rainy

My heart in a knot
2016-10-25 18:48:49 (UTC)

The gut (candida)

Wow.. I feel like I've been away for ages but it's really only been a few days but in these days a battle has been going on in my gut...


So I wanted to explain this in one entry instead of multiple ones and rambling about a hundred other things. Basically I've been doing more reading and researching about how our gut health effects our physical and mental health. What I've discovered so far is that the gut (and the beneficial bacteria) play an important role in regulating the functions of the brain... but one thing that stands out about this information is that we start building this population of gut bacteria very early on, in fact how we were born plays a big role in what kind of start we get in life. I was disappointed when I read that because I know based on my birth mothers bad habits that she didn't have a good balance of gut health to pass onto me.. I don't know if I was delivered by C-section or not but if I was that would also put me at a disadvantage.


With all the reading I've been doing I discovered what may be the cause of all the symptoms I've been having, but most importantly why they seem to come and go at random. I think I have an overgrowth of candida, everyone has candida but it can overgrow in our guts and lead to a lot of issues including autoimmune disorders. The thing about my symptoms and candida is that I don't have many of the external physical symptoms that I keep reading other people have. My symptoms include really bad fatigue, stomach distention, and brain fog. It may be that I have kept it in check by eating healthy although I was still feeding it..


Basically all the bread, pasta, cheese, sugar, and processed foods I was eating were building up in my gut and I developed an imbalance of good bacteria and possibly developed "leaky gut" as well. All of these years I had been ignoring it thinking that I was just "fat"...which made no sense because I wasn't eating a lot of high fat foods.. but I was eating lots of bread, pasta and sugars (even sugars in the form of fruit aren't good in high amounts), all these years I was thinking my diet was perfect because I had cut out so much but in cutting out so much I ended up over doing it on these other foods. But that's not the only cause.. at least I don't think so, I think the metals in my mouth also play a role as I've been reading that they also can cause imbalances in the gut.

I don't want to get too technical but about a week ago I set off to get all the things I've been reading about so that I can help rebuild my gut (and hopefully flatten my stomach and get my energy back). I didn't want to spend money from my savings but I felt I had to.. my health is so important. So I went to whole foods and I got the following: Vitamin C, Digestive Enzymes, Magnesium citrate, Vitamin B12, Zinc and Probiotics. The thing about supplements is that I don't want my body to become too dependent on them so I take what I feel like I need... but I have to say that I am already starting to feel better and I wish I had done this last year BEFORE taking my last job and who knows maybe I wouldn't of had such a miserable time there. I will say that I think the probiotics are doing the best job, I take the supplements which have 4 strains and I take a product called Kefir which has 12 strains. I don't know how much of them are surviving but I do think that my gut is slowly starting to recover and that they are starting to repopulate (the good bacteria).


But I will tell you the real reason I wasn't writing was because I got sick... and when I did some research I found out that people can experience something called "candida die-off", the best way to explain it is straight from the website about candida: "When yeast cells are rapidly killed, a die-off (or Herxheimer reaction) occurs and metabolic by-products are released into the body. The Candida yeast cells actually release 79 different toxins when they die, including ethanol and acetaldehyde." I don't know if that is what was happening to me or if my body was just in shock with introducing the probiotics but I felt miserable and I was sleeping up to 12-14 hours a day, I did get a slight headache but it felt like something good was going on..basically I think I was getting sick so that I could start to feel better. Today is actually the first day since I started taking the supplements that I am starting to feel back to my old self.


As far as my current diet I am trying to stick to it but it's difficult.. one of the die off symptoms are cravings. So far I've cut out bread, rice, fruit, sugars, pasta, nuts, cheese, potatoes...and a really long list of stuff.. in fact it would be a much shorter list of foods I am eating which are Kale, spinach, green vegetables that don't have lots of sugar, Kefir, chicken, grass fed beef.. and a few other things I can't remember that are healthy. Basically it's mostly raw foods that don't have a lot of sugar.. I had been making a few mistakes the past week and was eating things I thought I could have but the sugar content was too high.


As of right now I don't know how long I'm going to be sticking to the diet or when I'm going to be able to reintroduce my old foods back into my diet... I guess my body will tell me when it's time, I make sure to look for little signs and changes in my hair, skin and nails... as well as my tongue and throughout my body. I can already tell that my body has been responding positively to the supplements.


The thing I want to mention though about the "candida" or just stomach fat.. is that the reason why for so many years I thought this was normal is because it seems everyone has it.. I mean in America anyway. If you go to any public place you will find lots of people with huge stomachs and not all of them are overweight.. actually the more I paid attention to it the more I noticed it's not just adults but even some kids, I'm not saying it's candida, but I think more people should look into the gut-brain connection.. I'm still reading about it myself, I'm actually going to the library tomorrow to pick up another book that I requested, this book is more recent and up to date so I can't wait to read it.


Right now I'm restoring my gut flora, but I will still need to get to the root cause and one of the other things I've been reading is about how stress and cortisol can deteriorate the lining of the gut walls as well as disrupt the production of good bacteria... and I'm a very stressed person which may explain why I got so sick right before I left my job, the stress had gotten so bad and I wasn't treating it..


BTW.. I'll also say this.. I'm very glad that I decided to pick up a few books and do my own research before going to a doctor, mostly because the doctor likely wouldn't of tried to find the root cause, they are not really trained to do that, they likely would of just given me some antidepressant pills and told me to take some stomach antacids and sent me on my way without addressing the cause of my symptoms... you really have to be your own doctor and your own advocate in my opinion. I feel fortunate to be able to have access to something like the library and the internet so I can work on fixing the problem myself first. But I won't lie... there is a lot of information out there and not all of it is true, it can be very difficult to find what is real and what is fake. I do feel like I made the right supplement decision however I will be sure not to over do any of them because I want my body to be able to heal itself... but right now it just needs a little extra help.

Well I think I mentioned everything I can think of for now...I didn't get too technical because I would rather be general than to put the wrong information out there. Plus this is still a learning process for me, the human body is so complex... if anything I'm just really happy that I'm sticking to my goal of working on my health for the remainder of this year and beyond... I want to get to a point where I no longer have off-days that I can't seem to function.





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