Finding out that it is Candida

Finding the cause of my symptoms took 4 years and here is my story…

Growing up I was always one of those that were never really feeling a 100%! You know, headaches coming and going, sometimes migraines, fullness in the stomach, terrible PMS every month, needed a lot of sleep, dizzy at times, acne, constipation ...

I did not know any better so I thought that it was normal.

I started a career in the hotel business and thereafter in banking, it involved a lot of stress and working many hours. I managed to push back how I felt but my body let me know that something was seriously wrong as I fainted on several occasions. Ah, no fun fainting in the dirty Paris metro or in meetings in front of clients... Doctors told me all this was caused by stress which I believed.

At that time my diet was terrible, only sodas, breads, grabbing something at the bakery or fast food for lunch ….

Met my husband, became pregnant and stopped working. I thought ok now I’m really going to take care of myself and finally feel good! But that's when it all started.

I changed my diet… started drinking home made smoothies, ate lots of healthy food and bigger quantities (always been very skinny), but still drinking a lot of diet coke. Hey no one is perfect!
Read more on posting healthy food is it really healthy for you?

About 6 months after the birth of my child I started getting the following symptoms:

Constant nausea
Constant constipation
Pain with urination
Vaginal discharge
Pain in the neck and back
Constant swelling of the face (nose, lips, chin, cheeks, eye arcade)
Pain behind the ears
Swelling sensation and pain in the head
Sinus problems so bad that I could not wear sun glasses anymore
Mussel pain in legs when I would wake up
Skin discoloration (darker spots)
Acne (severe)
Allergies
Hair loss

What I did:

During 3 years I went from doctor to doctor. I did all possible and imaginable test including an MRI, gastroscopy, blood work .... and NOTHING! Every doctor told me that my symptoms simply did not make sense. You know how frustrating that is... everyone thinks your crazy! At a certain point I even started to believe it myself.

Did not give up!

I started searching on the internet and found so much valuable information.
It takes a lot of time to understand and link all your symptoms.

Started thinking that my body could not handle sugar so I stopped eating or drinking any sugar at all at least that’s what I thought! But sugar is in everything (read more on stopping eating sugar). It took me a long long time to understand what were the different types of sugar and in which foods they where.
The result: Stopping eating sugar helped reducing my nausea and pain behind the ears but it would come back from time to time.

Because of all my allergies that where just getting worse and worse I thought that I was gluten intolerant. Started researching on the net and started a gluten free diet. This helped a lot. I think that the combination of not eating any artificial sugars or any gluten made some of my symptoms nearly disappear:
First after 2 week my acne was 70% better and then the nausea, pain behind the ears, neck pain, insomnia, viginal discharge, dizziness started getting better.

I went to check if I was gluten intolerant with a gastroscopy that turned up negative. However as I was feeling so much better I continued with it.

My husband also went for the same test that revealed that he had a bacteria called pylori so the doctors said well as we believe that this is contagious we do believe that you have pylori and that this is the cause of your symptoms. They put us both on antibiotics and BIG mistake for me. After the cure ALL my symptoms came back worse.

I did not understand what was happening!

Started reacting to everything, became intolerant to everything. The worse is that I became intolerant to a substance called salicylate, found in many vegetables, shampoos, toothpaste and many others. I think that I have always been sensitive to this but never to this extend. My face was now constantly swollen. In the past I would get swollen but never to that extend.

I then started researching this allergy and had to start another diet the salicylate free diet. If you are salicyate sensitive I truly sympathize, it’s no fun at all.

A couple of days later, I wanted to bake a cake with my son. I did not even eat or touch the yeast and I got so so sick, nausea, pain behind the ears, swollen stomach ….

I then started researching and realized that it was Candida. Suddenly everything came together, the explanation to all my symptoms and the reason why my allergies had gotten so much worse. Candida causes the immune system to go down and therefore your body react to everything. The antibiotics that I toke made my Candida overgrowth terrible.

After that it was clear. I had found the answer I had looked for so long.

So now I am in constant battle and for me it’s not easy, but I am fighting it and determined to get better.

I am on a strict diet and taking supplements. I have researched the supplement issue, whether its better taking natural or traditional medicine. Read more about my diet on the blog.

On my blog I will post all about my diet, my symptoms my progress and much more. I will post a soon as I try something new and what the results are.

I hope that this will be able to help all of you that are suffering from chronic illness and like me have been searching for an answer.

Take good care and don’t give up, your body is showing you that something is wrong you need to find what and get better!