THE ANTI-CANDIDA FOUR-POINT PLAN

Be prepared in the first few weeks on Parts 1 and 2 of the Four-Point Plan that you might feel worse rather than better! This is because when candida is destroyed it releases even more toxins than when it is alive. It can be very unpleasant because it can feel like a flare-up of any of your old symptoms, or it might give rise to flu-type aches and pains and depression. The increased symptoms caused by these extra toxins are known as Herxheimer's reaction, or 'die-off'. However, at the end of the first month, most people are through this initial die-off reaction and can report that they feel better than they have for years!  Even so, they need to understand that this is just the beginning and they still have a long way to go before they can be fully free of candida.

PART 1. DIET

In order to allow time for the initial die-off symptoms to settle, you should follow the diet and your personal supplement programme for at least a month before you start taking antifungal supplements (to kill the candida) and Bio-Acidophilus (to increase the beneficial bacteria in the colon). The diet excludes anything which encourages yeast to thrive, and it cannot be stressed too strongly that it is absolutely crucial to keep strictly to the recommended anti-candida diet whilst you follow the rest of the programme. Not to do so means you are wasting your time and money! Even the slightest deviation ('It was only a small piece of fruit... glass of wine ... piece of chocolate ....!'), however small, however seldom, is still too much and will result in a setback because the overgrowth of yeast in your intestines has just been given a picnic! A craving for sweet things is a symptom of candidiasis but, if you have a real problem with craving, it is possibly because you have low blood sugar or an addiction to sugar, both of which situations can be expected to improve as you take your tailor-made supplement programme and faithfully keep to the diet. Sometimes an amino acid supplement called L-Glutamine can help to control a really strong craving for sweet foods. Once you've got going on the diet, the cravings will gradually decrease.

PART 2. PERSONAL SUPPLEMENT PROGRAMME

Just as important as the diet is the need to boost the efficiency of your immune system, using food supplements at levels which have been recommended to meet your personal optimum daily requirement. These levels of vitamins and minerals have been calculated by analysing the symptoms in your on-line questionnaire. The supplements you are advised to take are at therapeutic levels, and a review of the situation after three months will frequently show that many of the symptoms of nutritional deficiency have been overcome in that time. The supplement programme can then be reduced, and will eventually reach just maintenance levels when all your symptoms have gone away! Your recommended programme of supplements should be started at the same time as the diet, usually a month before Parts 3 and 4 of the Four-Point Plan.  Some people try to skip this second part of the plan, but it really is as essential as the other three parts.

PART 3. ANTIFUNGAL SUPPLEMENTS

At the end of a month on the anti-candida diet and recommended supplement programme, you will hopefully feel ready to start on Parts 3 and 4 of the Four-Point Plan. Very often, the first antifungal supplement to be recommended is Mycopryl, which contains caprylic acid, a natural fatty acid product derived from coconuts. There are other types which might be advised for specific reasons, but Mycopryl is useful because it destroys candida in the gut, and has the advantage of being made in three strengths, with capsules containing 250mg, 400mg, and 680mg. The 250mg capsule is used mainly for children, but also for some adults who react strongly to any type of antifungal supplementation. The usual way in which we advise taking Mycopryl is to start with the 400mg strength, taking just one capsule daily and gradually building up to six daily (two with each meal). The word 'gradually' is extremely important, because if too much yeast is destroyed too quickly, it will release a great many toxins into the body, resulting in unpleasant die-off reaction. Quite often this will happen before even starting antifungal supplements, because the diet is starving candida to death and the vitamins and minerals are boosting the immune system to fight more strongly. This is the main reason why you need to wait at least a month before introducing Parts 3 and 4 of the Four Point Plan.

Once you start taking antifungal supplements, the die-off effect can largely be avoided if the level of Mycopryl is regulated carefully. If, after five days on one capsule, you are not experiencing any unpleasant die-off symptoms, it is safe to increase to two capsules daily, taking one at breakfast and one at supper. After another five days, this can be increased to three capsules daily, taking one at each meal - and so on, until eventually you are taking two at each meal, i.e., six capsules daily. At some stage you might find that you get a sudden surge of die-off symptoms. If so, you certainly should not increase the level of Mycopryl after five days, and you might even need to decrease it for a few days. This will give your body a chance to eliminate the toxins which have accumulated from dead yeast and which are making you feel extra ill. If die-off symptoms become very unpleasant (possibly due to ignoring the advice not to increase if die-off symptoms are present!) it might be necessary to have a complete break from antifungals; it can sometimes take a full month for the body to offload a backlog of toxins so that die-off symptoms disappear. You can begin to increase the level once more when you are feeling on more of an even keel.

When you have eventually been taking six capsules daily for about a month without any die-off reaction - but still know that there is some remaining candida to be brought under control – it is wise to consider changing to a different antifungal supplement – either to a stronger strength of the same substance (e.g. Mycopryl 680), or to totally a different supplement, possibly one which is more easily absorbed through the gut wall and so can reach outlying areas of the body, e.g. skin, sinuses, joints, etc. As it is likely to take at least three months for you to reach this stage, you can receive advice about the next step if you log in for an on-line review analysis report.

Liquid BioCidin is sometimes recommended instead of Mycopryl as the first antifungal product to take. This is grapefruit seed extract in liquid form. It has effective anti-fungal properties but is more gentle than caprylic acid or other antifungals in situations where there is a history of intestinal ulcers or inflammation. Being liquid, its intake can be more controlled than when taking capsules. (Where current ulceration, colitis or gastritis is involved, you should take no antifungals until the inflammation or ulceration is no longer present.) As with Mycopryl 400, Liquid BioCidin should be started at a low level, i.e, 1 drop daily, and then increased after five days (if die-off symptoms allow) to 2 drops, increasing gradually after that until you are coping comfortably with 10 drops twice daily. It can be followed by BioCidin in capsule form if appropriate, available in two strengths, but advice on the next step can be received by logging in for an on-line review analysis report, and/or requesting contact with one of our associate nutritionists (see Action Menu in your report).

PART 4. BIO-ACIDOPHILUS

Bio-Acidophilus is a supplement formulated to implant two types of beneficial bacteria, or 'friendly flora', into the colon, thus redressing the balance of 'good guys' and 'bad guys' as candida is destroyed. It is able to take many of the live bacteria it contains right down into the colon where they are needed. The capsules should be taken twice daily, one with breakfast and one with supper, all the time you are taking any anti-fungal supplements. (Occasionally, you might benefit from taking them at an increased level of x 6 daily if, for instance, you have a bout of diarrhoea or if you have unavoidably needed to take a course of antibiotics.) This fourth part of the four-point plan is as crucial as any of the other three parts in ensuring that candida is brought fully under control.

Possible causes of severe die-off reaction

If you have difficulty taking antifungal supplements or increasing the dose, this is probably because your body is already in a toxic condition and cannot cope with more toxins being released by dead candida. In this event, it is helpful to stay off antifungals for a month. This should then make it easier to reintroduce antifungals without suffering unduly unpleasant die-off reaction.  Your recommended supplement programme includes Milk Thistle supplements and Roasted Dandelion 'coffee' to help support your liver's detoxification processes.  Sometimes the situation requires even more attention, in which case it is helpful to organise a Detoxification Profile laboratory test (see Action Menu in your report) based on saliva and urine specimens which show the efficiency or otherwise of specific detoxification pathways required for three toxic substances – aspirin, paracetamol and caffeine.  Appropriate nutritional therapy can then help to regulate the situation as necessary, making it easier for your body to offload the large number of extra toxins being released by candida as it is being destroyed. 

Another possible reason for severe die-off reaction is that your body might be re-acting to 'die-off' toxins by triggering a response from your immune system – an allergic reaction to the toxins. The clue to this situation is frequently an increase in depression or anxiety. However, these symptoms might be alleviated by the antihistamine action of a supplement called Histazyme.

A note on allergies

Many people with candidiasis also suffer from food allergies. This is largely due to a broken-down immune system but also to the fact that Candida albicans in its fungal form is able to penetrate through the intestinal wall, leaving it porous. This means that minute particles of incompletely digested food can enter the bloodstream, where it is treated as a foreign invader (Leaky Gut Syndrome). It might be necessary to try to repair the intestinal wall, making it less porous, and this situation can be helped by appropriate nutritional supplements once candida has been brought under control.

Sometimes inhaled allergens cause a reaction because the body is lacking in an enzyme called Catalase, and this can be supplied nutritionally, thus taking even more load off the immune system and allowing it to function more efficiently. All these steps will allow the immune system to have greater resources with which to fight back against Candida albicans!

The way forward

When you feel so much better that you are virtually symptom-free, you will need to check your candida score to see if it is as close to zero as you think it can possibly get. If it is lower than 10, you can try a carefully-controlled, one-month diet-relax experiment.  The Candida Score sheet and the Diet-Relax instructions would either be provided with a review analysis report at the appropriate stage, or can be requested from one of our associate nutritionists (see Action Menu).  If the month goes well, you can be fairly certain that candida has been brought under control. Even so, it is then essential that you tighten up again on the anti-candida diet for a further follow-on year in order to consolidate the newly-established healthy balance of microbes which will just have been achieved in your intestines. The closer you stay to the diet during the follow-on year, the more you can be sure that you will be 'home and dry' at the end of it and can forget that you ever had a problem with candida - provided of course that you remember all you have learned about healthy eating and stay on a general healthy eating regime.

You will almost certainly find – as so many others have done - that your taste buds have changed so much, and that you are appreciating your new-found health so much, that you will have no desire to return to the old sugar and junk food regime which helped to make you ill in the first place.