Anti Candida Diet

[YoloGx]

Am exploring a fairly radical anti-candida gluten-free diet without casein or any grains or sugars, including no fruit, winter squash, rice, potatoes, corn etc. etc. However I can finally eat eggs it seems at least every other day, yay! And a trace amount every day so alternative sunflower-meal baked goods will likely be OK.

I am allergic to all nuts plus sesame seeds. However I did recently discover that I can possibly make a variety of baked goods using ground up sunflower seeds to make sunflower meal--it seems to have very similar properties to almond meal.

I came up with a good sunflower meal/zucchini/egg pancake and am about to expand out to other things.

Any body else do this or would like to share in this adventure? I figure these recipes could be interchanged with almond meal or other nut meals or even sesame (though of course not by me!).

Meanwhile I am using some pretty high powered herbs this time--wormwood with cloves, black walnut, olive leaf and then the usual back up: dandelion, yellow dock or Oregon grape root, marshmallow root. I make a big pot of it and then dilute it all with hot water in my cup, taking say 1/4 cup with the rest hot water. At that rate the wormwood etc. helps kill off the candida but is not too much for me.

I still need to get some cleavers again to help the lymphatic system cleanse more easily. I have had a lot of die off... My days are thus up and down thus of late energy wise as well as sleeping (sometimes a lot and sometimes nearly impossible!). The addition of coconut oil seems to be helping the sleep most fortunately...although it really is too soon to know for sure.

Am also taking lefenuron. This is considered a little controversial by some here but I have been desperate. From what I understand (according to Wikipedia) however it is completely harmless to all mammals, of which humans are part of and it has been used for ringworm. It instead attacks the chitonous layer of the candida and other yeasts and molds, including nasties like aspergillis--as well of course the chitonous shell on fleas. It makes it so the little yeasty critters are then more vulnerable to extinction. It also changes them so they no longer are capable of growing back their chiton... So far the lefenuron by itself has not seemed to create much distress. Instead it does seem to be helping the process making the candida die off a little easier to handle.

Nothing has really worked that well in the past. Nystatin helped but it came right back. Ditto with all my herbs. I have candida systemically having had both celiac and candida since infancy plus a great variety of antibiotics 9most of which I am by now allergic too of course...!). It is in my ears and nethers and drives me crazy. I am also now using coconut oil to kill the little yeasty beasties off plus lots and lots of fresh garlic. I just made some garlic oil that will be ready in 2 weeks. Am discovering garlic tea is good to drink plus put in my ears and crotch. It really is reducing the itching, inflammation, redness, and flaking. I found Bee Wilders' site a godsend!

I am now taking what all i have learned and combining it together with a touch of creativity. Thus the sunflower meal since I can eat sunflowers ad infinitum! despite otherwise being quite sensitive to nuts. My boyfriend loves the pancakes too (he also has candida too it turns out, but not as bad, plus celiac--lucky me!) but both of us want to branch out...

We now have a huge garden with lots of summer squash as well as Armenian cucumbers, tomatoes, kale, chard, herbs, etc. etc.

We are about to go out and buy a small convection toaster oven so we can bake things without getting glutened since my boyfriend's stove is no longer self cleaning...The latch is misaligned.

Any recipes, dietary or herbal suggestions would be much appreciated. If anyone asks, I will be glad to share my pancake recipe...

It may be that I will have to more or less permanently be on this diet, though I am hoping (cross fingers) that I can get to the point where I can safely eat some winter squash as well as more fruit than the occasional frozen blueberry or cranberry and the now more (for me) ubiquitous lemon...

Bea

[gary'sgirl]

All your research is interesting. I've had problems with candida too, as well as my 2 year old daughter. My daughter had problems with candida soon after she was born and we would clear up the rash (diaper area) and thrush only to have them come back withing a week or less. I would clear it up by using coconut oil topically most of the time, but once or twice it got so bad so quickly that I had to use nystatin because the coconut oil is a little slower to heal it up. Finally my daughter stopped having problems when she weened and was drinking coconut milk and eating coconut oil in large amounts every day. I really think that the coconut is what helped her so much. She was also (and still is) drinking coconut kefir too, which I am sure helped a lot also.

I have a question for you. Where do you get your sunflower seeds? I haven't been able to find a reliable source for them that has no risk of CC. I am also on a very limited diet. No nuts, nightshades, grains, broc/cabbage/cauliflower etc... as well as being limited in fruits and legumes. Some days I feel like all I can eat are carrots.

Anyway, I would love your recipe and to find out where you get your seeds.

I hope you get the Candida thing worked out. It sounds like you have really research it a lot and have a lot of info. I may have to pick your brain some time.

~Sarah

[Skylark]

I feel for you. I had to go onto a strong antibiotic for bronchitis and it has the yeasty beasties romping about my body again. Still trying to decide if the first round of Monistat did the trick and working on getting my gut working properly again.

Some herbal suggestions. Tea tree oil powder is good for nethers. Corn starch is the usual powder base, and you use 1/4 tsp tea tree oil to 1/2 cup of cornstarch. You can add a few drops of lavender oil too for its skin healing properties. Adding 1% to your garlic oil would be another way to use it, and again add 1% lavender as well. (1/4 tsp to 1/2 cup is about 1%.) There are some stupid aromatherapists who tell you tea tree oil can be applied to the skin undiluted, but don't fall for that nonsense. All essential oils are irritant and sensitizing undilued. You also want to use a fresh bottle of tea tree oil, keep it in the refrigerator, and discard after six months because it oxidizes and becomes much more sensitizing. Get a good French high-altitude lavender, not health food store garbage cut with linalool.

I assume you're using the coconut for caprylic acid? You can get straight caprylic acid supplements as well.

Finally, are you using probiotics? Eat lots of kefir, yogurt, saurkraut, kimchee, miso, tempeh, and any other fermented foods you can tolerate. Only eliminate casein if you are sensitive; the milk-based probiotics like yogurt or Yakult are very helpful. You might look into specific carbohydrate yogurt. If you can't eat cow casein because of a food intolerance, you might be able to tolerate goat's milk.

You must also find an active, colonizing probiotic that works in your body. If nothing replaces the candida, you'll never get it to die off. I've used Threelac in the past and it was a godsend for me. I've since read that it makes some people sick (I suspect detox/die-off is part of the issue). It has a controversial bacterium called Enterococcus faecalis in it, but the Threelac strain seems safe. It worked very well for me when I tried it a few years back and it did not make me sick. This is the most balanced review I can find about Threelac. Open Original Shared Link GHT also makes a stronger mix called Fivelac for people where Threelac doesn't work.

I'm taking Yakult and FermPlus right now, and if those don't work soon it's back to the Threelac.