Third Time’s the Charm: My Three Confrontations with Candida

Posted by Raena Morgan:

My first encounter with my diagnosis of a “Systemic Yeast Overgrowth” a.k.a. Candida, came in late October. I went to an Allergist because I had a chronic runny nose, constant sneezing and blocked airways. Never had I experienced respiratory allergies. This was new to me. It started in the spring and went on relentlessly into the summer and fall. What could it be, I wondered? My blood work revealed that a yeast overgrowth was the culprit.

 

The First Confrontation

Due to the Candida diagnosis, the Allergist gave me an anti-fungal and put me on the most restrictive diet I’ve experienced in all my years of commercial dieting. No sugar in any form, no bread or yeasted products, no coffee, no alcohol—especially beer or wine which is full of yeast. No dairy, no mushrooms, no peanut butter, no bananas, no salad dressings, no soy sauce, and no salsa or vinegar or mayonnaise—an endless and heartbreaking list of “no you can’t have that…or that…or that….”
 

Nonetheless, I tried to follow the diet. But then a business trip to Las Vegas in mid-November blew a hole in that effort. Still, I resumed my attempts after the trip, but then the holidays were upon me and all the feasting and drinking dissolved my resolve once again. It’s not like I was eating unhealthy foods. Rarely, if ever, do I eat refined sugar and white flour. It’s always whole grain breads with lots of fiber and whole wheat pasta. But yeasted products are absolute no-no’s.
 

I also hated giving up that glass or two of red wine at dinner or happy hour. Come on, I reasoned, red wine has Resveratrol in it! And a couple of light beers?! I’d just read an article that beer was good for your bones because it has silicon in it. When I whined to the Allergist about it, she just shrugged and said, “Do the best you can; it’s your choice.”
 

The Second Confrontation

Then, as I struggled along, there came a second look at Candida when I had author Ann Boroch on as a guest on a local radio show I co-host called the “Wellness Hour.” Ann wrote Healing Multiple Sclerosis and The Candida Cure. At 24 she was diagnosed with MS and was told she would eventually wind up in a wheel chair. She refused to accept that prognosis and set about finding a way to beat the sentence she had been given, becoming a Naturopathic doctor and healing herself of MS.
 

As far as Ann is concerned, systemic yeast overgrowth is the underlying factor in most major illnesses and conditions due to our widespread and ubiquitous use of antibiotics. She herself was treated repeatedly with antibiotics for frequent ear infections as a child. As we all know, antibiotics kill infectious bacteria. However, they kill off friendly and very necessary bacteria as well, leaving the door open for opportunistic pathogens like yeast to take over the intestinal territory.
 

It sounds so “Sci-fi,” but Ann’s story was most convincing. She lists no less than 59 reasons why you shouldn’t eat sugar in The Candida Cure. But there again, sugar wasn’t an issue for me. I just wanted to have that slice of whole grain bread toasted in the morning, spread with organic peanut butter and a sliced banana. But bananas are too full of natural sugar and that feeds the yeast. Peanuts have mold in them and that feeds the yeast. And we know about the bread—the wheat and the yeast feed the yeast!
 

Pretty convincing evidence, but I was still dragging my heels, as it were, whining to myself. It reminded me of my days as a weight loss counselor and how the clients would whine about all the things they couldn’t have. But that was more of a cosmetic issue, all about “looking good.” This was about being healthy and “feeling good.” Then came my third and most sobering encounter with this whole Candida concept.
 

My Third & Final Confrontation

I started reading a book called “The Body Knows How to Stay Young” by Caroline Sutherland, a Medical Intuitive. Without question or pause, Sutherland contends that this unhealthy yeast overgrowth is not only pervasive, it’s behind all the ailments of aging—that it’s bringing us down! And here is an assessment she made that was most chilling, not to mention repulsive. As a “medical intuitive,” when she makes a visit to a nursing home where she says that most, if not all, the residents have Candida, she can smell the yeast when she walks in the door. She says it’s a sweet, sickly smell and she picks it right up.
 

Well yuck! That mental image brought it home for me! No more dietary whining. I’m following the protocol, avoiding all those foods that feed yeast, taking a Candida Cleanse Formula and a strong probiotic to restore the friendly bacteria in my gut. It took a lot of convincing for me to get it, but the thought of smelling like stinky old yeast got through to me!
 

Posted by Raena Morgan