The Candida Cleanse

So during the fitness challenge some friends and I have been doing, I wrote a bit to them about the fact that I decided to do a candida cleanse.

What the heck is candida? Brace yourself. It's yeast. Gross. I'm talking about yeast. And I'm talking about it beyond, you know, your private parts. Eeeek! I swear, I'm not going to get THAT personal.

My point is that candida goes way beyond that. Yes, you can have it on your skin (Finn used to get it on his bald head when he was undergoing chemo), babies get it in the crooks of their fat little arms or behind their knees, etc. But you can also get it as a systemic infection in your bloodstream.

How?

I think it happens all sorts of ways (you can Google it and see about 5 million different explanations for it), but for me, I think it tied into my melanoma surgery back in early December and then eating too much sugar, wheat, and all sorts of other goodies over the holidays.

When I was able to start working out again after the first of the year, I noticed my recovery from workouts wasn't the greatest. My joints were sore, I was really tired, and I just had weird muscle fatigue. At first I thought it was just beause I hadn't been able to work out for those 3 weeks (I read that you can lose aerobic endurance in as little as two weeks--bummer, but good incentive to keep up with your high intensity workouts). Then I remembered a few years ago when I was consulting with a nutritionist and she had me do a candida cleanse.

According to natural health people, candida overgrowth in our bodies is rampant in Americans because of our highly processed diets. Really, it all comes down to what you believe and buy in to. I felt really great after I did the cleanse last time, so I thought, I'll do it again.

And so I did. I bought the same products I'd used before and away I went. I didn't even call my friend, who is a naturopathic doctor. I figured I'd have no problem.

Holy cow, I was so wrong.

So if you do your Googling, you will see that there might be some side effects as the yeast in your bloodstream start to die off and get expelled from your body. I was fine for about the first three days and then the die off hit me like a ton of bricks. UGH! At first I thought I was getting sick, but the severity and how fast it all came on got me thinking and that's when I discovered the yeast die off side effects/symptoms.

It was really bad for about four days, then moderately bad for another three. After that things simmered down.

So what I experienced:
-Massive histamine reaction. It was like having the worst sinus infection ever. My sinuses closed almost completely off.
-My lymph nodes were like golf balls and so sore that I could barely eat or drink. Yawning or even opening my mouth very far were both incredibly uncomfortable. That was the symptom that has taken the longest to go away. It was a week before I could eat without wincing. But then, I'm a total baby about such things.
-Complete and total fatigue.
-My tongue had a lovely white film on it.
-The skin on my jaws felt bumpy and itchy.

Literally, it was like I had the flu, except I didn't. At one point I took my temparature, but I never had a fever that I know of.

I did also have night sweats and trouble sleeping. My husband said I was snoring up a storm (I don't THINK I normally do that) because of all of the swelling in my nose and throat.

Sounds lovely, eh?

My Internet doctoring lead to two different trains of thought: don't stop the cleanse because you need to keep going, or stop the cleanse and let your body recover because this massive die off is taxing your immune system even more.

WTF?

So I did the only thing I could think of at that point. I went to my naturopath and we decided on a course of action that dialed back on the supplements to let my body recover, but to still keep going with the cleanse.

The thing is: I have to be super clean with my diet and really only eat meat and veggies. Super. Clean. Ugh! I know I can do it, but it seems overwhelming because there's no time limit on this--it's just until the symptoms go away and it's clear the candida is gone. That could be next week (very unlikely) or two months! ARGH! I don't do well with undefined deadlines.

Guess I'll learn pretty quick!

So do go out and learn more about the negative health issues candida can cause if you're so inclined. As with many other things, much of the traditional medical community kind of poo poos the whole concept, but there are stories about how in autopsies people organs are just covered in the candida fungus. Personally, I think candida is a real problem and I want it gone!