Beat Candida for Good: Step-by-Step Plan for Gut + Body Relief

Episode 4 (Part 2) Symptoms of Candida Yeast Overgrowth are WHOLE Body & a Step by Step Diet Plan to Relieve Candida, SEEBO, & Leaky Gut

Hey there! Welcome to Episode 4 and part 2 of my discussion on the Candida Yeast Diet. If you missed Part 1, you might want to circle back to listen to it first! (Linked in notes) I was pointed towards an incredible diet when I was completely desperate for solutions to my pain, bloating, brain fog, the list is long. In fact, I am going to take a minute….or two to list the possible symptoms of Candida. It may sound like the last piece of a drug commercial, but I think it is so important to call attention to the fact that practically everything in our body is related. It may or may not be due to Yeast, but taking the time to prioritize just a couple weeks to give this diet a chance could be life-giving for anyone. There are several reasons for potentially having a yeast overgrowth, including a compromised immune system, high sugar diet, use of antibiotics and/or steroids.

Raise your hand if you have any of these symptoms:

Symptoms of Candida

• Allergic Reaction: congested nose, hives, headache, dizziness, diarrhea, weakness, cramps,

arthritis, irritability or depression, increased sensitivities to foods or chemicals.

• Gastrointestinal Problems: gas, bloating, abdominal pain, gastritis, gastric ulcer, heartburn,

diarrhea, constipation, spastic colon.

• Respiratory Problems: frequent sore throat, mouth or canker sores, sinus infection, bronchial

infections, chronic cough, asthma.

• Cardiovascular Problems: palpitations, rapid pulse rate. (Candida does not directly affect the

heart but rather the hormones regulating the system.)

• Genitourinary Problems: yeast infections, itching or burning in the vagina or prostate, urinary

burning, frequents urination, lack of bladder control, bed wetting, menstrual cramping, PMS.

• Musculoskeletal Problems: muscle weakness, night leg pains, muscle stiffness (especially neck

and shoulder), slow reaction time, poor coordination, poor motor skills, falling, tendency to drop

things. (Yeast impairs cells from receiving nutrients and eliminating waste and also nerve/muscle

sending patterns.)

• Skin Infection: usually rash type in nature, typically under the breasts, groin area, diaper rash,

hives, etc.

• Central Nervous System Problems: headache, sinus headache, tension headache, migraines, low

blood sugar headaches, rapid blood sugar changes.

• High levels of stress hormones can cause anxiety, irritability, moodiness, restlessness, panic

attacks, sudden anger, sleep disturbances, poor short term memory, inability to concentrate, fuzzy

thinking and confusion.

• Fatigue, which may be caused by impaired metabolism and impaired enzyme production.

Weight gain may result from an overgrowth of yeast that may cause cravings for sugar,

interference with normal hunger, high insulin levels, low metabolism, low energy levels and fatigue.

Are your hands still raised? I can see people driving their cars with their hands all in the air. YES! We all have the symptoms and how many of us get told they are “idiopathic”? Idiopathic is just a big word for “they don’t know”.

e. I was in awe. This was in: 2010

I had such a deep faith, but was so blinded by the chemically based medical and food industry and how serious my own illness was, I believed that plants and diet weren’t good enough for someone as sick as I was. In reality, its what my body was craving and needed the most!

I cannot begin to reiterate the level of pain that I lived in on a daily basis. I had lived in 4 cities with 4 GI doctors, numerous specialists at Mayo Clinic, Houston Medical Center….all the top doctors in their field. Each read my huge chart and I was given speedy access to the best of the best specialists in gastroenterology, rheumatology, hematology. No one could believe how terrible my insides were based on my appearance. (I do count that as a huge blessing). The fact that I could even go half a day without pain management was so perplexing to me, especially coming from a “pain meds for life” doctors visit just weeks earlier. In fact, more details on my visit to Mayo later, but when my husband and I told the GI dr at Mayo how much of a difference we saw in my symptoms when I changed my diet, I kid you not, he scoffed and I quote, “That’s hogwash. There is nothing to prove that diet can relieve any symptom you have.” He was so driven by medical studies (conducted by pharmaceutical companies, no less) that there was no study where enough people were willing to eat perfectly like I was to prove anything I did helped me. {there was also no money to fund a study on eating healthy btw) From that angle, I can understand his perspective, because we are a society of quick fixes and eating like I did was not easy at all. Doctors are driven by statistics and studies and I get that, too. Like I said in my intro to my podcast, I like studies, too, but I also like results. Whether it was proven in a double blind placebo study or not, I had incredible results. Up to that point, every one of my amazing doctors had such compassion for me and for the status of my illness. This guy simply told me he’d place money on me getting to Oregon if I was on the Oregon Trail. Was there a compliment in there?

More than one of my GI doctors said they listened very closely to their Crohn’s patients because Crohns patients can report what they are feeling, where they are feeling it and why they are feeling it with more accuracy than any other patient. When I asked my favorite GI doctor why that was, he explained that because I had strictures (which if you don’t have them, strictures are places thru out my intestines where constant inflammation had turned to scar tissue {think what a callous might do} and that scar tissue caused narrowing in my intestines) I could feel where my food was in the space between eating and excreting shall we say? better than anyone. He was so right. When food hit those narrow spots and my body was trying to push food thru that restricted and painful area or the weight of more food or even worse, the weight of water, on top of that food was a beast. All of that was just one source of pain. Another was from ulcers forming in my stomach and I had ulcers on top of ulcers and more ulcers. One doctor said after one of my scopes that it looked like 100 ulcers had grown and joined together. I had pain/nausea from eating too much, too little or just eating period. Before I knew my ulcers were actually bleeding, I had pain in my bones from the lack of iron in my body, my indication it was time for a blood transfusion. Pain was coming from every direction on top of being tired and a mom to 3 precious little boys. And here I was going a day, then days, week, then weeks and a month with no pain and no pills. This was more than enough to get my attention to start exploring what medicine I was taking that was not working… And what food I was ingesting that was either helping or harming me. And most of all, I wanted to know the why. I am too much of an Anatomy and Physiology lover to not HAVE to understand exactly why anything was or wasn’t helping me. I needed to visualize how things were functioning in there!

Leading up to this diet, I had not shared much about having Crohns with anyone. Not because I was super private, but more so because I didn’t want to worry anyone, who wants to hear about having Crohns Disease? And I had a lot of sheer determination to just be normal. Pride was nothing, as I HAD had my first two surgeries in the same hospital where I worked before I was married…..by the same doctors and med students I worked with on the trauma team, well before HIPPA was a thing. So, my co-workers had seen more of me than I had and even told me they had never seen someone with so much small intestine. Their point being that God knew I needed extra for what was being removed. Somewhat funny, I guess. Is that a pick up line? Kidding. The best and somewhat humiliating story was after my first emergent surgery to give my stomach a second exit hole to empty food as my natural exit was swollen shut. (Had we focused on the root of why my stomach had so much inflammation at that time vs treating the physical inability of food to exit my stomach (ie the symptom of a larger issue), I know I would be in a better place today). BUT, we didn’t know better then. I know my surgeon did the best for me that he knew. He took care of me like his own daughter.

So, When you have any kind of abdominal surgery where your intestines are physically touched, they apparently go to sleep. The colon takes the longest to “wake up” over 3-5 days. The best way to know you are on the path to recovery is if you pass gas. So, I was single, 24 years old, in a hospital room where I had likely treated many of my own patients and some of the surgical med students on my case were my friends outside of the hospital, let alone people I worked with, all male. Of course, their supervising physicians were respected surgeons that actually consulted with ME (the OT Penny) professionally about a patient’s progress after head injury and what direction we should go from ICU and potential for rehab. We had great working relationships. And now, I was suddenly the patient. When I was as young as I was with such a unique illness and surgery, med students tended to flock to my case, no matter what dr I was seeing. It’s not like a diabetic foot sore that they saw 15 times a day. It was Crohns and a relatively uncommon diagnosis at that time, especially for someone so young. So, every morning at the crack of dawn, a posse of doctors, residents and med students paraded into my room with their first question, “Penny, have you farted yet?” As my friends, and doctor/patient relationship grew, they found it so fun to tease me about my waiting to “pass gas” for my colon to decide to wake up. For days, it was always a disappointing “No”. Until one Saturday, I felt it. Albeit tiny, a little movement that I was certain was the tiniest toot of all. But a toot no less. Since it was Saturday, my regular team of drs was not on rotation and a very stiff and awkward resident walked in my room alone. I was so excited to finally report, “I tooted! My intestines are working! I tooted!” The joke it had been all week with the others completely fell flat on this one. Clearly he had no sense of humor and he was somewhat arrogant. He looked at me as though I had just told him the grossest and most inappropriate information and gave me a slow, “Oooookkkkkkk?” He should know better, but I am sure my face fell flat mortified that he had no idea the conversations we had had all week with my team and I just quietly responded, “They had been waiting to hear that to know my colon was awake. Thats all.” He said, “Great” and turned on his heels to leave after poking and prodding on my stomach and checking my feeding tube. Whomp whomp. He also thought my 29 yo sister was my mom (she didn’t like that much) so we just counted him out after that. Sense of humor is a must. Patient, doctor, family. There’s no way to survive this brutality of Crohns without the ability to laugh. Fight the desire to complain, as easy as it would be to do. If I complained every time I hurt, no one could stand to be around me.

I was eventually convicted at one point to be a little more open when friends who did know my history asked if I would talk to a friend or family member who was just diagnosed and talk them thru some questions. When I was diagnosed, I had never heard of Crohns before…and I worked in an Acute Care level 1 trauma hospital. So many people started reaching out to me about helping a loved one with a new diagnosis. I was spending my sacred “nap times” helping others repeating the same information, so I created a blog to be a resource as a place to direct questions. Certain foods I used, recipes, tricks and ultimately, I chronicled this diet. I figured if I could help even one person learn something I had to figure out on my own, I would be thrilled. And I found that the more I shared, the more people needed to hear it. My medical understanding really helped me bridge the gap between the nutrition aspect and healing. Having worked in ICU’s my entire career, I had seen it all. Being so sick, I had felt it all. I had no pride to be lost and I was certainly OK with being an open book if I could help someone on their journey. My only worry was being treated with kid gloves by my friends (my incredible friends that ultimately swooped in and took care of my entire life years later) when I was still thinking I was going to be “normal”. Whatever normal meant. And eventually, normal was not an option.

On day 16 on the Candida Diet, roughly my 2 week mark of the diet, I wrote in the blog, “Three days ago I started getting sick. Sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching...the entire Nyquil commercial. When I reported this to my "coach," she told me this was my body detoxing. She explained that when the body needs to get rid of something, it creates the mucus to expel the bad stuff. Of course, this makes perfect sense, as this is exactly what happens when we get a virus. I was skeptical, because it sure felt like a cold and it was January with 3 dirty little boys in and out of preschool and mothers day out. I was certain they brought home a bug. Then, I opened my trusty Yeast Diet Journal and read "Day 13. A healing crisis will take place, often feeling like a cold or the flu.” I was speechless. Down to the exact DAY. Does that not blow your mind too? We heal according to the most perfectly designed plan….down to the day!

My blog continued, “While I am officially on Day 16 of eating yeast and sugar free, I am now beginning "Day 9" in the book because I had to go back to Phase 1 to kill off more yeast. I tried that first taste of a sweet potato and felt pain instantly and went right back to Day 1 for more Die Off. Day 9 is the first of 3 days of the liquid detox piece. I drink a concoction of 100% pure maple syrup, 100% pure lemon juice and distilled water. It tastes GREAT. The first sweet flavor I have had in 2 weeks and it tastes just like lemonade. It has been a little rough, as many of my old symptoms are rearing their ugly heads as they detox. It's like their last big chance to take me down. “

So crazy that each symptom will give you one more kick in the gut, literally and figuratively, as it dies its last death. THAT my friends is empowering to know that every time I threw up, or felt fluish or in pain during my diet, I knew this time, the little enemies in my body were being starved and good times were around the corner for me. I would not bend. And when I wanted to throw in the towel, my awesome husband quickly stepped in and promised me if I made it to day 45 without quitting, he would buy me that piece of furniture at Lauries I really wanted. He had me at Furniture. I would not quit. If you know The Woodlands, then you know Lauries and you would have done the same thing! I wanted that piece and I got it. I EARNED it. To this day, I am renovating my entire house around that enormous imported cabinet.

“I am extremely exhausted. However, my trusty journal tells me that I am not really exhausted. Really? I sure feel that way. This is the deal. Eating yeast, sugar, and stimulant free are the simplest and most pure way of eating. The things I am allowed to eat are easy to digest, thus allowing all the little ATP's (energy cells) to start working on repairing my body rather than working on digesting all the processed and difficult to digest food. The energy cells are even further relieved when you go on this liquid portion of the diet. My liquid is pure maple syrup for calories/energy, lemon juice to aid in the detox and distilled water. This is officially called the "Detox Phase." All efforts inside my body are in repair mode. Repair. Repair. Repair. My coach told me I could go one or two days more on the liquid if I could stand it just to allow more time for repairing. Ugh. We'll see about that.

I will then put a new food (in a very specific order) back in to my diet each day through day 27. My first food will be a potato and let me tell you how I am salivating over the thought of a baked potato....with a little touch of organic butter. We will wait 24 hours to see if my body has any sort of negative response from the potato...headache, tummy ache, fatigue. Anything. If I am clear after 24 hours, I will get to progress to a new food every 24 hours assuming I have no negative side effects.

Several days later, my blog went on:

“After making it to add cream cheese, unfortunately, this morning, I felt the pains of having a UTI. Oh no! She told me we needed to slow down the detox and she didn't want me adding more food right now. It is possible it was a "Healing Crisis", where she said symptoms actually get worse as it is really getting better. OR, it could be a sign the yeast is still alive. We have to be very careful moving forward.” This was the first time I was being taught to truly listen to my body. If our bodies are giving off signals, like a head ache or nausea, it is TRYING to tell us something. But we are so used to the pop a pill culture to muscle thru whatever the pain is versus taking the time to find out the cause. A headache could be as simple as dehydration. It doesn’t have to be a massive diagnosis. We just have to listen more intently to our bodies and what they are telling us. And for the record, I am still learning to be better at this. It is no easy task in a hurry up and go kind of a world.

WHY?

If you are anything like me, you might want to know, why does this seem to be so much more prevalent now than when our parents and grandparents were young? One reason shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to me, but it did.

is a high sugar diet. In the: 1970

isty of Pennsylvania study in: 2010

You may have heard of Leaky Gut Syndrome or SIBO. These are each related to a Candida Yeast Overgrowth and their relationship with stomach acid either being too high or surprisingly, more so too low. If you have been told you have either Leaky Gut or SIBO, I would HIGHLY recommend doing this diet.

I know the time is getting long, but the more I dive into the relationship with Candida, stomach acids and the gut, the more “ah-hah” moments I have reflecting back on my years and years of disease. While I never could explain all the reasons why, I always have felt that the first emergent surgery I had creating an additional exit hole from my stomach, led to the next surgery and that one to the next and the next. It was a domino effect. The pharma world has already discovered, ‘Hey we actually need acid in our stomach for a reason and have now reversed course on taking a PPI (a drug class of acid reducing drugs I actually sold) and now say instead of “safe indefinitely” recommend only 2-12 weeks of use. Removing portions of my stomach and intestines removed important pieces of my body that provided the needed acid to break down my food or prevent growth of bad bacteria. Our body is incredibly complex and removing multiple pieces of organs or whole organs in my case, certainly led to or will lead to more problems down the road.

I didn’t cover all the reasons behind a potential Candida Overgrowth. All of them include

1-Diet

2-Antibiotics

3-Stress

4-Contraceptive Pill

5-Diabetes

6-Chemicals in your drinking water

7-Mercury Fillings

If any of this piques your interest, I highly recommend getting The Ultimate Candida Diet Program by Lisa Richards. I printed off every single page of it. Oh how I wish I had this 15 years ago! It is so incredibly informative, loaded with great information and makes all of this palatable, even if you don’t love health and wellness and just want the steps spelled out to help you feel better than you do.

A note about the author: Lisa Richards is a nutritionist, published author, and creator of the Candida Diet. She has been researching and writing on Candida overgrowth and the Candida diet for over 20 years. Through her website, she has reached over 20 million people.

Lisa created her Ultimate Candida Diet program, along with Dr Eric Wood, to help people on their journey to better digestive health. Lisa’s program includes a 5-stage process designed to beat a Candida overgrowth with diet, probiotics, and natural antifungals. More than 60,000 people have used the program to improve their gut health.

The link is in the show notes and it provides, history, education, loads of recipes to use safely while on the diet, how to move thru the diet, a shopping list, a symptom tracker to use during the diet and more tips and tricks to help you be successful in combating a yeast overgrowth or at the very least, simply providing your body the ideal opportunity to heal itself from an accumulation of stressors, injuries, surgeries or toxins.

I have done many things to detox my body over many years, but doing the Candida Yeast Diet was truly, the best detox (slash exorcism…learn from my mistakes!) I have ever done. I think everyone should do it at least once. It taught me my most valuable lesson….that my body was indeed created to heal if I just allow it the opportunity to do so. Ill close with one of my favorite scriptures that pointed me toward trusting the garden to heal my body.

Ezekiel: 47:12

Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

If you are curious if you might be at risk for a yeast overgrowth or if any of those symptoms sound familiar to you, you might be interested in starting with a FREE and quick Pen and paper Candida Test. Your results could help confirm or deny if your body potentially has an overgrowth. Find the FREE test in the show notes!

Have a great day every

https://www.ultimatecandidadiet.com/?aff=277