Making a lot of progress with candida/digestive issues with a high carb easy to digest diet.

First I will say, that I'm not diagnosed with anything. I am going on symptoms alone, but if it smells like candida, acts like candida, aggravates like candida, it very well could be candida. Plus many folks here looking for help or undiagnosed as well, so it could be helpful. I also acknowledge that I am an individual, my treatment has been very individual, and I encourage anyone here to seek out an individual treatment as well.

I think the root of my candida is an improperly functioning digestive system, if that sounds like you, this advice might be helpful.

I am making progress on treating candida with a high complex carb diet, plenty of exercise, and fermented foods with every meal.

I was on a very low carb diet for 3 months, taking all sorts of supplements, coffee enemas, I ate nothing but puree soup for probably 6-8 weeks.

I think my progress is a double edged sword. The prolonged period of coffee enemas combined with puree soups cleaned me out in a way nothing else could, and I think I cleared away literally years of sludge.

But I lost 20 pounds (I was underweight to begin with), and I had no energy (barely got out of bed most days even with a coffee enema)

Now my bowel seems to be even more sensitive and delicate than it was before, not to mention sluggish. On average I have one not-fulfilling bowel movement a day.

But I've only been on a high carb diet for about 10 days, and I have WAY more energy, and after 2 days all candida symptoms went away. I have no brain fog, no vaginal itch, bloating is limited. I go for long walks or do hot yoga every day. I still have fatigue, and have to push myself to do anything, but I'm still much much better than before.

My diet consists mainly of kitchari with ghee, white basmati or jasmine rice, split yellow mung beans, varying assortments of vegetables and spices for diversity. I eat kimchi or miso soup with every meal. Occasionally I have a baked potato or sweet potato fries, and the plan is to eat chicken or fish once a week.

I only take two things, magnesium and milk thistle tincture. I drink a pot of ginger tea with lemon every day, in the morning I put a tiny bit of milk thistle in the tea to support my liver, that's it. I'm deficient in magnesium and it causes insomnia constipation and bone aches so I take that every day. But I get my probiotics and nutrition from food, I ditched the anti fungals, because I'm skeptical about them on principle.

White rice is the only grain I can currently tolerate. Made traditional injera the other day and felt horrible. Quinoa makes me feel horrible. So, my current goal is to heal and strengthen my digestion by supplying a balanced easy-to-digest nutrition rich whole foods diet. I'm still excluding fruit but will probably bring it back into the fold within the next month.

I /vaguely/ follow ayurvedic principles. I'm dominant vata with kapha disorders. So, lots of heating ginger and pepper, only my kimchi is cold when I eat it, everything's heated, even my water. I don't eat dry things, which blatantly disagree with me anyway.

In hindsight I think the cleansing I did was necessary but I would only do it for a maximum of 3-4 weeks.

If there are any constipation experts out there, what can you do to fix constipation long term? Am I just sluggish because my body is adapting to being without coffee enemas?

Also, all my stools are yellow or green, all of them, with lots of undigested food. I'm considering doing a Liver Flush to clear the liver up. Does this make sense?

Anyway, curezone has helped a lot with my progress, I discovered a lot of natural remedies through this form. Coffee, enemas, liver flushes, urine therapy, don't know if I would have found those things if not through here.

saywhatagain has some really good things to say on treating candida with a high carb diet, and reading her/his posts helped me make the switch, and wait out the couple bad days that followed. I contacted her and she had some good info on ayurveda, so I will share that also

"...For me, understanding Ayurveda was key for improving my health. For those that understand Ayurveda, the real underlying cause of candida is decreased ojas (which means the immune system is impaired), candida is really a type of aam (toxin) that is formed when agni (digestion) is impaired. The true way to treat candida, is to re-balance the body, increase ojas and re-ignite agni.

I don't know how much you have researched Ayurveda, but it is very helpful to know what your doshic nature is. As far as macro-nutrients go this is what I have found, the more vata in the person's nature, the higher the amount of protein will be required. Those with more pitta and kapha in their constitutions require much less protein in their diet.

Personally, I have quite a lot of vata in my constitution, and I have found that a vegetarian diet is actually not ideal for me. I still eat a quite high carbohydrate diet but have increased my protein intake somewhat up to probably around 20% of my calories...."