amberablue

Hey Karen, just wanted to add my experience and second some of the above info from RawKaren.

I went raw in March 08 and was feeling absolutely amazing, almost too much energy. Then around June I was experiencing what I found out was candida. Just my luck, skin issues were my main symptom. When that cleared up it was absolutely, overwhelming, enrapturing fatigue. I literally went from moving furniture, running up and down stairs like 'superwoman' to that kind of invalid, spoiled housewife you see in 'period dramas' (at least this is exactly how felt) ...all finished off with that 'dreamy' unreal spaciness typically described in candida symptoms.

I believe mine was caused by having Mono earlier that year, low-iron, and the adrenal fatigue (i am sure i burned myself out during that move) which was the final trigger. Candida is often caused by several factors. and virus, anemia, and adrenal fatigue are certainly in the Top 6, along with the BC use and Antibiotics...from what I read.

First thing I did was cut out all sugar, honey, fruit (berries are ok), wheat (no sprouting it!), beets, carrots, wine, vinegars and mushrooms, anything fermented. This was good but did not take me all the way. What I did eat was more vegetables, sprouted buckwheat, & herbal stevia to name a few.

I then added some of the supplements mentioned above. Pau'darco, etc.

But what really got my recovery going was taking garlic in a particular way so that it was very effective to killing candida. I had been taking garlic from the beginning, but just adding it to food or taking it after eating, as with vitamins.

What I finally read to do was upon first waking, swallow 1 clove of fresh, chopped garlic. Wait 30 minutes. Then take the probiotics (if you are using them). After that you need to wait another 30 minutes before eating or drinking your first foods of the day. Yeah it was a hassle. I only had the schedule to do it about 3 times a week, but it was then that I truly started to get over it.

In my experience, it really did make a difference letting the garlic kill the candida rather than just taking it with food, which I had been doing for some time. some researchers also emphasized that you want to be on the candida diet for awhile (few weeks, a month?), and do the 'garlic thing' or essentially approach the 'step 1 program' of killing off some of the candida, before you start a program of populating with probiotics, etc. i'm sure it's debatable. just something to keep in mind.

one last thing to mention is that adding and making sure i was getting adequate protein seemed to really make a big difference for finally kicking the candida too. just want to mention. anything i can remember, as I certainly cannot forget just how hard it is to get good information on this, and how much there was to sift through!

the book i read from the library, was called 'the yeast connection' and listed almost all the info i followed, except the garlic method i found somewhere online.

good luck and get well soon!