Finding the right combination

Almost a couple weeks into my anti-Candida treatment, I've been learning a lot and settling into some behavioral and dietary patterns. Here are the main components that have been helping me fight Candida overgrowth so far, along with my primitive explanations for why these methods have helped me:

• Garlic
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Diet (starving the Candida)
• Exercise
• Water
• NOT CHEATING ON THE DIET!

Garlic
As an integral part of the anti-Candida diet, raw garlic is more a supplement than a cure; it's just part of the fight. Garlic has anti-fungal properties, and Candida, as you should know, is a fungus.

Raw, Organic, Unpasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)
Same as garlic in ways. It's not the cure; just an important part of the fight. From what I've read, ACV is very acidic, but in the stomach it ends up making your body less acidic and more alkaline, which is one of your major objectives when fighting Candida.

In addition to drinking a shot of ACV every morning and evening, I've also been soaking my feet in ACV for at least half an hour a couple times a day, to fight athlete's foot and toenail fungus. It almost immediately fixed the athlete's foot (a few days), and it seems very clearly to be helping the toenail fungus. However, it's going to be at least a few months before I'll know for sure how effectively it works on the nails. (The anti-Candida diet will probably do more than the external application of ACV to help my toenail fungus in the long term.)

Diet (starving the Candida)
NO sugar (not even from sweet fruits). NO carbohydrates. NO dairy products. NO alcohol. This stuff feeds Candida, which makes you miserable. (Read more below in "NOT CHEATING ON THE DIET!")

Exercise
Exercise combats Candida overgrowth in at least two ways. First, it causes you to inhale a lot more oxygen than normal. (Candida doesn't like oxygen.) Second, it makes you sweat out toxins that can't leave your body in any other way (for example, through urination).

Water
Drinking lots of water keeps you hydrated and helps you flush toxins (or bad shit) out of your body. You probably do not hydrate yourself enough. Consequently, your body is unable to expel all the toxic crap you've put into yourself. If you just start drinking lots of water, you will probably begin feeling better just because your body will finally be able to evict the bad shit that's clogging up your whole freaking system.

Do you know why you have to pee so much when you drink beer or coffee? It's not the result of some magical property in these drinks; it's because you're basically poisoning yourself when you drink these beverages, which is why you feel buzzed or energetic afterward. When your body detects the poison, the body's job is to get rid of the poison, which it does by making you urinate. To make sure you expel the poisons ASAP, your body also borrows fluid from elsewhere in the body, which dehydrates you and leaves you with a hangover the next morning.

NOT CHEATING ON THE DIET!
Although it is very important to put the right things into your body in your fight against Candida, it is more important to keep from putting the wrong things into your body. Every time you put sugar or carbohydrates into your body, you feed the Candida. Until you stop feeding the Candida, the Candida will continue using your body as a hospitable host. Unless you starve Candida, it will continue to thrive and reproduce, and it will take over your whole body once again as soon as you revert to your old dietary and behavioral patterns.

You have to kill all the excess Candida by starving it before you can expect to start living how you used to live. Even if you maintain a disciplined routine of consuming plenty of raw garlic and ACV, in addition to exercising and drinking lots of water, Candida will remain a nuisance in your body for as long as you keep feeding it the sugar it needs.

Not cheating on your diet is probably the most important part of the fight against Candida.

Some other things that will help you beat Candida

• Acidophilus
• 35 percent hydrogen peroxide
• An alkaline pH

Acidophilus is a probiotic supplement that helps you return beneficial bacteria to your body, which you probably killed by taking antibiotics. However, until you kill the Candida fungus that moved into the bacteria's homes, these bacteria will have nowhere to live and probably will not help you much.

I don't know much about 35% hydrogen peroxide or pH yet. When I learn more about these things, I'll write about them.

--
Aimless: The Adventures of an American Vagabond.
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Anti-candida diet: The first week

What led me to the anti-Candida diet?
About 10 weeks ago I visited a doctor, ailed by what I thought might be a sinus infection. After asking me a few questions and looking up my nose, the doctor confirmed my suspicion and quickly prescribed the antibiotic Amoxicillin for treatment of sinusitis. After ten days of treatment, I felt better but not healed, so she wrote me a new script, this time for SMZ/TMP DS 800-160 (generic for Bactrim). By the time I finished the second prescription, I felt better in some ways, but I also felt worse in a lot of other ways.

Over the next month and a half, my health went downhill big-time. Ever since I ended the antibiotic/antibacterial treatment, I've been in nearly-constant pain and discomfort all over, which just kept getting worse. Here's a list of my most noticeable symptoms:

• constant headaches and head pain
• jaw pain
• tooth pain
• eye pain
• vision disturbances (specifically optic neuritis)
• clumsiness
• emotional instability
• neck pain
• tender throat
• sinus inflammation
• nausea
• uncomfortable digestive gurgling
• chest pain (respiratory)
• confusion
• "brain fog"
• forgetfulness (I felt very stupid)
• unexplained general pain
• fatigue
• and surely some other things I can't think of right now.

This stuff was constant and it was driving me absolutely nuts, so I scoured the internet for answers. For a while I feared that I might have meningitis or a brain abscess, among other undesirable or deadly maladies. But then I started reading about Candida overgrowth. I'd already come across this condition once during my search, but I didn't look into it. Honestly, I can't even remember what made me click the "Candida" link this time, but I did, and quickly everything started making sense. It connected my recent illness with some issues I've dealt with off-and-on over the last five or ten years, including athlete's foot, toenail fungus, rashes, other skin conditions, numbness, and anxiety, as well as some of the symptoms I listed above.

Beginning the Candida diet
One week ago, after reading about Candida overgrowth, I began a Candida detox, which means I eliminated sugar, carbohydrates, and dairy products from my diet, along with other types of food I don't normally consume anyway, like alcoholic beverages. For the last week, my diet has consisted of only a handful of different foods, including eggs, chicken, fish, granny smith apples, raw garlic, peppers, berries, almonds, pecans, apple cider vinegar, acidophilus tablets, and tons of water, along with some exercise (though not as much as I've intended).

Before I began this anti-candida diet, I ate the same thing almost every day. Usually I would eat a couple bowls of Frosted Mini Wheats in the morning. (Sometimes instead of cereal, I would eat a few "fun size" candy bars.) And almost every evening I would make myself a pepperoni pizza (from scratch). Maybe a little candy at night, too. So essentially my diet consisted of a lot of carbs and sugar.

In the week since I ditched the cereal, pizza, and Milky Way diet for the anti-Candida diet, I have noticed a dramatic improvement in my health. Pretty much all my symptoms have diminished drastically, and many have disappeared. Right now I feel pretty good, and it seems like I'm going to keep improving, as long as I stay disciplined. But I know I'm nowhere near "cured" yet.

I've read a lot about die-off symptoms that occur shortly after you begin an anti-Candida diet, which happens because your body becomes overloaded with dead microorganisms (or waste) that the body simply cannot process very quickly. According to a lot of the information I've read, die-off usually can be felt in the form of the same symptoms you had to begin with, although it's not the same thing. I can't say for sure that I've experienced this die-off yet. Maybe it's because I've forced myself to drink lots and lots of water, which has enabled my body to flush out the waste efficiently. Or maybe I just haven't experienced die-off yet. That's why I created this blog; to share my experiences as they happen so other people can learn from them.

I'll try to keep updating this blog as my condition changes.

--
Aimless: The Adventures of an American Vagabond.
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