Thursday, June 9, 2011

Acidophilus

I've been taking acidophilus for maybe the last 5 or 6 weeks, without doing anything else that would be considered part of an anti-Candida diet. In fact, my diet has been the total opposite of an anti-Candida diet because I've been eating pizza almost exclusively. I usually don't eat all day, then I make a 10" pizza sometime in the evening because I'm freaking obsessed with teaching myself how to make the best pizza on the planet.

Despite this very high-carb diet, I feel better than I've felt since about September 2010.

Aside from taking the acidophilus tablets 1 to 2 times a day, keeping myself hydrated is the only other thing I've done that remotely resembles any component of an anti-Candida diet. And I really haven't even been very good about that. I've averaged probably a little less than half a gallon of water per day. I consider a gallon of water an ideal daily goal, but I haven't come close to hitting that goal in a long time.

So is the acidophilus responsible for my better health of late? I don't know, but it sure seems that way.

All I know is that I got a pizza jones several weeks ago, so I mixed up some dough and ate me some pizza. I figured my body would put up with it for a few days, then I'd start getting headaches, sinus issues, and jaw pain. But it hasn't happened. There has been a little stomach gurgling at times, but it hasn't been too bad. This really shocks me because I wasn't in really good condition even when I started making pizza every day. I felt OK but always vulnerable.

One other thing I started doing several weeks ago is something similar to oil pulling, but with hydrogen peroxide. I don't even know what made me start doing this. I think it was the always-present sore (abscess?) in my mouth, on the inside of my gums, below my bottom front teeth. This sore was getting real bad before I started using hydrogen peroxide, but now it feels like it might fully disappear soon. Even though it almost disappeared a couple years ago, when I did a die-hard anti-Candida diet, I can't remember not having this sore in my mouth. I don't know if my hydrogen peroxide treatment has contributed to my good overall health of late, but it has clearly improved my oral health, and I recommend giving it a try. It'll leave a bit of a funny taste in your mouth for at least a few days, but that goes away. Even with the weird taste, my mouth has felt a million times cleaner and healthier than before I started doing this.

I don't claim to be a Candida expert. The more I think I learn, the less I feel like I know. But I try to help however I can, and this post may be one of my most helpful posts, even though it's based on almost nothing real. Hope it helps. Good luck, y'all.

Here are links to pics and descriptions of some of the pizzas I've made lately:

Tommy's Clone #1 (This one was probably more like Shakey's. It was fucking good!)

--
Aimless: The Adventures of an American Vagabond.
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8 comments:

  1. Ryan,
    It could be the acidophilus... especially if it gets past your stomach acid.

    When I started taking a probiotic that was coated to get past the stomach acid.. it really helped me.

    I have tried the peroxide and it does help with thrush but made my teeth so sensitive I had to quit using it.

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  2. Hi Ryan!

    Good for you for taking control of your health! I love the focus of what you're doing here. I'd like to link to you (and maybe vice versa?) since my blog is basically a Candida-friendly cookbook and I think it would be a good compliment to what you're doing!

    http://candidacantstopme.blogspot.com/

    PS. Sorry, might have done this twice. Doh!

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  4. Ryan, its been ten months..id like to hear how you're doing. I recently was told I have a yeast allergy and am looking into the idea that I also have the overgrowth. I started cutting back on my yeast foods but haven't committed fully yet bc I know its going to be hard. I get chronic migraines and am aware milk is an issue of mine...but even after giving it up I still get these shitty headaches. I'm hoping this is the answer I've been searching for!

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  5. Margaret, that sounds like a good idea. Actually, I've been thinking about writing a new post lately because I'm about to be diagnosed with MS. I've been eating a regular Ryan diet (crappy diet) for quite a while, but I've been fortunate enough to not experience any of the misery that motivated me to create this blog. Still, I have other issues that are making my life pretty miserable in different ways than what I've documented in early posts on this blog, and I suspect they might go away if I start eating what my body is supposed to eat. MS is pretty freaking serious, so once the MS reality sinks in, I'm probably going to resume a strict anti-Candida diet once again, perhaps forever. I don't want to stop eating the foods I love, but I don't want to be blind and crippled, either.

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  6. I was just thinking... What if the pizza was HELPING you? You said that you were feeling pretty crap at the beginning, and after a few pizzas you felt better, right?

    What if... there's good yeast in the pizza, taking over the niche of the bad yeast in your body? Do you know if yeast survives cooking? I know there are a few different types of yeast, but I don't know much about their differences. What kind of yeast were you using?

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  7. Another product that worked for me was liquid pinecone extract. It is simple to take and it took away my candida. Apparently it boosts your immune system naturally, but I do not understand how it works.

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  8. Steve, I've been meaning to reply to your comment ever since you wrote it, but I guess I just haven't had the motivation, energy, or mental clarity to actually do it until now.

    Even though I was somehow able to eat a ridiculous amount of pizza over the last couple years without sinking back into the misery of Candida overgrowth, I'm pretty sure pizza was not helping me. At least 99% sure. But hey, maybe it was. Regardless, I don't want any reader of this blog to even suspect that pizza is OK to eat when you're trying to beat Candida. Fact is, we humans are not supposed to be made of pizza ingredients. We most certainly did not evolve to what we are by eating either flour or cheese, which is more than enough reason to limit the amount of pizza you eat even if you're not battling Candida or MS.

    So what may have motivated me to finally respond to your comment? Well, one possible explanation is that it's because I've been strictly following a Wahls MS diet for the last five days, which is a lot tougher than following an anti-Candida diet (at least for someone like me, who had never eaten spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, or cauliflower until the last several days, nor wanted to). Since beginning the diet, I have had much more energy, mental clarity, and general motivation to do things than I had before beginning the diet. Today I've even re-read every post on this blog for the first time in a long time, as well as all the comments, and now I'm taking the time to respond to at least one comment.

    Is my new diet responsible for giving me the motivation to respond to your comment? I don't know, but I can't come up with any other plausible explanations. Also, before I began this diet, I had eaten pizza all but four days for five consecutive months. So add it up.

    To answer a couple of your questions: 1) I don't know if yeast survives baking. Actually, I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but some of its bad effects on our health may survive baking; and 2) I was using active dry yeast for my pizzas.

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