After meeting 3 separate people in the last 12 months or so with the identical experience to me, I today remembered this forum I used to live on a couple of years ago & I wanted to post. However I have spent all afternoon working up the courage as I remember back when I was on here a lot, that whenever someone posted something questioning the standard Candida argument, they were viciously attacked on here. So I am going to say a couple of things & people can ignore it or have a think about it. I thought about providing an email address & offering some personal encouragement to whomever wanted it however I have to move on - my "candida" period still holds many bad memories for me which I cant afford to dwell on for too long.

Let me quickly distill my experience in a quick way - a few years back I started getting stomach aches, heartburn, tiredness, rashes etc - Doctors couldnt suggest anything - the first one I went to was particularly bad - he basically gave me anti-acid medication and said if it didnt go away we should check for stomach cancer (!!!!). So I went to a few different naturopaths who all told me its Candida & put me on the Candida diet. After over a year of different diets, threelac, probiotics, oregano oil, biotin, garlic, HCL supplements & anything else you can think of, I was no better.

I still remember my self-righteous rage whenever someone suggested it wasnt Candida. I worked at a food company at the time - the head micro-biologist told me that Candidiasis was the great joke of the micro-biologists & mycologists. You can imagine my reaction to this.

My wife quietly endured all this - the restricted foods, the crazy diets etc. Until finally she said "you have tried everything & nothing works...have you thought it may be psychological?". Strangely, I had the opposite reaction to most people who hear this and suddenly it all fell into place - how all the symptoms were aggravated by stress.

To cut a long story short, I finally made the very difficult decision to go on anti-depressants to see what would happen. After almost 4 years of suffering "candidiasis" my symptoms were completely gone in 4 weeks.

As I mentioned earlier, I have met several people subsequently who told me eerily similar stories - got stressed, developed strange symptoms, were told by naturopaths that they had candidiasis, no treatment worked.

Rather than go on all day I just want to make a few brief points -

1. I do not deny the existence of candidiasis - I dispute its prevalence.

2. I do not advocate the use of anti-depressants. They can either be a blessing or a curse depending on the individual. Anti-depressants are NOT a cure for Depression or anxiety - they are a potential aid to be used in conjunction with other things like CBT or exercise etc

3. VERY IMPORTANT - "your problem may be psychological/depression/anxiety" does not equal "its all in your head". This point cannot be over emphasised. People seem to make this leap that because a problem is psychological, that it is imagined. This is not the case.

4. I do not believe everyone on here has an anxiety/depression/stress problem instead of candidiasis. Some may have it, some may have other conditions.

5. The main advice I want to give is "question your beliefs about your illness" - listen to varied opinions & make up your mind. I remember being told by a gastro-enterologist that candidiasis was a myth created by naturopaths - I remember thinking "oh man, the medical profession is so out of touch with this" - I should have taken on board what he said, at least considering that perhaps he would know something about this (whether he was right or wrong is another question).

Anyway, thanks for your time. If even 1 person reads this & decides to question what they have been told, I have spent my time well.