Candid with an "A"

I've been working on this post for weeks. This may be alot of info to read, but I really want to share it in case it helps someone else. Since being diagnosed, I've found two other women who also have my condition. And my friend Andrea and I have marveled at the likeness of our symptoms. Both of our homeopathic doctors pretty much gave us the same diagnosis. She has been able to visit a rheumatologist, and you can read that info here. We're assuming a rheumatologist will give me the same info.

As I've mentioned in a few posts, I've had some health issues over the last few months. Actually, the issues have been going on for several years. But no doctor could piece my symptoms together into a diagnosis. A brief recap of the last few years....we discovered through visiting a GI, rheumatologist, general practitioner, and homeopatic doctor that I had developed a high gluten intolerance, adrenal gland fatigue, and random occurrences of blue hands (suggested to be Reynaud's Phenomenon). I am embarrassed to admit that I ignored the gluten intolerance because I didn't think I ate that much wheat.

Well, fast forward to summer and fall 2011. In an effort please Caroline's palate, I was making all sorts of asian noodle dishes. And I was eating them too. And within a month, I could tell that something was not right. My immune system seemed to be shutting down. Scott and I even thought I might have lupus. Here are just a few of the symptoms I experienced:

• bloating and digestive problems
• mouth ulcers called "thrush"
• yeast infections that would not respond to treatment (often one of the last symptoms to appear)
• puffy eyes and eye infections
• chronic fatigue that was worse than ever
• sadness and depression (which had surfaced in May)
• joint pain
• peeling nails
• brain fog
• memory problems
• unexplained weight gain (due to underactive thyroid)
• various other issues that would pop up

I couldn't get into the rheumatologist without seeing my general doctor first (which I didn't have time to do). In the meantime, I got an appointment with a highly recommended Christian homeopathic doctor (Dee Baudoin) who scans your body with a hand cradle scan that sends data to a computer. She was the first person in years to put all of my symptoms together into one diagnosis. I knew it all had to be connected!

The conclusion? I have a severe form of candida albicans called candidiasis...essentially an auto-immune disease. All men and women have candida albicans (yeast) naturally in their body. Sometimes it gets out of balance and you might develop a yeast infection or thrush (happens alot when nursing babies.) However, sometimes the yeast can begin growing too rapidly and begin causing major problems .Growing mostly in your intestinal track, it can trigger food intolerances, most commonly to gluten. As your body begins failing to properly digest the gluten, it ferments into toxins, causes microscopic tears in your intestinal linining, and leaks out to your body (nicknamed "leaky gut"). The main toxin is akin to formaldehyde and is the toxin that decomposes bodies after death. So essentially, your body begins breaking itself down! Hence the immune issues. Candidiasis, if left untreated, can lead to multiple organ failure, and is detrimental for people who already suffer immune issues (such as HIV patients, etc.)

How does this disease develop? It can happen after pregnancies, extreme diets, bites from ticks or insects (lyme disease), overuse of prescription antibiotics, diabetes, birth control use, etc. There has also been a connection to previous users of Acutane.

Many doctors are not educated about candidiasis or how to diagnosis it, mainly because there is no pharmaceutical drug to treat it. And medical research is driven by pharmaceutical companies. However, our obgyn specialist said that there are some theories that candida is the root of many diseases since it causes the immune system to be so vulnerable.

How to cure it? Unfortunately, this is the tough part. You can take anti-fungal antibiotics for a time. But in order to get rid of the yeast overgrowth, you literally have to starve it. So here is the list of items you must cut from your diet:

• gluten
• caffeine
• alcohol
• fruit
• sugar
• dairy

So you CAN eat meats, vegetables, nuts and seeds. But of these, you can't have:

• potatoes, carrots, mushrooms,
• peanuts or peanut butter
• cured or smoked meats or deli meat

In other words, I am starving!! And as you can imagine, it is doubly hard to eat from this limited menu when I have pregnancy cravings and aversions. Sometimes broccoli and hummus just don't cut it. On the occasions when I have cheated, I have a yeast infection within FOUR hours (and this is an ailment I've never struggled with before) and often experience other consequences as well. Pregnancy hormones actually encourage growth of yeast, so that's one strike against my healing. I am still in awe that this baby is thriving in my toxic wasteland of a body!

Here are a few links if you want more info. Many individuals feel like hypochondriacs because they experience such a vast array of symptoms. If what I've written about here sounds familiar, if numerous doctors' visits have proven no answers or relief, rest assured that you're not crazy! And there's something you can do about it.

Links:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/213853-overview

http://www.holistichelp.net/candida-albicans.html

http://www.healthexcel.com/docs/_cand1.html

http://www.ecandida.com/candida-albicans/

So this is probably WAY more info than you ever wanted to know about me. But based on my reading and research, there are tons of women (and even men) who suffer from this disease and don't know about it. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss more. I've been discovering lots of great gluten-free products and recipes and would be happy to share!