Two members’ stories
taken from our quarterly newsletter.
Steve’s story: men don’t
get candida!
I always believed that candida was something
that afflicted women and since joining the
Candida Society, it’s easy to see why.
All of the support group leaders (bar two)
are women, and I am the only man in the support
group I go to. So here’s a man’s
story.
I have never enjoyed good health, probably
due to a misspent youth subsisting on a diet
of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and junk food
and as I frequently suffered with bronchitis
and joint problems, I had more than my fair
share of antibiotics and steroids. Degeneration
had set in early, but the real downturn started
in 1990 when at 35, I suffered a nervous breakdown
where I was hospitalised for a week and was
unable to work for six months. At this time
I was completely “spaced out” with
feelings of unreality, brain fog, severe memory
dysfunction and tinnitus.
I gradually recovered after giving up drinking
and smoking, changing my dietary habits and
taking up cycling but I soon found this to
be short-lived as my energy levels dwindled
and chronic fatigue set in. My joint pains
worsened, especially my back, and I began to
suffer chest and muscle pains and irritable
bowel syndrome.
After numerous tests which included ECG, x-rays,
mineral deficiency and cytotoxic tests, nothing
was found. After repeated visits to the GP,
I was told I had an anxious personality and
not to worry about my health!
I struggled on over the next few years suffering
mood swings, depression, headaches, lack of
concentration, chronic fatigue, bloating, fungal
infections, low body temperature etc. until
in 1998 I was like walking death.
I was in so much pain, particularly with my
back, when an osteopath pointed out that my
dorsal spine was rigid. I took myself to a
private hospital where the rheumatologist discovered
bone deformity in my dorsal spine due to osteoarthritis
which was also affecting my neck, shoulders,
hips, wrists and knees. He prescribed anti-inflammatory
drugs which killed the pain but made my other
symptoms worse.
By chance, a friend suggested I see a nutritionist,
who immediately put me on an anti-candida diet.
Even at this point, in my state of confusion,
I still didn’t realise I had candida.
I somehow thought the diet was to alleviate
the arthritic symptoms and it wasn’t
until I read “The Yeast Syndrome”,
that everything finally started to make sense.
However, the worst was yet to come. I started
taking anti-fungal supplements, which affected
me badly even in minute doses, particularly
the dairy based probiotic, but I was told “don’t
worry, it’s only die off”. It was
after six months of this that I discovered
that I was not only intolerant to all gluten
grains but to lactose as well. By this time,
I weighed 9st. 5lbs. which for a man over six
feet tall is fairly light, and my body temperature
was averaging 97.0 degrees.
I then started seeing a nutritionist who was
very supportive. She put me on her anti-candida
program and suggested remedies for hypothyroidism
and parasite eradication. I took some pretty
lethal tonic for the latter which also made
me ill. However, I slowly made progress with
the diet, supplements and using naturopathic
techniques such as colonic hydrotherapy, enemas,
skin brushing, castor oil packs, cold showers
etc., but the chronic fatigue continued.
I had weekly acupuncture sessions, started
a gentle yoga class to help my breathing and
creaking joints and used a rebounder daily
to stimulate my stagnant lymphatic system.
Chronic fatigue persisted so I went back to
the NHS. My GP suggested I had M.E. and referred
me to the hospital where the consultant, much
to my horror, after agreeing with my GP’s
diagnosis, offered me antibiotics just in case
I had anything nasty that needed killing off.
Determined not to give up, I went to see a
Kinesiologist who pinpointed post viral syndrome,
hypothyroidism and mercury toxicity. Well at
least I had two of my symptoms confirmed.
I had my amalgam fillings replaced, started
taking the approved ME supplements and experimented
with my diet. I discovered that the more raw
food I ate, the better I felt and the more
energy I had. I also found that starch was
a big problem for me to digest which made my
energy plummet every time I ate it, especially
cooked (e.g. rice, millet, quinoa).
So now I am on a 95% raw vegan diet, my energy
is increasing slowly, I eat less and I have
put on weight. I replaced my starchy breakfast
with fruit and seem to be tolerating this well.
Some practitioners are very rigid on the diet
- fortunately mine isn’t, as I think
it is so important to listen to what your body
is telling you and find what works for you.
After all, what works well for one person may
not necessarily work for someone else.
It has been more than 18 months since starting
on my journey to better health - I’m
not there yet, but I feel I am more able to
manage my condition now. It has been a huge
learning experience - I have read countless
books, listened to many tapes and tried various
therapies, some of which have been beneficial
and others not. It seems to be a gradual process
of identifying and removing stressors, whether
physical, emotional or environmental and creating
an environment conducive to rejuvenation, allowing
the body to do its own healing.
The other thing I have learned is to think
positively, keep going against all the odds
and never give up. Slow and steady wins the
race. It has also been very beneficial meeting
and talking to other sufferers, knowing that
other people have had similar experiences,
and that I’m not alone in my struggle.
So although there may apparently be more women
candida sufferers than men, possibly due to
their physiological and hormonal constitution,
there could be a lot of men like me who don’t
realise that candida is the underlying cause
of their health problems, or think that men
don’t get candida!
Yvonne’s story: A difficult-to-treat
case
I have been house-bound (mostly bed-bound)
for almost seventeen years. At times unable
to stand, walk or crawl, I had severe pain
in the muscles, joints, face, neck, ears, spine
and kidneys. In addition, I had a strong metallic
taste in my mouth; food and chemical allergies;
tinnitus; continuous ‘flu-like’ symptoms;
body stench; bad breath; hair loss; persistent
cystitis; intolerance to heat and cold and
temperature fluctuations; complete exhaustion;
sleep disturbances, non-refreshing sleep, and
an inability to concentrate. I just felt ill ‘all
over’. As I am a workaholic by nature,
I could not understand what had happened to
me.
For the first twelve years my GP told me it
was ‘all in my mind’ and that there
was nothing really wrong with me. I didn’t
feel depressed at all - just very ill but I
believed that he knew best and tried to push
myself as he advised. I kept collapsing and
my condition deteriorated so much that at times
I thought I was dying and became so ill I was
unable to dress myself.
After four years I was rushed into hospital
for a D&C and advised that I needed a hysterectomy
to relieve my heavy periods. After the operation
I developed a haematoma, but this was not detected
until it became badly infected, necessitating
a month’s hospitalisation. This left
me doubled up with abdominal pain, which the
doctors assured me would subside. It didn’t.
Instead it got worse until I was unable to
stand upright at all. After a few visits to
the GP I was told that I was suffering from
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) - no investigations
or tests were deemed necessary, instead I was
given numerous prescriptive drugs. None helped.
My condition deteriorated so I spent the next
eight years doubled up in agony as well as
coping with all the other symptoms that I’d
had before the operation. My husband became
so concerned that he insisted that I see a
specialist. Eventually my GP referred me to
a specialist at a Nuffield hospital in Harrogate,
who recommended keyhole surgery for adhesions.
I paid a £1,000 for this advice which
was not a good investment. When I was opened
up, they discovered that there were no adhesions
only damage “probably done during the
hysterectomy which I would have to learn to
live with...”.
Five years previously I had read a little
about ME/CFS but believed my GP when he told
me that ME couldn’t be my problem as
THEY would have diagnosed it. Now I was not
so sure that THEY knew what they were doing,
so three days after the keyhole surgery I contacted
a Group for ME and was sent a book about candida
called ‘Could Yeast Be Your Problem?’ by
Leon Chaitow. I was in constant pain, which
felt like late labour, so I decided to try
the diet. Within three days I could stand upright
for the first time in eight years and the pain
began to subside.
On taking the supplements, I experienced Herxheimer’s
reaction (die-off). I began to ooze thick white
dead yeast. I coughed it up. It oozed out of
my eyes, ears and nose. It even grew on the
enamel on my teeth! I, quite literally, foamed
at the mouth. I was riddled with it and detoxing
my body was so painful that I blacked out.
A neighbour phoned for my GP who told me that
he now believed that I had candida but that
he didn’t know how to treat it.
For a year I contacted anyone who I thought
could help me. As everyone agreed that to have
that degree of candida, I must have M.E., I
went to see another (private) specialist in
Leeds. She diagnosed chronic M.E. and said
that I had had it for more than twelve years.
She couldn’t understand why it hadn’t
been diagnosed earlier. I realised that it
was pointless going to see my GP as he was
not interested, and kept wanting to give me
antibiotics which I couldn’t tolerate,
and didn’t need.
I joined many organisations and contacted
many sources including places abroad. Even
though I had followed the diet faithfully and
taken all the supplements for candida, I continued
oozing thick white dead yeasts. When I read
that candida could be a symptom of mercury
poisoning from amalgam fillings, I decided
to investigate it further.
In December 1997 I managed to get to Rochdale
to see a Mercury-Free dentist. His tests confirmed
what even a blind man could see - something
was very wrong with my teeth. All of my fillings
were black and corroded. I had one gold capped
tooth which had turned black. On the numerous
occasions when I had questioned my orthodox
dentist about this, I had been told that I
wasn’t cleaning my teeth enough. Nonsense!
As I was constantly oozing foul-tasting and
foul-smelling candida from my gums, I cleaned
my teeth far more than most.
He advised that this particular tooth should
be extracted as soon as possible as it was
so corroded. Three days later and it was gone.
The gold cap almost fell off as it was black,
rotten with corrosion. Below this cap was a
heavily-filled tooth. The filling - mercury
amalgam was also black and corroded. Underneath
all this mess was a root canal. When this was
extracted the ‘silver’ rods used
in the root canal work were also black with
corrosion and one of the ‘silver’ rods
was protuding through the end of the root of
the tooth. It had been sticking into the flesh
since being placed in position. Underneath
all of this was a huge pool of stinking poison
which was perilously close to the sinuses.
This had been giving me severe pain in the
face, eyes and ears and sinus problems for
fifteen years. Now all the pain has gone and
my sinus problems are considerably improved.
As I was so ill, I had to have the other fillings
replaced gradually. In fact getting rid of
all of the mercury amalgams took a year, and
I had the last one replaced in December 1998.
I have been told by a dentist, who also had
mercury poisoning, that it can take one month
for every year that you have been poisoned
to clear the mercury from the rest of the body
and the brain.
I remember having my first filling when I
was about seven years of age - done courtesy
of the school dentist. In those days, the philosophy
was to ‘save the teeth’ by packing
in as much mercury amaglam as possible. Well
saving my teeth, with the second most toxic
substance known to man, cost me my health in
later life.
I have lost almost eighteen years of my productive
life. I have been unable to work, be a proper
wife, mother, daughter and sister. I was too
ill to attend my daughter’s wedding;
too ill to help my sister when she was dying
of cancer; too ill to visit my mother before
she died when was she was rushed into hospital
after having a stroke.
I feel angry at having suffered for so long,
with so little support from the medical establishment.
I am, however, grateful to be finally getting
well. I have just been out shopping (I love
writing that!) and am going to Saudi Arabia
for three months until Spring 2000. So I am
certainly ‘getting there’ at last.
NB: For more on the relationship between
mercury amalgams and illness see:
Dr. Hal A. Huggins (1993) It’s All In
Your Head. Avery. £14.40
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