Help! Candida or lyme?

I'm so sorry that you have gone through so much, Lyme sufferer. I'm not sure what you are actually dealing with, but it does make sense to go after Candida using many modalities to ensure that you no longer are dealing with it when you are done. Then be sure to protect your intestinal health at all costs from that point forward.

A few weeks of good solid treatment for Candida and other yeasts/fungal issues will tell you a lot and just because you aren't in treatment for Lyme during that time won't hurt your chances at healing from Lyme really.

I assume you have checked for leaky gut and other possible intestinal issues already and ruled them out?

Anyway, those are just some thoughts and this will serve to bump your thread back up where it will get more views.

I experienced similar symptoms after 5+ months of abx. I think it is a combination of:
- your immune system going crazy because all the pieces of dead lyme spirochetes from all those months of treatment, are hyper-stimulating it
- fungal overgrowth
- severe deficiency all sorts of important nutrients - L- amino acids specifically are important in gut repair.

For your gut, try coconut butter or oil, it will lower your candida and will calm intestinal inflammation. For me this is the one thing that has restored my gut health to normal, but it took several months.

Before this i used to take tons of antifungals like nystatin, caprylic acid, etc... i had a special anti candida supplement with 10-12 natural antinfungals, etc... completely useless. I guess it all comes down to quantity, if you eat 2 ounces of coconut butter per day, that is dozens of times higher quantity than all the other antifungals combined in one or two pills you take per day, so doing that for weeks/months will make your gut inhospitable to fungi. That butter/oil is also easy to digest and provides much needed healthy fats.

It's a good idea to continue with some herbs from Buhner, at least the core ones in lower dosage at the beginning. You can take them with food until your gut becomes healthier. After i have quit ABX i felt horrible. I started to take Cat's claw, Japanese Knotweed, Reishi and Maitake mushrooms. It was not easy but i got used to it. Then i switched to a more complex protocol.

It is really important to take some immune stimulating herbs right now (like the ones i mentioned above), antibiotics are immune suppressive, so when you stop taking them your immune system is temporarily in worse shape than before, that's why it is really easy to relapse.

Also consider taking CoQ10 (mitochondrial support) and some L- amino acids (L-arginine, L-glutamine etc...) to restore your gut health faster.

** A word of warning for those that don't already know. L-arginine can make symptoms of EBV/Chronic Fatigue worse. If you are already experiencing these things, please do not use L-arginine. Also, Buhner suggests: " If you have active herpes, chicken pox, or shingles DO NOT USE L-arginine."
buhnerhealinglyme.com/co-infections/at-ropes-end-severe-neuro-lyme-or-bart/

Lyme sufferer, Sounds like there is a good chance your damaged your gut flora with all the antibiotics at this point, so leaky gut wouldn't be surprising. And leaky gut can cause significant immune issues so maybe you've been dealing with it longer. My daughter fully recovered from severe chronic fatigue and other symptoms four years ago by healing her gut. She is sick again and the key question is, is it lyme or SIBO/leaky gut, or both. Good luck!

Hello Lymesufferer,

I didn't see you mention diet in your post so here is my offering on that.

When I first visited my LLMD he diagnosed me as 'crawling with candida'. He put me on diflucan and told me to cut out sugar, dairy and wheat. He uses a Zyto scanner which some think is nonsense but I did have a food allergy test which confirmed the candida issue, but I digress.

So, both my husband and myself went on Dr. Amy Myer's autoimmune protocol eating plan for 30 days last June.

I felt better, MUCH better within the first week and my husbands discoid lupus of 20+ years began to clear up which amazed us both as nothing ever helped with that. He also has not had one kidney stone since doing that gut healing eating plan.

There are more way to do it other than hers, but she explains things related to gut health in a very easy to understand way and has suggestions for meals and recipes. If you like to cook at all it's easy although you will spend more time in the kitchen.

Also, fermented foods has been a real help with the candida issue which my MD supports. He says if I can flood my system with fermented, pro and pre-biotic foods it serves to crowd out the candida. I try to eat at least one serving of something fermented every day. As a result of these things I feel that the candida is definitely in check, although my experiments with some desserts told me that it's still present in my body.

Here is a link to Dr. Myers website if you want to check out her program:

http://www.amymyersmd.com/

Lots of Candida posts here in the last month, a lot of info if you use the search bar under "join healing well" - it only searches this site, its great.

L-Glutamine is one of the best supps for healing leaky gut, cheap too. Magnessium at night is great for the gut, but only mag that ends in "ate" - not the cheap stuff.

My body is still getting back to normal from candida eradication (only diflican worked) late summer. This is the first winter in a long time I'm not itchy all over!

Lyme sufferer said...
Tillybear thanks for the tips. I have multiple allergies so my diet is very strict. Gluten, dairy, and sugar free among many others. I do have sugar cravings and i do eat and apple and a handful of raisins daily which i just cut out 2 days ago (which is tough) also is pistachios. My diet msinly consists of chicken, turkey, veggies, avacados, rice, quinoa and nuts.

What fermented foods do you eat? I am always afraid to try new things as i am so sensitive. I do not eat anything fermented. I also do lemon water snd alka selzer gold daily. I will check out that link.

Thanks

You should try goat milk kefir. It has several things that will help your gut:

- contains fungi that eat candida and are benign, they don't turn into the monster candida becomes when out of control.
- contains lots of bacteria/probiotics
- contains Calcium - that's really important in your diet since you are not eating any (other) dairy
- goat milk contains capric (C10), caprylic, and caproic (C6) acids. These acids make a total of 15% of the goat milk. Yes these are all named after "goat" because that's where they were first found, in goat milk. The scientific name of this animal is "Capra aegagrus hircus". /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprylic_acid. These acids are deadly to candida, you probably know that already.
- it is awesome because you can add quiona, all sorts of berries, buckwheat, a bit of banana, etc and have an extra meal for the day

Thanks Traveler; I've read 'New to Lyme...start here' top to bottom...by far the best source of quality information I've found so far!

Tillybear said...

Coconut oil has caprylic acid, too if I remember right.

yes it does.

You may have to make your own as I did. I'm super rural as well (no Kroger either!!), but look around to see if you can find someone that is selling raw goat milk. You can buy kefir grains and make your own kefir and yogurt that will help heal your intestines.

Awesome Tillybear. I will have to see if i can get my hands on goatsmilk. Im interested in trying. Will let you know if i find some. Thanks!