I have an interesting story to tell, and I believe a very credible new theory about ME/CFS. Well, not really a new theory, more like a reborn theory. A theory of a key role for Candida in ME/CFS. This is not the old Candida we have all experienced and heard about, the irritating skin infection, or thrush. This is a far more complex, insideous adversary, a Candida that can live anywhere in the body, in alkaline or acidic environments, under aerobic or anaerobic conditions. A Candida that can produce a key endocrine toxin found in African Sleeping Sickness in a specific location in the body. A Candida that produces that toxin when fed excess tryptophan. A Candida that can block mitochondria respiration. A Candida that can interfere with the ANS and disrupt melatonin. A Candida that can damage connective tissue and even be found in the brain where it can accumulate beta-amyloid proteins and create an Alzheimer-type condition. A Candida being revealed anew in studies conducted over the past few years. A Candida that I believe ME/CFS patients are uniquely vulnerable to due to a complex fungal intolerance that may be a consequence of being stuck in a metabolic trap. This is a new story about an old adversary.
I will try to post this over time in a series of blog posts, due to the huge volume of information that will be required. This will be the type of blog series I would have ignored in the past. There are so many exotic clues now about the cause(s) of ME/CFS, and the last thing I would want to read about would be Candida. Unless it's true.
I can hardly believe it myself, but after over 20 years of searching, thousands of hours reviewing research, hundreds of theories explored, hundreds of treatments tried, and thousands of supplements purchased, I found something that works. Not a cure, but a dramatic improvement and the reversal of a downward slide. And it is a Candida treatment that I have used before, but one that I only experimented with for a short time. This time is different, and I will try to explain why and how this theory may finally start connecting the dots about ME/CFS. And I really believe that is possible given what we know now about Candida and about ME/CFS.
The treatment I am experimenting with is simple and inexpensive, and it is only a 'proof-of-concept' for the theory. This is just a start to study of a topic that I think needs to be explored thoroughly by many patients, researchers, and clinicians. Candida is not a simple problem to treat, it was identified as a problem in CFS patients as early as 1995. I hope that with this added evidence, both from my tiny experiment and from recent research that I believe connects Candida with the metabolic trap, others will become interested and find better ways to address the problems I believe Candida is causing us.
My background: I have a very low-functioning form of ME/CFS, alternating between housebound, bed-bound, and feeling near death year after year. I've aged through this disease, with some symptoms starting as a teenager, then worsening in my early 20s, then remission until age 38, when a flu-like illness started me on the downward trajectory that led to full disability and forced early retirement at age 47. I am now in my early 60s. And I was ready to quit trying to recover. But I had tried anti-fungal treatments and fungal avoidance in the past with some success and decided to see if I could connect the dots between my fungal intolerance and current ME/CFS research. In particular I was interested in research at Stanford related to tryptophan metabolism (the metabolic trap hypothesis by Robert Pfair). I have several family members with health problems, including one with ME/CFS and one with MCAD, and we had experimented with ways to treat a metabolic trap, with one of us having some success. So I felt it might be important to connect some dots...
I believe this is a very important connection to make, between the newly understood Candida and recent ME/CFS research related to tryptophan metabolism. This includes the interesting observation that many functionally useful ME/CFS treatments may have been directly altering Candida activity and reducing its effects on multiple body systems. I believe we as a ME/CFS community have vastly underestimated the role of fungus in this disease, but thanks to the metabolic trap theory first presented in 2018, and the new Candida research, it is time to reconsider.
I hope this story can help a subset of ME/CFS patients, who may discover as I have, that their story directly supports a major role for Candida. But to make that discovery, it is important to first learn what we now know about Candida and its relationship with tryptophan...
Now on to Part 2 ...
I will try to post this over time in a series of blog posts, due to the huge volume of information that will be required. This will be the type of blog series I would have ignored in the past. There are so many exotic clues now about the cause(s) of ME/CFS, and the last thing I would want to read about would be Candida. Unless it's true.
I can hardly believe it myself, but after over 20 years of searching, thousands of hours reviewing research, hundreds of theories explored, hundreds of treatments tried, and thousands of supplements purchased, I found something that works. Not a cure, but a dramatic improvement and the reversal of a downward slide. And it is a Candida treatment that I have used before, but one that I only experimented with for a short time. This time is different, and I will try to explain why and how this theory may finally start connecting the dots about ME/CFS. And I really believe that is possible given what we know now about Candida and about ME/CFS.
The treatment I am experimenting with is simple and inexpensive, and it is only a 'proof-of-concept' for the theory. This is just a start to study of a topic that I think needs to be explored thoroughly by many patients, researchers, and clinicians. Candida is not a simple problem to treat, it was identified as a problem in CFS patients as early as 1995. I hope that with this added evidence, both from my tiny experiment and from recent research that I believe connects Candida with the metabolic trap, others will become interested and find better ways to address the problems I believe Candida is causing us.
My background: I have a very low-functioning form of ME/CFS, alternating between housebound, bed-bound, and feeling near death year after year. I've aged through this disease, with some symptoms starting as a teenager, then worsening in my early 20s, then remission until age 38, when a flu-like illness started me on the downward trajectory that led to full disability and forced early retirement at age 47. I am now in my early 60s. And I was ready to quit trying to recover. But I had tried anti-fungal treatments and fungal avoidance in the past with some success and decided to see if I could connect the dots between my fungal intolerance and current ME/CFS research. In particular I was interested in research at Stanford related to tryptophan metabolism (the metabolic trap hypothesis by Robert Pfair). I have several family members with health problems, including one with ME/CFS and one with MCAD, and we had experimented with ways to treat a metabolic trap, with one of us having some success. So I felt it might be important to connect some dots...
I believe this is a very important connection to make, between the newly understood Candida and recent ME/CFS research related to tryptophan metabolism. This includes the interesting observation that many functionally useful ME/CFS treatments may have been directly altering Candida activity and reducing its effects on multiple body systems. I believe we as a ME/CFS community have vastly underestimated the role of fungus in this disease, but thanks to the metabolic trap theory first presented in 2018, and the new Candida research, it is time to reconsider.
I hope this story can help a subset of ME/CFS patients, who may discover as I have, that their story directly supports a major role for Candida. But to make that discovery, it is important to first learn what we now know about Candida and its relationship with tryptophan...
Now on to Part 2 ...