Candida

crumbschief

Just thought i'd ask as i have some problems that won't go and they get in the way of cycling.

Anyone else have any experience of this sort of problem or similar and continue to cycle?
Unexplained lack of energy,cant lose weight etc?

thanks

jamm13dodger

Underactive Thyroid? Go see your GP and ask for a blood test.

Rob

plowmar

First girlfriend she was. :twisted:

Ands

Have you been diagnosed with candida or are you just researching it? It is widely implicated in the onset of ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, but even if you are not at that level, it causes numerous problems.

What other symptoms do you have? e.g. any sudden food intolerances, muscle pains, brain fog? What sort of fatigue? Do you wake up feeling like you haven't slept, or do you ride, feel ok and then get fatigue/pain a couple of days later?

StillGoing

SImilarly suffer with the problem and I put it down to far too much yeast intake over the years along with antibiotics. I'm currently taking Acidophilus Plus as all probiotics seem to be dairy based. I'm also keeping away from dairy products, bread, pasta and mushrooms because of yeast content. I'm told I should see an improvement within a month or so.

Ands

philthy3 wrote:

SImilarly suffer with the problem and I put it down to far too much yeast intake over the years along with antibiotics. I'm currently taking Acidophilus Plus as all probiotics seem to be dairy based. I'm also keeping away from dairy products, bread, pasta and mushrooms because of yeast content. I'm told I should see an improvement within a month or so.

Have you been told to have a very low sugar diet as well? The yeast in your body thrives on sugar so cutting out sugar starves the yeast of its food source. A candida diet would exclude all sugars initially , including fresh fruit, artificial sugars, refined sugars and simple carbs.

crumbschief

Ands wrote:

Have you been diagnosed with candida or are you just researching it? It is widely implicated in the onset of ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, but even if you are not at that level, it causes numerous problems.

What other symptoms do you have? e.g. any sudden food intolerances, muscle pains, brain fog? What sort of fatigue? Do you wake up feeling like you haven't slept, or do you ride, feel ok and then get fatigue/pain a couple of days later?

Been researching and trying different things for years,seen the doc a few times but he usually just shrugs,had all the blood works etc,nothing found,all normal.I think i need to go for a specific test to find out for sure.

The reason i haven't so far is the evidence does not add up or make sense so i am only guessing it's candida based,most of it is random,i get reactions to bread when i have it sometimes or sugar,then some days i can have it and feel fine.

Same with cycling,untill i go out i never really know how far i can go on that day,i just go out out push and hope for the best,sometimes i manage 50+ sometimes i am at 5 miles and turn back drained,Frustrating.

I sleep about 4-6 hours most nights,that's been the norm for me for years.

crumbschief

philthy3 wrote:

SImilarly suffer with the problem and I put it down to far too much yeast intake over the years along with antibiotics. I'm currently taking Acidophilus Plus as all probiotics seem to be dairy based. I'm also keeping away from dairy products, bread, pasta and mushrooms because of yeast content. I'm told I should see an improvement within a month or so.

I have read of this type of thing after using antibiotics if their immune system is already low,i hope what you are doing is enough to get you sorted,let me know how you get on and what effects.

I have not had antibiotics for over 30 years but my trouble started about 10 years ago at a real low point in my life and i have been dealing with it ever since.

A good thing to do if you remember is to keep a food diary,and then you can compare over time,it's what i have done for the last 3 months,i also did it with calorie intake to monitor that also.

mrushton

My partner suffered with this quite spectacularly some years back. A combination of stress, poor diet, overtraining/riding. Basically she was severely fatigued, bad headaches, tired on rides, cold all the time. A surgeon I spoke to (he worked on footballers ligaments) suggested a nutritionist. We found one and had a test for Candida which came back incredibly high.
Anyway, headaches were caused by sugar being turned into alcohol by the yeast and were hangovers and the candida was just absorbing all the food energy. She had to go on a diet of cutting out a lot of fruit to cut the sugars, no bread etc for a few months. The diet worked and stuff like pmt, water retention went as well. You need to poss. speak to a nutritionist and see what might need cutting back or out. Stress can be a big factor in this as well.

crumbschief

After rereading the posts i noticed Ands said - do you ride, feel ok and then get fatigue/pain a couple of days later?

Well yes i do and it has been worse in the last year,time to try and have a chat with the Doc i think,i have not seen him in a long time as i tend to just try and get on with things.

Captain Fagor

Earlier this year, I was having my annual "spring clean out" i.e. a course of colonic irrigation. On my first session, everything was normal.

Then I fell ill with viral symptoms, which lasted several weeks and my trigger happy GP put me on antibiotics. Three weeks after foolishly completing the antibiotics course (my first in perhaps three years), I was back for another colonic.

The nurse immediately asked if I had had antibiotics, as I was riddled with candida. Lots of white stuff in amongst what you'd expect to see. I've since taken probiotics (really expensive ones, 75 billion efforts costing nearly £2 a pop). I've also tried to minimise sugar intake, including on bike rides. Seems to be working - the white stuff comes and goes, but it's not as bad as it was.

Doesn't seem to be affecting my cycling too much, but I certainly still have the "brain fog".

StillGoing

I hadn't been told about the fruit? Guess they're trying to balance a healthy diet with cutting out the roughage. The diet I have is bloody boring to say the least. In fact the capsules are the most interesting part of my digestive intake at the moment.

Seanos

Just be aware that the word 'nutritionist' isn't a protected title and anyone can call themselves one. There are thousands of quacks out there making money off people with hard to diagnose and hard to treat illnesses, so I'd try and get a referral from your GP to a dietician (that is a protected title) or a specialist.

All the best

Ands

crumbschief wrote:

After rereading the posts i noticed Ands said - do you ride, feel ok and then get fatigue/pain a couple of days later?

Well yes i do and it has been worse in the last year,time to try and have a chat with the Doc i think,i have not seen him in a long time as i tend to just try and get on with things.

4-6 hrs sleep a night doesn't sound sustainable - why do you only sleep that much? Is it stress or anxiety or other? If you have had blood tests then you might find your doc is a little vague on what else to try as fatigue is a factor in so many conditions. However, there will be a root cause and it's probably up to you to try to find it, or at least to lead the doctor to what you belive may be the cause or worth testing for (I don't in any way mean this disrespectfully to GPs). Candida is a good theory but a true candida diet is very very restrictive and hard to follow - so try and get tested before embarking on something that is so hard to follow.

You've obviously done some research to get this far, but a couple of things worth looking up are adrenal fatigue/adrenal exhaustion, CFS,. http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/ is a good website, as is http://www.me-cfs-treatment.com/intro.html . (Not trying to alarm you with the CFS links but a lot of the symmptoms you have relate to (or are common to) chronic fatigue, post-viral fatigue, etc and on those websites you will get some good info on managing symptoms, diet, stress, etc.
Hope this helps

Seanos

Given that the content of Dr Myhill's website was one of the complaints that led to the GMC banning her from prescribing drugs, I'd go and see your GP rather than rely on websites for advice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8650048.stm
http://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/94699 ... y-gmc.aspx
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/?p=3743

Ands

Seanos wrote:

Given that the content of Dr Myhill's website was one of the complaints that led to the GMC banning her from prescribing drugs, I'd go and see your GP rather than rely on websites for advice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8650048.stm
http://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/94699 ... y-gmc.aspx
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/?p=3743

I will stick my neck out here and say that Dr Myhill knows more about CFS than your average GP.

I am aware of the background and I think you need to differentiate between what she knows and what she was convicted of. The information provided on the website with regard to fatigue, cfs, diet, etc is no different to what you will find on a host of other CFS, fatigue, post viral fatigue, websites. Any sensible adult will be able to research and make a judgement as to whether the information is useful and worth pursuing or not. If you have ever suffered from CFS (have you?) you will understand .

A lot of fatigue sufferers have been dismissed by the medical profession without any assistance regarding what may be the cause of the problem, or misdiagnosed and unneccesarily put on medication (e.g.SSRIs), when in fact the underlying causes might actually be obvious and easier to manage if caught sooner rather than later. .

My advice to the OP - read the websites, make your own mind up, validate the advice/information. (Oh, and don't accept a prescription from Dr Myhill )

Seanos

Quite a good wiki on candida:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_%28fungus%29

Seanos

Ands wrote:

I will stick my neck out here and say that Dr Myhill knows more about CFS than your average GP.

And I'll respecfully argue that a GP is not expected to be a specialist in CFS but can refer you to a consultant virologist or immunologist who will know more than Myhill, is available for free on the NHS and is very unlikely to have been censured by the GMC for having dodgy information on their website.

Ands wrote:

(Oh, and don't accept a prescription from Dr Myhill )

Good advice - and don't order your own drugs off the internet either!

crumbschief

Ands wrote:

4-6 hrs sleep a night doesn't sound sustainable - why do you only sleep that much? Is it stress or anxiety or other? If you have had blood tests then you might find your doc is a little vague on what else to try as fatigue is a factor in so many conditions. However, there will be a root cause and it's probably up to you to try to find it, or at least to lead the doctor to what you belive may be the cause or worth testing for (I don't in any way mean this disrespectfully to GPs). Candida is a good theory but a true candida diet is very very restrictive and hard to follow - so try and get tested before embarking on something that is so hard to follow.

You've obviously done some research to get this far, but a couple of things worth looking up are adrenal fatigue/adrenal exhaustion, CFS,. http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/ is a good website, as is http://www.me-cfs-treatment.com/intro.html . (Not trying to alarm you with the CFS links but a lot of the symmptoms you have relate to (or are common to) chronic fatigue, post-viral fatigue, etc and on those websites you will get some good info on managing symptoms, diet, stress, etc.
Hope this helps

Thanks for that,The sleep thing has been going on for years and
i don't know why,i might ache a bit on waking but i'm calm and i don't feel tired,
10 years ago it would have been the anxiety and depression but not now.

Yes the Candida diet is very hard,i have tried it twice and i only lasted for 6 weeks
I stuck to it strictly but apart from weight loss i saw few positive changes within me over that time
but i saw alot of negative and so for my health i stopped.

I shall get tested as soon as i can,if the food reactions had been
more consistent and made sense i would have done that sooner.

Seanos

crumbschief - I'd persist with your GP, your symptoms might be indicative of an underlying problem which a nutritionist or alternative therapist is unlikely to pick up.

Also, there's little to no evidence that candida causes the symptoms that alternative therapists claim it does:

Many practitioners of alternative medicine use the term Candida to refer to a complex with broad spectrum of symptoms, the majority of which center around gastrointestinal distress, rashes, sore gums and other miscellaneous symptoms. Candida is accorded responsibility for symptoms as specific as hay fever, as vague as "brain fog" and as common as weight gain or flatulence. These symptoms are attributed by some alternative medicine practitioners to the "overgrowth" of intestinal candida albicans, which they claim leads to the spread of the yeast to other parts of the body via the digestive tract and bloodstream.[14]

Use of the term Candida in alternative medicine to describe this complex is unassociated with its use in clinical medicine to refer to the fungus that causes vaginal yeast infections and thrush.[7][8] This can be confusing for patients. No studies have proved that having intestinal candidiasis causes any symptoms of illness.[7][8]

To treat what they refer to as Candida, some alternative medicine practitioners have recommended avoiding antibiotics, birth control pills, and foods that are high in sugar or yeast, ostensibly to "eliminate excess yeast" in the body. However, there is little clinically valid evidence that these "candida cleanse" treatments treat intestinal candidiasis effectively, or cure any of the symptoms claimed by the proponents of the hypothesis.[7][8]

crumbschief

Seanos wrote:

crumbschief - I'd persist with your GP, your symptoms might be indicative of an underlying problem which a nutritionist or alternative therapist is unlikely to pick up.

Possible yes,i have been doing this a long time and will try to explore further,it does get tiresome though.I will be seeing him soon or another GP to see what they say this time,if i get nowhere again i will have to go private for testing.

Getting to see a specialist has been difficult via my Gp as once he had the results of the bloodwork etc showing all normal,he didn't feel the need to further investigate even though i thought he should.

Mettan

crumbschief wrote:

Seanos wrote:

crumbschief - I'd persist with your GP, your symptoms might be indicative of an underlying problem which a nutritionist or alternative therapist is unlikely to pick up.

Possible yes,i have been doing this a long time and will try to explore further,it does get tiresome though.I will be seeing him soon or another GP to see what they say this time,if i get nowhere again i will have to go private for testing.

Getting to see a specialist has been difficult via my Gp as once he had the results of the bloodwork etc showing all normal,he didn't feel the need to further investigate even though i thought he should.

Make sure he checks your thyroid function - (can't remember whether they do that by default with blood tests) - worth a look.

da goose

Been there done that ....
Firstly it is a really bad point in your life particularly if you are an active sports person.

Others have indicated already, you need to step back and look at lifestyle etc.
Minimal sleep work stress family issues etc all take there toll. At some point or another the body will give up.

I had chronic fatigue it was a censored , and still gives me a warning shot now and again today.
It is really frustrating getting medical help, but keep trying its out there.

Meantime cut back on any physical training, make an effort to find quality time to chill out.
Modify diet, I gave up the yeast bread some fruits and had a very bland diet for a bit.
The probiotics mentioned (quality stuff) is worthwhile also avoid caffeine/alcohol if possible.


Believe me you will recover and whilst I find I can`t train hard like I used to, I feel so much better for it. Just look at the pro cyclist they are pretty much always ill, and thats with the best medical/physio help available.........tells you something.
The best description put your finger near the flame...but don`t get burnt.......exactly.

Best wishes for your speedy recovery.

crumbschief

Thanks for the replies,it is helpful to get other opinions,i should see the doc today and see what he says and then i shall go from there.

term1te

Somewhat bizarrely, the toothpaste I use is called Candida, I'd never spotted the connection before, but may choose a different brand from now on. http://www.mibelle.ch/de/migrosmarken/candida-index.php