Hi A_Anne -
You are very smart to refocus on yeast/fungal overgrowth. Without getting this under control, you run a high risk of allowing it to not only create damage to your GI, but overgrowth can cause some of the same sx as Lyme & Co, which can create a lot of confusion in your protocol sucking up time and money.
Also, unmitigated y/f overgrowth can also overburden your immune system when you need all of its resources to heal from Lyme & Co. Additionally, y/f can damage the mucosal lining of the GI and this can also disrupt immune function, proper digestion.
On top of all that, the damage to the mucosal lining from holes that the yeast/fungus literally drills into the tissue can allow fecal matter, toxins, undigested foods and other pathogens to seep into the bloodstream. This is called "leaky gut" and can result in allergies or sensitivities to nearly everything you eat - when the immune system starts reacting to "food particles" as foreign objects. This can become a nightmare to solve...
I have addressed severe yeast/fungal overgrowth successfully and lived to tell about
it.
The thread goshawk mentioned is here - it's long and very detailed but fully resolving a yeast/fungal overgrowth issue is a complicated problem so there's a lot to consider. Please let us know if you have any questions - many of us here have "been there, done that".
Y/FO post in the "New to Lyme?" thread:
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=1606610&g=3644275#m3644275First and foremost, you will absolutely need to eliminate sugars from your diet. This also means simple carbs (white stuff like white rice, white flowers, white potatoes, etc). This is HARD, especially if you continue to have sugar or carb cravings. But the cravings are also a sign that you still have yeast/fungal issues in the GI demanding more sugar to survive. In order to eliminate the y/f overgrowth, you'll have to eliminate the food source as well as kill off the overgrowth.
Along with a very strict diet, you'll probably need to continue on the Nystatin and diflucan and the longer you take them AND eat sugar, you're allowing the yeast/fungus to build resistance to the antifungal medications, which can be a little dangerous because they'll stop working. Hopefully, that hasn't already happened.
Once you have achieved a fully strict diet, you might experience some die off, which isn't fun and can produce symptoms even worse than the y/f overgrowth, although it will be short-lived. But you'll also need the antifungal Rx to kill the overgrowth, if you don't kill the overgrowth it will also learn to survive on other foods... and that can be really difficult to manage.
So, you need BOTH a very strict diet AND to really hit the y/f hard with the antifungal meds.
ALSO... gut binders will be essential to remove what you're killing and to manage die off a little better. Once I reached a healthier balance, I noticed that I was able to rely on the GI binders instead of antifungals to maintain balance. The binders also help with Lyme & CO treatment obviously, and have also helped my GI be more regular.
Y/f overgrowth generally originates in the gut, since we take our medications (abx) orally and of course, that's where the sugary foods go. And the overgrowth can grow up your throat and into your head and out of your orifices. This is how people with overgrowth in the GI can also develop skin issues, eye and ear issues, white/yellow coated tongue and thrush. I once had y/f growing out of my bellybutton. So it's very common for your skin issues to be simply y/f. You'll have to address the overgrowth in your GI in order to address any other secondary growth issue.
Hope that's helpful. GENERALLY, with overgrowth as significant as yours, the natural antifungals aren't going to be as effective - they are best used for management of balance after you've successfully dealt with your overgrowth - and prevention.
Hope that's helpful!
-p
Post Edited (Pirouette) : 10/9/2017 9:25:57 PM (GMT-6)