Candida

[heatherjane]

How do you know for sure if you are suffering from candida issues? Are there specific symptoms? Is there a way to test for overgrowth?

[Gfresh404]

How do you know for sure if you are suffering from candida issues? Are there specific symptoms? Is there a way to test for overgrowth?

The only sure fire way to know, I think, is if you have Thrush, which is Candida of the mouth. The symptoms are too broad and varied and as far as I know, they can do a stool culture test but I have heard that Candida is already present in out GI tract so the tests are very unreliable anyhow.

[AliB]

If you have any fungal infestation of any kind that will indicate that your body is a 'yeast-factory', Candida or otherwise.

Symptoms include Thrush (oral and/or vaginal - both of which can indicate systemic Candida throughout the gut), athlete's foot, fungal nail bed infections, dandruff and an itchy scalp, itchy dark skin lesions -especially in the folds of the skin, and the related charmingly-named 'jock-itch'.

There is something called the 'spit test'. If you spit first thing in the morning into a glass of water if the spit is clear then generally so are you. Any white 'strands' that sink into the water may well be an indication that it is in your mouth and throat.

The important thing in the eradication of Candida and its ilk is to make the body an unwelcoming host. There are preparations like Nystatin and Fluconazole but in my experience if you do not change your diet, its environment, it will just regroup and come back with a vengeance.

I have been following a diet to help my damaged digestion heal but an added side effect of that is that the Candida is on its way out and I have little evidence of it now after a year. To not have to wash my hair every other day due to the dandruff and itchy scalp I have had for years is such a revelation! I don't want it coming back so will not be resuming the damaging 'Western' diet ever again.