10 Signs You Have Candida and How to Eliminate it.
Candida is one of the most common conditions I see in my clients, especially those with digestive issues. Candida is commonly the root cause of many people’s digestive issues, fatigue, brain fog, skin conditions, mood swings and many more.
So, what is Candida I hear you ask!
Candida is a yeast that lives in small amounts in our digestive tract, its main job is to support digestion and nutrient absorption. However, when it becomes overgrown throughout the digestive tract it can start to cause a wide range of different health issues. Typically, the healthy bacteria in your digestive tract will keep the candida balanced, however there are factors that can impact our healthy bacteria causing an imbalance and allowing the candida to proliferate causing leaky gut.
The top five factors that cause Candida:
1. Medications: Anti-biotics, Pain Medications, Contraceptive Pill, Immune Suppressants
2. Stress
3. Alcohol
4. A diet high in sugar and processed carbohydrates
5. Weakened Immune System
Candida is very good at protecting itself, so it can continue to grow in even the harshest conditions and once it starts to penetrate your intestinal lining it causes your gut to become leaky allowing undigested food particles to leak into your blood stream. This triggers an inflammatory response and your body begins to try and fight off these foreign invaders. Over time this can lead to an auto-immune disease.
10 Common Candida Symptoms:
1. Skin Conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, hives and rashes
2. Digestive Issues, such as bloating, gas, constipation and diarrhoea.
3. Multiple food intolerances
4. Reoccurring fungal infections such as thrush, or nail infections.
5. Hay fever
6. Carbohydrate or sugar cravings
7. Mood swings, anxiety, depression
8. Autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, hashimoto’s, lupus
9. Difficultly concentrating, poor memory, lack of focus, or brain fog
10. Extreme fatigue, fibromyalgia, or feeling run down.
Testing can be performed in order to identify if Candida is the culprit. Once identified, by the following steps you can begin to treat the candida, repair your gut and restore your gut flora.
1. Starve the Candida by removing all foods from your diet that it feeds on. This means cutting out all sugars and alcohol and limiting your carbohydrate consumption including high sugar fruits and starchy carbohydrates.
2. Attack the candida and break it off at the roots and destroying the cell walls. This can be done by using antifungal herbal supplements that include Pau d'Arco, Barberry, Wormwood, Garlic, Grapefruit seed extract, Thyme Oil, and Rosemary. In order to find the right supplement for you its best to work with a qualified practitioner.
3. Rebalance your gut; now that you have successfully treated the candida it’s time to rebalance your microbiome with a high potency probiotic.
I recommend that you follow this treatment plan for 30 days in order to successfully treat your candida symptoms.
Candida can be tricky to identify so if you’d like more information on how to test for candida and successfully treat this condition then please feel free to contact me at naturopathy@kyliesartori.com.au for more information.
