Hi all,
I have been battling candida for at least 8 years now and I am at my wits end. I originally contracted it from taking an immunosuppressive, humira to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis . Within months after taking, I began to feel flu like, but tests showed nothing. I did research at that time and discovered that my symptoms were an exact match for candida. I asked my doctor to do a fungal sputum culture and she resisted saying that it was not candida. She actually told me that the only way I would have it, was if I had HIV or cancer and on my death bed. Needless to say, I still insisted on the culture and it came up positive for candida and when she called me with the results, she said that it was most likely a false positive!! She ordered another test and that came back positive as well. She then referred me to an infectious disease specialist and to make a long story short, he literally looked at me for two minutes and said that I was healthy and that "everyone has yeast"! Fast forward to this year and I found a holistic pcp willing to help me treat this. She prescribed Diflucan and it worked to eliminate the foot rash and other symptoms but to be honest the dieoff was unbearable with intense burning from head to toe. If I avoid starches, sugars etc, within a day I am in bed with the flu. But if I eat anything with sugars or starches to alleviate the burning, I swell so much that I have to take benedryl. Whenever I go on the diet, within a day I feel so ill with internal itching and burning that feel like I'm going to die. I have gone as long as three weeks on the diet and the symptoms did not improve. I have tried herbs, tonics, apple cidar vinegar, 100 billion count live probiotics and have not seen lasting improvement. As a matter of fact, I am getting worse and i now am on permanent disabilty bc of this. I have gotten advice from others on forums and many say that I should stay away from prescription antifungals and kill the yeast slowly with the diet and herbs but this has not helped. My pcp is convinced that the strain of yeast that I have is a resistent strain bc of taking the humira. she says that proper treatment of my infection will require intravenous antifungals but the issue is that most of her colleagues do not believe in candida. She cannot order the treatment herself bc she is not an infectious disease specialist. Moreover, my insurance will not cover the treatment bc it is not indicated bc I'm not on my deathbed. And even if I found a specialist willing to treat it, the antifungals carry serious side effects. Sorry for the rant but I am desperate for relief. Is there anyone here who has had a serious case of candida who has beat it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.