Yesterday I got an email that\u2019s perfect for another reader question post. This time the question deals with Candida:<\/p>\n
Hi, i was briefly reading your articles about candida and you say we shouldn’t have to spend months on a FOD diet and use herbs? I actually read that right after I was about to draw up my candida diet plan. Anyway, how else would you suggest combatting and destroying candida entirely? I understand the fact that we have to eat low carbs and sugars so we don’t feed the yeast, I just need help when I introduce probiotics, anti-fungals and when I’m done.<\/p>\n
Oh and a little medical history, I took doxycycline last summer for 6 months. Now, my health and gut are suffering tremendously. (and, my acne of course) \ud83d\ude41 also, would a hospital like kaiser be suitable to ask for a stool test?<\/p>\n
Thanks for creating such a resourceful site!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thanks for a great question. Let\u2019s see if I can help you out.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that you are starting with a false premise. I don\u2019t know your situation, so I have to make some assumptions. Such as that you haven\u2019t been tested for Candida infection? I mean tested by a real medical doctor using a validated test? The spit-test is not reliable<\/a>, for anything. I would also take any diagnoses by alt-med practitioners<\/a> with a grain of salt, because they use so many dubious diagnostic \u2018tests\u2019. If you have been tested, then much of what follows is not relevant.<\/p>\n
Proceeding with the previous assumption, here are the facts from your email:<\/p>\n
\n
- You took antibiotics for 6 months<\/li>\n
- Now you are suffering from unexplained health, gut and skin problems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Where you make the error is concluding from the above that you have Candida. Candida is one possible explanation, but it\u2019s not the only explanation<\/strong>. Perhaps the antibiotics disturbed the bacteria in your gut and what you now suffer is a manifestation of that. Basically you are making a logical leap.<\/p>\n
Get tested to know for sure<\/strong><\/p>\n
What I would recommend is for you to talk to your doctor about getting tested for Candida infection in the gut. You can also ask about getting tested for systemic Candida infection, though I\u2019m not sure your doctor will do that, given how implausible the whole thing is, but you can always ask.<\/p>\n
So get tested and you\u2019ll know for sure.<\/p>\n
If you do have a Candida infection in the gut, then your doctor is probably going to prescribe you with anti-fungals to take care of it. If you don\u2019t want to use prescription drugs, then by all means use whatever herbs or other remedies you wish. But don\u2019t start self-medicating based on symptoms that have many possible causes.<\/p>\n
And I certainly don\u2019t recommend going on extremely restrictive and impractical diets based on such assumptions<\/strong>. The problem is that such diets often cause more harm than they help. They make your life difficult and impractical. They lead to social isolation and fear of foods. Many acne patients have ended up with an eating disorder going down that road.<\/p>\n
By all means make sensible diet changes. Cut out sugar<\/a> and refined carbohydrates (if you haven\u2019t already). Lower your overall carbohydrate intake and focus more on fat<\/a>. All of these are sensible suggestions even in absence of Candida. I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s smart to resort to extreme measures until you have established that such measures really are the best course of action. And it sounds to me like you haven\u2019t done that.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about Kaiser hospital (I\u2019m not from the US), so I can\u2019t help you with that. But any doctor should be able to help you with stool test for Candida.<\/p>\n
Photo Credit: Horia Varlan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I got an email that\u2019s perfect for another reader question post. This time the question deals with Candida: Hi, i was briefly reading your articles about candida and you say we shouldn’t have to spend months on a FOD diet and use herbs? I actually read that right after I was about to draw … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[55,56],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11028,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8707\/revisions\/11028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}