Anyone know anything about Candida?

[Theonlyexception]

I have been googling some of my symptoms and it appears I have a lot of the symtoms of Candida. Is this a genuine health condition? It says on the site I looked at that doctors don't believe it exists but I'm curious!

I had suffered from recurrent thrush for a long time, saw my GP and insisted on getting referred to a consultant. In the meantime a friend gave me a book called "The Candida Diet"(I think) I matched all the symptoms. I tried the diet for about 3 months and felt a lot better. I finally got to see a consultant and she smirked of the idea of a diet working.

The diet is pretty strict though - no sugar, yeast, lactose, caffiene or gluen - it was pretty tough.

I haven't suffered for ages, but recently had another bout of thrush. I was starting a diet anyway, so started low-carb and found my thrush had gone within a couple of days, so I definitely think the main thing to eliminate is sugar.

I'm rambling now, but it was such a relief to know that what I had could be controlled!

its just another name for thrush - look that up and you'll find loads of info

awful though, and can take ages to clear - I used plain yogurt to ease the itchiness

as Livinginoz said, diet can be a factor - if I drink too much white wine, it sets it off. Red wine is fine, thank goodness!

That diet sounds very tough- well done to you for managing it! I think I would be ok if it was just me but it's cooking for dh and my ds that would be the biggest problem! I think I am going to start by cutting out sugar for lent and see if things improve a bit. I tend to get thrush and cystitus aswell as loads of headaches and craving sweet things, and I always feel shattered!

My DH suffers from candidiasis in his gut and has had to follow a strict diet when it flares up. As Livinginoz says, it is pretty tough, all of the above but also no citric acid (it is in most tinned items but if you read the labels you can find some without), yeast extract (again, added to a lot of pre-prepared things but also things like stock cubes, beer/wine. He didn't give up caffiene.... or gluten but switched to soda bread.
His doctor was sympathetic and even advised he visit the local herbalist to get some supplements that help (good quality probiotic, capryllic acid, fresh coconut is good.
There are a lot of good books about it, and once you get the hang of it, it isn't too difficult to follow.

One thing that really helped as Canestan wasn't working at all, was probiotic capsules inserted (ahem) at night. Might be worth a research

I suppose some doctors are more sympathetic to these things, but my consultant read my notes and as I said, just smirked!