehow the two were related. The fatigue and brain fog I was experiencing was, I thought, just a side effect of having four young children. I craved carbs and sweets, and chocolate was my nemesis. There were a few other symptoms that really didn’t seem to connect, but when I ran across this site, I knew it had to be Candida.
I began the cleanse, liquid only the first three days, and forced myself to choke down the psyllium/clay drink. I nearly threw up each time I drank it. I brought in the raw veggies on the fourth (and final) day of my cleanse. After the liquid only diet, it was wonderful to have veggies again. I also began the strict diet and later started the probiotics, then several days later began taking oil of oregano (wow- that stuff is potent!) and eating a lot of garlic and onions. Three weeks into the diet, and I have already seen my feet improve, and they are no longer itchy and peeling. The nail will take longer to clear up, I think, because it grows so slowly, but I have great hopes for that as well. I have already lost nearly 15 pounds (YAY!) and I feel better, and my head feels clearer. There is no doubt that it takes a lot of will power to eat the right things, but I have found that as long as I give myself healthy options, and do not allow myself to go too long between meals, that I do not have the powerful cravings that I once had. I can fix a meal for my family and I do not even crave what I am giving them (ice cream, cookies, etc.) As long as I keep my focus on what I need to do for my own health, I do not get sidetracked by all the yummy things I am missing.
I am so happy to actually see some progress, and while I sometimes daydream of cheese, chocolate, pizza, and bread, I know that what I am doing will make me feel so much better, and one day, perhaps, I can have those things again. In the meantime, I am pulling out all those previously too-small clothes in the closet, and trying them on with great success! It is such a motivation! I think this is the answer to my health problems. For those of you struggling to keep on the diet – don’t cheat, even the least little bit! So far, I have not given in to any of my cravings (at first, it was torture, even just smelling off-limits items) and I have made remarkable progress! I plan to stay on the strict diet for several more weeks before reintroducing any foods, and hopefully, by then I will be a little closer to my goal weight. Keep working. As hard as this is, it is definitely worth it to feel this good!”
Shared by Sarah
A big thank you
“I’m a 20 year old Australian bloke who has had all sorts of health problems since I was child, until recently. I’m so thankful about learning about candida at an early adult age. This is my little story about what I’ve put up with candida. I’ll start when I was about 8 – 12 years old I used to have a lot of ear infections and of course I was given antibiotics without giving any thought, I also used to get a lot of headaches and took paracetamols without question. Then I when I hit about 14 years old I always had psoriasis in my scalp and always had a bad flakey scalp as result then when I hit about 17 years old I started getting acne (very minor at first). One day I got dreadful chest pain and couldn’t breath probably, it turned out I got ‘pneumothorax’ which is similar to ammonia except it is air that gets trapped between the lung and chest not allowing me breath properly, so I had to go to hospital to get it treated, when they treated me I was dosed up with morphine, local anesthetic, painkiller tablets and antibiotic tablets which is all the lovely stuff that destroys your good bacteria and immune system. However back when I was 17 I didn’t know much about healthy eating, probiotics and immune system etc. I just ate ‘regular meals’ like having heaps of cereals and dinners without question and used to love to also eat all naughty chocolates and chips. Sure enough shortly after my 3 day hospital trip my health REALLY went down the drain.
About a week after my hospital trip my face, shoulders and back went from a mild acne problem to a moderate-severe acne problem! My psoriasis got a bit worse in my scalp, I started getting ‘chicken skin arms’, I was catching colds and flues almost all the time and I always had mucus in my lungs. I felt like I had no life in me, since my face looked like a wreck from my acne I started getting anxiety attacks because of it (especially if I dared looked in a mirror or reflection). I was ‘waiting’ for these symptoms to go away on their own but they didn’t so I went out and bought all the bad stuff like ‘benzoyl peroxide’ and ‘proactive’ and anything else that ‘promised’ to remove my symptoms quickly, of course they didn’t work, if anything it made them worse!
As time went on my anxiety got worse and my Dad (and some other people) used to make fun of me being ‘paranoid’ about what I going through and kept trying to say to me “oh don’t worry patty you’ll get through it, just wait and it’ll go away” if course I didn’t believe them I as I knew that was terribly doing something wrong with my health. About 18 months later after that hospital trip (when I was now 19) I had to go under the knife once again because I had a skin cancer that nearly turned into a melanoma! (even though I rarely tanned myself or got burnt through out my life). I thought it was really weird I had that when I was only 19 and I just knew it couldn’t of been a result of in the sun too much as I wasn’t a huge tanner.
After about 2 and half years (about 30 months) after I went into the hospital (i’m now 20 years old) I still had all those symptoms however they did improve a little bit over time because I dropped all junk foods and I was having raw vegetables every day and eventually went gluten free, however I still had stuff like fruit, cereals and milk. Since my diet was improved a little bit my acne went from moderate-severe to mild-moderate but it still hadn’t fully cleared up and I still had psoriasis in my scalp and still had chicken skin arms. I kept on researching almost every day to find the answer to fix my health up by talking to personal trainers at my gym, reading up dozens of books and looking on different ‘health websites’ until one day when I was starting to go this organic food shop, a guy working at the counter desk in the shop told me about reading up on certain nutritionists about ‘candida’, I had no idea what candida was so quick smart I googled up on it and went on a 5 different websites (including this one) to see what candida was all about. Oh boy my mind was blown away about all the information about it, so about after two weeks on reading up about candida I found this website written by Lisa Richards was not only the most informative straight up answers about candida, but also I loved how organised this website was. I took up on the new diet along with having more probiotics and anti-fungals foods and of course in the first week I had candida die off symptoms like being light headed, diarrhea, sweating and feeling tired and a HUGE craving for sugar, but I kept telling myself to stick to the diet and not cheat at all as I willing to beat my health problems once and for all and sure enough after my die off symptoms got better my acne started clearing and I started to feel like I had more energy.
And now to this present day I’m almost a month into this candida program and I feel soooooooo much better, the feeling is like being pulled out of hell, my acne 100% gone (on my face, shoulders and back woohoo!), my psoriasis is nearly gone, my chicken skin arms are nearly gone, I don’t have as much mucus in my lungs anymore, I don’t have anxiety attacks anymore and feel a lot more confident also for anyone who weight lifts regularly and wanting to get lean/ripped this candida diet program works really good for that! I’ve become much more muscular and leaner on this diet program! I’ve proven to all those people wrong who thought I was being ‘paranoid’ over health all that time. So in conclusion you can’t go wrong with this candida diet (as long as you don’t cheat of course!) and to Lisa Richards a big thank you for this really easy website to follow. I’ve recommended your website and this info to many people I care about, I wish there was more people like you in our healthcare system providing this information as I believe everyone has the right to know how to look after their health properly and not be poisoned by drugs! Sincerely a very happy and healthy Aussie bloke!”
Shared by Patrick
