Someone posted a link to this in the Traditional Foods forum from Susan Weed's site. Thought it was interesting, being that I've been doing this totally insane diet for about a month now. Would love to hear other opinions!!
Hello Susan,
I have just recently discovered your website and am sponging up all your wonderful, informative writing as fast as I can. I've already placed an order for your books and am waiting anxiously for them but meanwhile, I wonder if you can give me some direction is my ongoing battle with candida-albicans.
In a nutshell, after 2 years of antibiotics, which only made my multitude of symptoms worse, and a highly stressful job and lifestyle, I discovered a naturopath who immediately told me I had candida. For the past year I've been on ALOT of naturopathic capsules (very costly) and have changed my eating habits and food choices to all organic, no sugar or caffeine, only
whole grains, very fresh or freshly ground, etc... I've even quit my very stressful job and am seeking freelance work and a more balanced lifestyle. I am married and have a 4 year daughter at home, am 40 years old and fairly fit and active (working to improve my exercise patterns)
The capsules and supplements I take now are:
Zypan - stomach acid
Zymex - slow fix for candida
Drenamin - ? not exactly sure but think it's supposed to sort of lure
candida away from vital organs while we're working on eliminating it?
DHA - brain food
Calcium
Catalyn - vitamin supplement
Garlic - standard capsule
Teas - drink lots of Yerbamate and Paul D'arco loose teas daily with stevia - and have just started using Paul D'arco tea as a douche to try to put out the fires of my yeast infections.
Anyway, I still struggle daily with yeast infections and the cough after eating from not digesting my food (bad gut flora levels-I take Zypan for my digestive needs), and alot of sinus mucus along with various negative emotional effects do you know of other herbals that could help me recover from this faster and less expensively?
Signed, Desperate for health
Subject: Candida is a helper. It is keeping you healthy!
Susun's response:
Oh dear. From my point of view you are doing the worst things in the world to try to help yourself. Let me explain.
Candida overgrowth results from lack of gut flora (killed by antibiotics in your case, but also killed by chlorine in the water, preservatives in food, and essential oils in your environment).
Candida is a helper. It is keeping you healthy! You need it. But not so much of it.
What would convince it to ease off? More gut flora! You need to eat lots of moldy, yeasty, bacteria rich foods like yogurt and sour dough bread and homemade wines and unwashed fruit (for the molds on the skins) and miso and sauerkraut. I know. I know. This doctor told you to avoid all those foods. I can only tell you that I have helped people who have had candida for over a decade, people who have taken all the (expensive) pills, people who have eaten strict diets, people who have done everything they though was right but still weren't healthy and still had symptoms. After 7-10 days on the fermented, moldy, yeasty, bacteria rich diet they are smiling and feeling great!!
My friend Ryan Drum has also treated hundreds of candida cleanse failures. His remedy is the same, only more simple. He has you stir a big spoonful of organic garden soil into a glass of water and drink it daily for a month. Gets those molds, yeasts, bacteria, and fungi back in the gut where they belong. I also see that the stores are selling pills of soil micro organism, so if you are really into pills, you could choose that option.But it is ever so much more fum (and less expensive) to just eat blue cheese, etc.
My suggestions to replace your drugs:
Dandelion root tincture, 20 drops before meals instead of Zypan
Yogurt, etc instead of Zymex
Candida does not get into any organs, it stays in the intestines. So avoid Drenamin
Nourish your brain with whole grains and cooked greens. Avoid soy, and stop taking DHA.
Calcium makes brittle bones. Instead drink nourishing herbal infusions and eat yogurt.
A cup of nettle infusion has 500mg calcium. A cup of yogurt has 450mg of calcium.
There are no vitamins in pills. Vitamins are enzymes produced by living tissues. All pills contain laboratory make synthetics and cause disease. Those who take as little as 500mg of vitamin C a day for a year create blood vessels that look twice their age. Throw away your Catalyn.
Consumer reports found that garlic powder, like you buy in the supermarket had more effect that any garlic capsule on the market. Costs a lot less too. Even fresh garlic works better. Cook with it. Roast it. Eat it on toast. Make it into pesto. Be creative, but throw out the pills.
Instead of Yerbamate which is full of caffeine, try nourishing herbal infusions if nettle or oatstraw or comfrey leaf or red clover. All of them will help your gut. Pau D'arco will kill gut flora. Please stop drinking it. Stevia could also make things worse as it is so sweet. Try to do without it for a while if you could.
If you have a vaginal yeast infection, it is NOT related to candida. Same organism, almost, but with a different lifestyle. First, eat yogurt. Then, put yogurt into your vagina. Do this for at least ten days. If symptoms do not go within a week, you have a bacterial infection, not a yeast infection. If so, you could put a peeled clove of garlic inside, near the cervix for 10-14 days to challenge the bacteria. Be prepared to smell like garlic if you choose this option. But please don't use Pau D'arco or anything else as a douche. Douches cause vaginal infections!!!
So these are my opinions. They are based on my extensive and ongoing research and my work with people over the past 35 years. We are all different and what has helped some others may not help you. But it might
Let me know how it goes for you. Helps me help others.
Green Blessings,
Susun Weed
Hello Susan,
I have just recently discovered your website and am sponging up all your wonderful, informative writing as fast as I can. I've already placed an order for your books and am waiting anxiously for them but meanwhile, I wonder if you can give me some direction is my ongoing battle with candida-albicans.
In a nutshell, after 2 years of antibiotics, which only made my multitude of symptoms worse, and a highly stressful job and lifestyle, I discovered a naturopath who immediately told me I had candida. For the past year I've been on ALOT of naturopathic capsules (very costly) and have changed my eating habits and food choices to all organic, no sugar or caffeine, only
whole grains, very fresh or freshly ground, etc... I've even quit my very stressful job and am seeking freelance work and a more balanced lifestyle. I am married and have a 4 year daughter at home, am 40 years old and fairly fit and active (working to improve my exercise patterns)
The capsules and supplements I take now are:
Zypan - stomach acid
Zymex - slow fix for candida
Drenamin - ? not exactly sure but think it's supposed to sort of lure
candida away from vital organs while we're working on eliminating it?
DHA - brain food
Calcium
Catalyn - vitamin supplement
Garlic - standard capsule
Teas - drink lots of Yerbamate and Paul D'arco loose teas daily with stevia - and have just started using Paul D'arco tea as a douche to try to put out the fires of my yeast infections.
Anyway, I still struggle daily with yeast infections and the cough after eating from not digesting my food (bad gut flora levels-I take Zypan for my digestive needs), and alot of sinus mucus along with various negative emotional effects do you know of other herbals that could help me recover from this faster and less expensively?
Signed, Desperate for health
Subject: Candida is a helper. It is keeping you healthy!
Susun's response:
Oh dear. From my point of view you are doing the worst things in the world to try to help yourself. Let me explain.
Candida overgrowth results from lack of gut flora (killed by antibiotics in your case, but also killed by chlorine in the water, preservatives in food, and essential oils in your environment).
Candida is a helper. It is keeping you healthy! You need it. But not so much of it.
What would convince it to ease off? More gut flora! You need to eat lots of moldy, yeasty, bacteria rich foods like yogurt and sour dough bread and homemade wines and unwashed fruit (for the molds on the skins) and miso and sauerkraut. I know. I know. This doctor told you to avoid all those foods. I can only tell you that I have helped people who have had candida for over a decade, people who have taken all the (expensive) pills, people who have eaten strict diets, people who have done everything they though was right but still weren't healthy and still had symptoms. After 7-10 days on the fermented, moldy, yeasty, bacteria rich diet they are smiling and feeling great!!
My friend Ryan Drum has also treated hundreds of candida cleanse failures. His remedy is the same, only more simple. He has you stir a big spoonful of organic garden soil into a glass of water and drink it daily for a month. Gets those molds, yeasts, bacteria, and fungi back in the gut where they belong. I also see that the stores are selling pills of soil micro organism, so if you are really into pills, you could choose that option.But it is ever so much more fum (and less expensive) to just eat blue cheese, etc.
My suggestions to replace your drugs:
Dandelion root tincture, 20 drops before meals instead of Zypan
Yogurt, etc instead of Zymex
Candida does not get into any organs, it stays in the intestines. So avoid Drenamin
Nourish your brain with whole grains and cooked greens. Avoid soy, and stop taking DHA.
Calcium makes brittle bones. Instead drink nourishing herbal infusions and eat yogurt.
A cup of nettle infusion has 500mg calcium. A cup of yogurt has 450mg of calcium.
There are no vitamins in pills. Vitamins are enzymes produced by living tissues. All pills contain laboratory make synthetics and cause disease. Those who take as little as 500mg of vitamin C a day for a year create blood vessels that look twice their age. Throw away your Catalyn.
Consumer reports found that garlic powder, like you buy in the supermarket had more effect that any garlic capsule on the market. Costs a lot less too. Even fresh garlic works better. Cook with it. Roast it. Eat it on toast. Make it into pesto. Be creative, but throw out the pills.
Instead of Yerbamate which is full of caffeine, try nourishing herbal infusions if nettle or oatstraw or comfrey leaf or red clover. All of them will help your gut. Pau D'arco will kill gut flora. Please stop drinking it. Stevia could also make things worse as it is so sweet. Try to do without it for a while if you could.
If you have a vaginal yeast infection, it is NOT related to candida. Same organism, almost, but with a different lifestyle. First, eat yogurt. Then, put yogurt into your vagina. Do this for at least ten days. If symptoms do not go within a week, you have a bacterial infection, not a yeast infection. If so, you could put a peeled clove of garlic inside, near the cervix for 10-14 days to challenge the bacteria. Be prepared to smell like garlic if you choose this option. But please don't use Pau D'arco or anything else as a douche. Douches cause vaginal infections!!!
So these are my opinions. They are based on my extensive and ongoing research and my work with people over the past 35 years. We are all different and what has helped some others may not help you. But it might
Let me know how it goes for you. Helps me help others.
Green Blessings,
Susun Weed
