Hi Catherine!

I was diagnosed with a Candida overgrowth in 2004, & did a strict Candida cleanse under the care of Dr. Harald Gaier, one of the leading experts on Candida for over 25 years & a very experienced & knowledgeable naturopath in the UK. He is a naturopathic doctor trained & registered in South Africa, but he's not a conventional medical (allopathic) doctor. His treatment quickly brought my Candida under control & removed the undesirable symptoms. Subsequently, I reverted to eating many of my favourite foods, including sugary foods, fruit, wheat & dairy, & eventually the Candida symptoms started to return. I did further Candida cleanses in 2007 & 2014, which have helped keep it in check.

In my opinion, Candida can be diffcult to treat on your own, as there are so many factors to consider, different types of Candida, & different treatment processes according to the severity of your condition. Therefore my first suggestion to anyone with moderate or severe Candida symptoms would be to find a suitably experienced & recommended naturopath or nutritionist, get a diagnosis or assessment of your condition from them, & then to follow their treatment programme, at least for a month or two.

As I understand it, a successful treatment programme for Candida must include at least these 3 aspects simultaneously:

1. An anti-fungal to kill the Candida yeast (bacteria) already in your system. I used the herb Berberine (Berberis Vulgaris) for 4 weeks.
2. High quality probiotics to replenish your gut with healthy bacteria.
3. An effective anti-Candida diet to deprive the Candida (which can't be completely eliminated) of its preferred foods, especially sugars of all kinds, gluten & dairy. I followed Dr Gaier's "Dysbiosis and Gut Fermentation Diet" strictly for about 4 weeks when I first did the cleanse in 2004, then gradually re-introduced the forbidden foods over a period of about 2 months. You can easily find this diet online by Googling "dr gaier candida".

As a caution, I need to add that if your Candida is severe and/or very long standing, it's wise not to be too aggressive in the initial treatment process, as you can experience yeast "die off" side effects, or the Candida may have already caused other damage to your digestive tract (eg leaky gut, food allergies). In such cases, it's particularly important to seek professional help & not to go it alone.

In my initial treatment in 2004, I was also diagnosed with a gastric juice dysfunction, & was prescribed digestive enzymes to take for a whole year (in gradually decreasing doses), to support my stomach in restoring it's normal function.

I hope that information is of some help.

Best wishes for your recovery.

Alex