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Candida & Biofilms - Theory & Protocol

Gestalt

Senior Member
Messages
251
Location
Canada
So after having tried the Candida/Ketogenic diet (no carbs) for 3 weeks I tried taking 1/4 capsule Syntol and still got massive nausea, so now I am deciding to call it quits. I have felt like absolute crap the last 3 weeks probably due to low thyroid because I hard time consuming more than 1200 calories in fat and protein per day. Although I didn't want to admit it my body-over heating problems came back as well. Needless to say it just didn't seem to be working.

It is the conventional belief out there that to get rid of candida one must consume little to no carbs in order to stop their growth. This logically means putting the body into ketosis. What most people don't know however is that ketones can also fuel candida growth and the fungi themselves use ketones to evade the bodies immune system. The following is the collection of a few days research that completely shifts the conventional paradigm on the various forms of Candida diet out there.
Low-carb diets generally improve immunity to bacteria and viruses, but not all is roses and gingerbread.

Low-carb diets, alas, impair immunity to fungal and protozoal infections. The immune defense against these infections is glucose-dependent (as it relies on production of reactive oxygen species using glucose) and thyroid hormone-dependent (as thyroid hormone drives not only glucose availability, but also the availability of iodine for the myeloperoxidase pathway). Thus, anti-fungal immunity is downregulated on very low-carb diets.
Moreover, eukaryotic pathogens such as fungi and protozoa can metabolize ketones. Thus, a ketogenic diet promotes growth and systemic invasion of these pathogens.
As the fungal infection case studies on our “Results” page illustrate, low-carb dieters often develop fungal infections, and these often go away with increased starch consumption.
Another issue is that mucus is essential for immunity at epithelial surfaces, and glycosylation is essential for the integrity of cellular junctions and tissue barriers such as the intestinal and blood-brain barriers. Thus, reduced production of mucus can impair intestinal immunity and promote gut dysbiosis or systemic infection by pathogens that enter through the gut.

Finally, a very low-carb diet is not entirely free of risks of gut dysbiosis, and not just from fungal infections. Bacteria can metabolize the amino acid glutamine as well as mucosal sugars, so it is not possible to completely starve gut bacteria with a low-carb diet. Nor is it desirable, as this would eliminate a protective layer against systemic infection by pathogens that enter the body through the gut. As our“Results” pageshows, several people who had gut trouble on the very low-carb (and generally excellent) GAPS diet were cured on our diet. (source)

Dietary carbs can feed Candida in the gut, but they also feed competing probiotic bacteria and promote intestinal barrier integrity and immune function, and thus their effect on the gut flora is complex. More importantly, ketosis promotes systemic invasion by Candida and glucose is needed for the immune defense to Candida, so a moderate carb intake is helpful to the defense against systemic Candida. As Candida is an effective intracellular pathogen that can flourish systemically, this is a very important consideration. No one with a Candida infection should eat a ketogenic diet.(source)
The following 1st paper shows that the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate will feed candida, and the 2nd shows that the ketone Aceoacetate is used by Candida to evade the body's immune system. The 3rd shows that starvation makes candida grow exponentially.

The ability to neutrophils from diabetics to kill candida was inhibited by increased concentrations of glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate, both independently and in combination.

These data indicate that although phagocytosis occurs at similar levels in diabetics and controls, killing of candida by the diabetic neutrophil is impaired under conditions of hyperglycaemia and ketosis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3084140
Therefore, prolonged ketosis may be a significant risk factor for candidiasis. This study was undertaken to investigate whether C. albicans itself produces a ketotic metabolite as a virulence factor which can effectively undermine host defense by neutrophils. (source)
“Starvation of yeast cells induces exponentially grown cells (and usually non-germinative) to germinate. This phenomenon is also observed in cells that are transiently treated with metabolic inhibitors. During each of these treatments (starvation, metabolic inhibition), expression of a growth regulatory gene (CGRI) increases. Candida albicans: adherence, signaling and virulence.” Calderone et al. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11204138

Glucose obviously feeds candida as well however I have not seen evidence that it impairs immunity against candida. Glucose therefore appears to be the lesser of two evils in this case when compared to ketones. From a blood point of view it's impossible to eliminate glucose anyways.

Jeff McCombs also has a nice extensive article going into why carbs are necessary on a candida diet. http://candidaplan.com/blog/637/candida-diets-part-iv-sugars/

He has a lot of excellent info on his site/blog and I will be switching over to his version of the Candida diet.
 

Beyond

Juice Me Up, Scotty!!!
Messages
1,122
Location
Murcia, Spain
Gestalt the link to MacCombs diet is not working. I tried to surf his page but didnt find the diet.

Yes the traditional candida diets are very detrimental to one´s health, and also for candida ironically.
 

Gestalt

Senior Member
Messages
251
Location
Canada
Thanks. I updated the link so that it works now.
There is no empirical evidence that traditional candida diets are detrimental to candida. It's merely been a theory. In vitro studies as well as lot's of anecdote seem to show the traditional theory is wrong. The guy who invented it in the 1950's (Dr. Orian Truss) thought that it might be a useful adjunct to nystatin. He was merely guessing but thought the real death came from the drugs not the diet.
 

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
Thanks for some truly new (to me) info. I unfortunately don't have a choice to be in ketosis because I'm so rediculously hypoglycemic. But it's helpful to understand that this may not X out the fungal possibilities, and to also understand the relationship of carbs to immune effectiveness.
 
Messages
43
I like Phoenix Rising. People here seem willing to 1. look at the science.. and 2, REALLY WANT TO GET BETTER. Super motivated.

I think fatigue hits you like nothing else, it takes you completely out of life and at some point you get tired of being so tired you're willing to become a PhD just to figure out how the heck to feel better. So many people with CFS have gut issues.

I want to share pieces of my story before I tell you how fighting biofilms, supporting methylation and adrenals and attacking pathogens has helped me.

Ive been sick since child hood. Mainly stomach stuff, but I caught every cold that went around. My mom rarely took me to the Dr, but I still remember several courses of antibiotics over the years. We also at a very high carb, higly processed, sugar saturated, fat soaked diet. And my parents smoked in the house, in the car.. both of them. I was sedentary as a latch key kid from an early age and ate alot of convenience foods. When I was in my early 20s I started to eat better, but the damage was done.. I had 4 abdominal pain related surgeries by age 20. I had dxes of fibro, ibs-c, ibs-d and UC..

By 25 I was pretty unhealthy to be so young. Youth is wasted on the young. I didnt try going GF, DF, SF, everything pretty much free until I got so sick by 33 that I couldnt really function. I was beyond tired and nobody really did anything more then try to throw drugs at me or tell me to lose weight.

So, I was completely done with being sick and tired. I started earnestly researching.. Id been doing so for many years at that point but couldnt really bring everything together. I found the fodmaps diet, did some really unsuccessful cleanses and some good ones.. tried to kill unknown parasites. And slowly I started getting better. BUT, it was SO SLOW. Im lucky too because I have alot of support. Most people cant stay on a super strict diet for 18 months, shop at whole foods.. slave over recipes with nut flour and coconut oil... Then I hit a brick wall.

But I was just so tired. It was easier not to eat. So I didnt.. lol. I luckily had 70 lbs to lose. I was feeling so toxic. Lots of constipation, brain fog, I was having to do daily enemas just to try and move some of the toxicity out of my body of the die off.

So I went back to the drawing board. Decided to go see a Dark field practitioner. I think she was totally full of shit. But what that did was allow me to see that, holy crap. I could look at my own blood. Ive wasted so much money on supplements and tests, I thought.. what the heck is 400 bucks? So, I bought one. I spent weeks/months pouring over the blood images I could find trying to understand what was going on in my blood.

I bought a camera attachment so I could take pictures and kind of chronicle the changes I was seeing...

Anyway, I didnt really know what I was looking at until I looked at a sample of my husband's blood and saw this one cell that I had a few of and he seemed to have a lot of. I was looking at this blood because he had this horrible cough for a really long time and the abx didnt seem to do anything. Anyway.. turns out is was mycoplasma Pneumonia..

And that was my introduction to the world of stealth pathogens. That eventually led me here and to my doctor. He was able to lab verify mycoplasma pneumonia and lyme disease. He also hypothesized that I had a yeast issue.. but all we have been able to confirm is it is a saphrophye that they say isnt candida. Anyway, a yeast.. a mold.

He also told me I was compound MTHFR, which led me here and to read about Rich V. and Dr. Amy. I studied snps just as fiercely. But time and time again I kept coming back to the pathogens.

For me, God created the body pretty exquisitely and gave us multiple pathways to make up for any single problem.. But it just felt like the pathways were all overloaded and gunked up. It was the gunking that needed addressing. I could artificially help by taking support for my methylation (and that was HUGE), but wasnt going to be able to push it over the edge into wellness. I could eat a perfect diet, but still.. this was so deep rooted. I was no longer bed bound and exhausted, but I still wasnt well. You cant clean a drainpipe with plain water, It can be the cleanest, purest water.

So anyway..

Ill cut to the chase.. The doc was awesome, he told me to take b-12,L-MethylTetrahydrofolate, olive leaf, nac, sodium butyrate, triphala, serrazimes, interfase, digest gold and moly b. At first he started me with Pau D Arco, Black walut hulls and continued on my modifed diet, which was essentially paleo. I had rapid improvement, strong detox reaction. 6 weeks sucked. But then.. AHa. Im feeling better then Ive felt in over a decade.

Im still tired tho. And my joints hurt. My digestion is also almost completely better, but I still have constipation issues no matter how much water I drink, or how much fiber I try to take in via psyllium, chia, flax, avocados, greens...vegetables. Dr (He's from russia) tells me to try turkey rhubarb root and glauber's salts. Phew. So much more effective then the "cleanses" and fiber. Said not to do it more then 1 x every week. I ended up doing once, 2 weeks in a row and my chronic constipation was resolved. It was crazy. I had done so many cleanses, lost a ton of weight, enemas.. anyway. Now that I could actually get to the epithelium and biofilms things really started improving. I also started taking nystatin. Id been focused on the bacteria and candida was so cliche, lol.. that I hadnt really expected as much improvement. I had energy, my joints didnt hurt. It was awesome. I noticed during this period that my white blood cells were increasing in number, but they were often so SLOW. Sometimes they would have a pep in their step so it made me wonder what the denominator was. I decided to do some mitochondrial support, and jackpot. They now had some energy, the granules in the wbcs glowed more, were way more active.

I felt so good this summer I had a BLAST. Ive missed out on so many summers of fun because of chronic illness. It was probably the best summer of my adult life.

I was killing all the bacteria. But not the yeast. Yeast is an opportunistic mofo and it is the best biofilm maker. Chronic yeast issues from leaky gut allow it to go systemic. I would see asteroids of what some call yeast thallus when speaking about darkfield in my blood (Ive also seen it labelled as aspergillus but you have to take dark field with a grain of salt, so who knows..). I saw things I SWORE were worms but they never had any internal organs. I talked to heads of pathology.. professors at colleges all over the world, lol.. now I realize that was the hyphal yeast forms.

Anyway. All my fun in the sun and fun living ;) earned me a wicked infection in my ear. The infection was something I let go too long because well, Im used to chronic pain so it didnt seem like a big deal until I couldnt hear out of my ear any more. Even then we himhawed around with garlic oil, neem oil, tea tree oil, alcohol.vinegar... etc until my jaw and sinuses started becoming affected. So he gave me abx. decided that while I was taking them (I had to get a second course called in because the diflucan took so long to work) I might as well take them for a month. The infection ended up being outer ear only, lasting for almost 10 weeks by the time I had enough, poured peroxide in my ear, sat there till it stopped bubbling then syringed my ear out removing a chunk of disgustingness. The diflucan and zithro didnt really help it, but I did notice that the last of my nagging inflammation due to ibs/uc disappeared. I also had alot more energy and the acne that had been horrible on the side of my face that got the ear infection cleared up.

I took berberine for its synergy with diflucan, olive leaf, nac, b vitamins (b5,b6,b1,b2,b12,b9 in active forms.), co q 10,, biotin, lactoferrin, digest gold, interfase and additional serrapeptase. When I was done with the zithro, I started taking 500 billion cfu of custom probiotic's, I took 200billion while taking the probiotics. I also went back on the grain free diet.


Anyway, I feel pretty freaking fantastic these days. I can tolerate all foods now. It's crazy. I havent been able to eat cheese ever. I remember early childhood on, always reacting. Now, I dont react. I can eat gluten.. nothing. There was a time when if I ate gluten my body would let me know for multiple days. My gut appears good. Im not going to significantly diverge from a primarily paleo diet for a bit, but this is the most progress Ive ever made. Im no longer tired.. I almost want to knock on wood just because I cant believe Ive gotten this lucky.

I think methylation, attacking the biofilms/yeast/mold and pathogens and detoxing have been the key. I hope it holds. Ive never had such good results. God is good and the future feels very bright.

I wanted to post my story here because it is my hope that I dont have much time for the internet anymore. I spent so many years feeling unwell and being dependent on a screen to connect, to find my way out. Now it's time to live.

Have hope. It's a long road but I do think it's possible to get well. And I promise, when you are. You will appreciate it so much you will feel compelled to do great things ;-)

____

I just posted the above in another thread but it seems more apropos here. Gesalt, how's your experiment going? Remember it takes time. Way more time then I ever thought. focus on the detox. Take molyb, nac and lactoferrin to help deal with some of the toxins. Take detox baths or sauna if possible. Excited to see your results.
 
Messages
43
  • Do candida or fungi have fibrin as part of their structure? yes
  • Do candida or fungi have cellulose as part of their structure? yes
  • How much of the candida are protected by biofilm? If its a deep seated infiltration that is causing leaky gut.. alot of, if not most since it's hyphal
  • Do the good bacteria and fungi also live under biofilm? meh, the good guys can move back in later when the place is cleaned up :)
  • Is apple cider vinegar helpful? if so why exactly? it makes good salad dressing ;)
  • Are bacterial and fungal biofilms different? One in the same
  • Are there any dangers to biofilm busting enzymes, or fibronlytic enzymes? Too much thinning of the blood
  • Are there any dangers to the mucous targeting enzymes? possible, but when dealing with a Leaky gut you gotta unseat the mucus
  • Which precise compounds are causing the nausea/herx when taking Candex? gliotoxin, aldehyde, mannan, ammonia
 

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
PathogenKiller, what a mother-lode of information above, can't thank you enough for posting that thorough and quite encouraging series of vignettes of your recovery process. Congratulations! :thumbsup:

Have had that experience of having an ENT doc pulling chunks of Aspergillis out of both my ears, was no fun but it suuure felt better once it was out.

I have also viewed my blood under darkfield. My WBC's just sit there. No pep in the step. You wrote: "I decided to do some mitochondrial support, and jackpot. They now had some energy, the granules in the wbcs glowed more, were way more active." Can you please elucidate what you used for mitochondiral support?

If you're willing to PM me the name and location of your Dr. I would also be much obliged. The ND I spoke with two weeks ago (who was supposed to know about methylation support) recommended several things that once researched, made no sense to me, so now I'm in search mode again. I did find out and confirm finally that I have both "fungal - taxonomy unknown" AND "parasite - taxonomy unknown" on my last Genova test. So this entire conversation about biofilms etc. is apropos.

I know you say you don't have time for the internet these days, but if you ever want to compare notes on darkfield resources I'd love to have that conversation. Like what camera did you get? I've been studying up on it via an herbalist, but the resources are...as you might agree...somewhat incomplete / contradictory. (Why does every field have to fracture into politics before it's even fully formed???)

My best to you regardless, and thanks again.
 

Gestalt

Senior Member
Messages
251
Location
Canada
Ill cut to the chase.. The doc was awesome, he told me to take b-12,L-MethylTetrahydrofolate, olive leaf, nac, sodium butyrate, triphala, serrazimes, interfase, digest gold and moly b. At first he started me with Pau D Arco, Black walut hulls and continued on my modifed diet, which was essentially paleo. I had rapid improvement, strong detox reaction. 6 weeks sucked. But then.. AHa. Im feeling better then Ive felt in over a decade....

....I decided to do some mitochondrial support, and jackpot. They now had some energy, the granules in the wbcs glowed more, were way more active....

....I took berberine for its synergy with diflucan, olive leaf, nac, b vitamins (b5,b6,b1,b2,b12,b9 in active forms.), co q 10,, biotin, lactoferrin, digest gold, interfase and additional serrapeptase. When I was done with the zithro, I started taking 500 billion cfu of custom probiotic's, I took 200billion while taking the probiotics. I also went back on the grain free diet.....

....I just posted the above in another thread but it seems more apropos here. Gesalt, how's your experiment going? Remember it takes time. Way more time then I ever thought. focus on the detox. Take molyb, nac and lactoferrin to help deal with some of the toxins. Take detox baths or sauna if possible. Excited to see your results....

* Which precise compounds are causing the nausea/herx when taking Candex? gliotoxin, aldehyde, mannan, ammonia

Thanks for sharing your story. It seems you are taking a very similar path to wellness as I am. You have quite a few supplements listed above (many of which I already take) and I was wondering which of them did you think were critical or made the most difference in you getting better?

"gliotoxin, aldehyde, mannan, ammonia" Where did you find this out??? I have tried searching for this info and could never seem to find it. I am already taking lacatoferrin, nac & moly. Do you know of another substances that bind to these toxins?

Unlike you I think my only problem is yeast considering my near perfect recovery on my first 2 weeks of candex/syntol. There could be other "stealth pathogens", but If i can eliminate the yeast I am guessing my body can take care of the rest.

Ultimately I would really like to get back on the Candex but the herx so far is to intense. I was taking up to 4x Interfase per day just fine, but think I am going to have stop this as I am trying a new strategy recommended by by nutrigenomics doc that I will explain in the next post.

In terms of how my experiment is going so far..... Candex & Syntol still give me too much herx, and the ketogenic diet just totally crashes my energy levels (probably from crashing thyroid). My digestion is not cut out for high fat, and every meal was hurting my stomach and causing slight nausea. I get nausea from hunger or being too low calorie and so I had a hard time telling if nausea was coming from the restrictive food diet that I had a brutal time digesting or yeast die-off. My thoughts it was mostly the hard to digest fats. If I eat too much red meat or meat & fat in general it causes me indigestion, stomach pain, etc. So no paleo for me. Which means I am stuck with carbs. I sincerely wish I could have continued it.

What I did notice was while on the ketogenic diet my muscle aches went away, and when I resumed carbs they came back. On carbs I have an achy-fatigue and moderate energy level, where as on the ketogenic diet I had no aches but very-low energy level. In my case i figure a clean carb diet is the lesser of two evils, especially considering my next approach.

The only anti-fungal I am taking now is SF722 3 x5 a day and the Serrazyme & nattokinase fibrin enzymes. No herx or nausea from any of these. :)

The rest of my support supplements are: Apple pectin, Modiflan, Monolaurin, ImmuNOx, Glutmaine, BCAAs, NAC, R-Lipoic, Acetyl Carnatine, Vit C, MTHFR A1298C+,CBS/NOS, Triphala, NAG, Berberine, Zinc Carnosie, Lactoferrin, PABA, Vit K, Vit B-2, Moly, D-Mannose, Beta Carotene, EstroBal, SHMT & Mycology RNA, MethylMate B, Vit D spray, Magnesium Citrate, SHMT spray & Yucca.

I am thinking of adding Jatoba for extra anti-fungal when I order my next set of supplements.
 
Messages
43
Sparrowhawk,
Oh, I'll be around. My job is Internet based so its hard to not spend time online. I just hope to not be spending as much time ;).

I wonder if I have aspergillus, not a candida. I put the thing I washed out on a slide, but I just don't know. I think I ruined it with the peroxide, vinegar and alcohol. My culture tests never return more then a saphrophytic fungi. Or yeast/ not candida. Always 4 +. I'd love to swap dark field ideas. I have an amscope and use my dslr, a Nikon d70, with the amscope attachment to capture video and pics. I got fed up with the ear thing before the ent could look in my eAr. By the time I got to the first ent my ear was swelled shut. Tried corticosteroids but it still didn't open up enough to get a good look. Did get my sinuses visually snaked but just lotsa inflammation and mucus by that point. After I washed the chunk out I had a 3rd ent appt 4 days later. He didn't understand why I was there, lol.. Said everything looked great, just some dryness on the outer ear. That was after 10 weeks of an ear infection that was impeding or completely blocking my hearing, causing vertigo, and sometimes pain in the ear and jaw bone.

For mito support,
http://www.fodsupport.org/documents/Modern-Approach-to-Treatment-of-Mito.pdf
200
mg ubiquinol, 1000 mg l carnitine, 33 mg p5p, 2000 mg vit c as c salts, 250mg d pantothenic acid- b5, 3000 mcg biotin, 100 mg b1, 400 iui vit e, 5000 mcg methyl b12, 3000 mcg lmethyltetrahydrofolate,

NAC 2000 mg
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36329/title/The-Downside-of-Antibiotics-/,

lactoferrin 500 mg
http://aac.asm.org/content/52/11/4081.full


Gestalt,

I tried candex first, I didn't get a lot of response. I felt terrible back then so it was hard to feel more terrible. I did always combine it with serrapeptase. Serra eats the fibrin and fibrinogen and you need proteases that candex doesn't provide to move out all the byproducts of killing the yeast. Proteases and cellulases are important. candex only has the latter. I also tried sf722, pau d arco and black walnut, caprylic, essential oils, various probiotics, monolaurin, and more I'm forgetting :)

I think my biggest problem is yeast. But unfortunately if you have an imbalance long enough you often get bacterial or viral buddies. Hopefully you won't find that to be an issue in the future.

Re how do I know that is what causes the symptoms of Nausea etc? Educated guess. I know those are the byproducts. I haven't 100% figured the best binder out yet. I've used broken cell wall chlorella, activated charcoal, diatomaceous earth, probiotics, enzymes and sauna. Sauna, lots of water, probiotics and enzymes are key to me.

As for the diet, I had to take lots of digestive enzymes or I couldn't eat anything. Nutrition is important to healing. Digest Gold works great and with protein heavy meals I take gluten ease for the high proteases.

Non veggie based carbs really are a big detriment to wellness, in my experience. That muscle ache is the die off from feeding then killing the yeast, or the gliotoxin, acetaldehyde and mannan.. Can't for sure narrow down which. But before I got the yeast numbers down that's how I'd react with any substantial carb intake.

The most helpful supplements for me have been
Methyl b12, p5p, b1, biotin, Lmthf, b2, b5, c, E, ubiquinol, interfase, gluten ease, digest gold, lactoferrin, NAC, serrazimes, triphala, l carnitine, anantumul, vitamin d 3, moly b, biotin, sodium butyrate, olive leaf extract, mucinex, berberine, nystatin, diflucan, six strain custom probiotics, sauna, and diet mod. Without fail I always regressed when I started eating even a small serving of grains or sugar until recently, after the diflucan. Now I tolerate all foods and seem to get away with a cheat dinner a week of something like pizza ;). The is revolutionary for me. I always take extra enzymes with these meals.


I didn't take them all at the same time but they have all been integral.

Supplements I abandoned:
Bh4, TMG, DMG, yucca, magnesium, Nag feeds Lyme, phospholipids, feeds myco and some yeasts, monolaurin, apple pectin, modified citrus pectin, immunepro, vsl3, Prescript assist, niacin, fish oil, isatis, knotweed, hottyunia, cordyceps, s boulardii, bacillus coagulans, pau d arco, black walnut, neem, Ashawagnada, various essential oils, ala, thiol reduced diet, sulfur reduced diet, raw diet, vegan diet, green smoothies, water fasting, that's all that come to mind immediately..lol
 

Gestalt

Senior Member
Messages
251
Location
Canada
The next phase I am experimenting with (in addition to what I have above ) is using Beta Glucan in conjunction with Immune Transfer Factors based on the recommendations of my Nutrigenomics Doc. I will be doing this for 3 months. Yasko uses these as well.

Both products are from Specialty Lab products (formerly Chisolm Labs). I will be using ImmunFactor 7 which is specifically designed to target multiple strains of candida yeasts.

Good article on Beta Glucan here:
http://www.immunitionreports.com/questions.htm

Beta Glucan vs Candida/Yeasts - http://www.yeastinfectionadvisor.com/betaglucans.html

Some good info on Transfer Factors here:
http://www.transferfactorresearch.com/explanation.html

Anti-fungal effect of beta-1,3-D-glucan from yeast cell wall is particularly interesting. It is known that glucan configuration in Saccharomyces cerevisiae resembles the one in Candida albicans . Glucan administered orally in mice with chronic generalized Candida infection, resulted in significant increase in the candidacidal activity of alveolar and spleen macrophages. The resistance not only to systemic infection with Candida albicans, but also Staphylococcus aureus increased, significantly reducing the growth of microorganisms in the kidneys of infected animals. Glucan also worked synergistically with the anti-fungal drug Amphotericin B (Nicoletti, 1992). http://www.tldp.com/issue/184/Yeast Derived Beta.htm

Histopathological studies revealed that glucan markedly inhibited the renal pathology associated with C. albicans challenge both in the presence and absence of laparotomy. These data indicate that glucan increased survival and reduced renal pathology associated with C. albicans challenge in the post-operative period. These observations suggest that Biologic Response Modifiers such as glucan may be effectively employed in patients who are at risk for post-operative infections. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6724765

These findings indicate that exogenous transfer factor can restore cellular immunity to candida in a patient with chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis and may be an effective treatment for this disease. http://www.nature.com/pr/journal/v5/n8/abs/pr1971144a.html

These data confirm that orally administered specific TF, extracted from induced lymphoblastoid cell-lines, increases the incidence of reactivity against Candida antigens in the LMT. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8993766

It's somewhat strange as beta glucan is one of the things that makes up the candida cell wall and biofilm (up to 60%). Using it to activate immune cells to fight candida is rather ironic to say the least. Who knew it was such a potent immune system booster....

Hence why I need to stop the Interfase because it contains beta-glucanse enzymes which break apart beta glucans. So we will see how this goes. Can't find to many people out there that have tried this route.
 

knackers323

Senior Member
Messages
1,625
I like Phoenix Rising. People here seem willing to 1. look at the science.. and 2, REALLY WANT TO GET BETTER. Super motivated.

I think fatigue hits you like nothing else, it takes you completely out of life and at some point you get tired of being so tired you're willing to become a PhD just to figure out how the heck to feel better. So many people with CFS have gut issues.

I want to share pieces of my story before I tell you how fighting biofilms, supporting methylation and adrenals and attacking pathogens has helped me.

Ive been sick since child hood. Mainly stomach stuff, but I caught every cold that went around. My mom rarely took me to the Dr, but I still remember several courses of antibiotics over the years. We also at a very high carb, higly processed, sugar saturated, fat soaked diet. And my parents smoked in the house, in the car.. both of them. I was sedentary as a latch key kid from an early age and ate alot of convenience foods. When I was in my early 20s I started to eat better, but the damage was done.. I had 4 abdominal pain related surgeries by age 20. I had dxes of fibro, ibs-c, ibs-d and UC..

By 25 I was pretty unhealthy to be so young. Youth is wasted on the young. I didnt try going GF, DF, SF, everything pretty much free until I got so sick by 33 that I couldnt really function. I was beyond tired and nobody really did anything more then try to throw drugs at me or tell me to lose weight.

So, I was completely done with being sick and tired. I started earnestly researching.. Id been doing so for many years at that point but couldnt really bring everything together. I found the fodmaps diet, did some really unsuccessful cleanses and some good ones.. tried to kill unknown parasites. And slowly I started getting better. BUT, it was SO SLOW. Im lucky too because I have alot of support. Most people cant stay on a super strict diet for 18 months, shop at whole foods.. slave over recipes with nut flour and coconut oil... Then I hit a brick wall.

But I was just so tired. It was easier not to eat. So I didnt.. lol. I luckily had 70 lbs to lose. I was feeling so toxic. Lots of constipation, brain fog, I was having to do daily enemas just to try and move some of the toxicity out of my body of the die off.

So I went back to the drawing board. Decided to go see a Dark field practitioner. I think she was totally full of shit. But what that did was allow me to see that, holy crap. I could look at my own blood. Ive wasted so much money on supplements and tests, I thought.. what the heck is 400 bucks? So, I bought one. I spent weeks/months pouring over the blood images I could find trying to understand what was going on in my blood.

I bought a camera attachment so I could take pictures and kind of chronicle the changes I was seeing...

Anyway, I didnt really know what I was looking at until I looked at a sample of my husband's blood and saw this one cell that I had a few of and he seemed to have a lot of. I was looking at this blood because he had this horrible cough for a really long time and the abx didnt seem to do anything. Anyway.. turns out is was mycoplasma Pneumonia..

And that was my introduction to the world of stealth pathogens. That eventually led me here and to my doctor. He was able to lab verify mycoplasma pneumonia and lyme disease. He also hypothesized that I had a yeast issue.. but all we have been able to confirm is it is a saphrophye that they say isnt candida. Anyway, a yeast.. a mold.

He also told me I was compound MTHFR, which led me here and to read about Rich V. and Dr. Amy. I studied snps just as fiercely. But time and time again I kept coming back to the pathogens.

For me, God created the body pretty exquisitely and gave us multiple pathways to make up for any single problem.. But it just felt like the pathways were all overloaded and gunked up. It was the gunking that needed addressing. I could artificially help by taking support for my methylation (and that was HUGE), but wasnt going to be able to push it over the edge into wellness. I could eat a perfect diet, but still.. this was so deep rooted. I was no longer bed bound and exhausted, but I still wasnt well. You cant clean a drainpipe with plain water, It can be the cleanest, purest water.

So anyway..

Ill cut to the chase.. The doc was awesome, he told me to take b-12,L-MethylTetrahydrofolate, olive leaf, nac, sodium butyrate, triphala, serrazimes, interfase, digest gold and moly b. At first he started me with Pau D Arco, Black walut hulls and continued on my modifed diet, which was essentially paleo. I had rapid improvement, strong detox reaction. 6 weeks sucked. But then.. AHa. Im feeling better then Ive felt in over a decade.

Im still tired tho. And my joints hurt. My digestion is also almost completely better, but I still have constipation issues no matter how much water I drink, or how much fiber I try to take in via psyllium, chia, flax, avocados, greens...vegetables. Dr (He's from russia) tells me to try turkey rhubarb root and glauber's salts. Phew. So much more effective then the "cleanses" and fiber. Said not to do it more then 1 x every week. I ended up doing once, 2 weeks in a row and my chronic constipation was resolved. It was crazy. I had done so many cleanses, lost a ton of weight, enemas.. anyway. Now that I could actually get to the epithelium and biofilms things really started improving. I also started taking nystatin. Id been focused on the bacteria and candida was so cliche, lol.. that I hadnt really expected as much improvement. I had energy, my joints didnt hurt. It was awesome. I noticed during this period that my white blood cells were increasing in number, but they were often so SLOW. Sometimes they would have a pep in their step so it made me wonder what the denominator was. I decided to do some mitochondrial support, and jackpot. They now had some energy, the granules in the wbcs glowed more, were way more active.

I felt so good this summer I had a BLAST. Ive missed out on so many summers of fun because of chronic illness. It was probably the best summer of my adult life.

I was killing all the bacteria. But not the yeast. Yeast is an opportunistic mofo and it is the best biofilm maker. Chronic yeast issues from leaky gut allow it to go systemic. I would see asteroids of what some call yeast thallus when speaking about darkfield in my blood (Ive also seen it labelled as aspergillus but you have to take dark field with a grain of salt, so who knows..). I saw things I SWORE were worms but they never had any internal organs. I talked to heads of pathology.. professors at colleges all over the world, lol.. now I realize that was the hyphal yeast forms.

Anyway. All my fun in the sun and fun living ;) earned me a wicked infection in my ear. The infection was something I let go too long because well, Im used to chronic pain so it didnt seem like a big deal until I couldnt hear out of my ear any more. Even then we himhawed around with garlic oil, neem oil, tea tree oil, alcohol.vinegar... etc until my jaw and sinuses started becoming affected. So he gave me abx. decided that while I was taking them (I had to get a second course called in because the diflucan took so long to work) I might as well take them for a month. The infection ended up being outer ear only, lasting for almost 10 weeks by the time I had enough, poured peroxide in my ear, sat there till it stopped bubbling then syringed my ear out removing a chunk of disgustingness. The diflucan and zithro didnt really help it, but I did notice that the last of my nagging inflammation due to ibs/uc disappeared. I also had alot more energy and the acne that had been horrible on the side of my face that got the ear infection cleared up.

I took berberine for its synergy with diflucan, olive leaf, nac, b vitamins (b5,b6,b1,b2,b12,b9 in active forms.), co q 10,, biotin, lactoferrin, digest gold, interfase and additional serrapeptase. When I was done with the zithro, I started taking 500 billion cfu of custom probiotic's, I took 200billion while taking the probiotics. I also went back on the grain free diet.


Anyway, I feel pretty freaking fantastic these days. I can tolerate all foods now. It's crazy. I havent been able to eat cheese ever. I remember early childhood on, always reacting. Now, I dont react. I can eat gluten.. nothing. There was a time when if I ate gluten my body would let me know for multiple days. My gut appears good. Im not going to significantly diverge from a primarily paleo diet for a bit, but this is the most progress Ive ever made. Im no longer tired.. I almost want to knock on wood just because I cant believe Ive gotten this lucky.

I think methylation, attacking the biofilms/yeast/mold and pathogens and detoxing have been the key. I hope it holds. Ive never had such good results. God is good and the future feels very bright.

I wanted to post my story here because it is my hope that I dont have much time for the internet anymore. I spent so many years feeling unwell and being dependent on a screen to connect, to find my way out. Now it's time to live.

Have hope. It's a long road but I do think it's possible to get well. And I promise, when you are. You will appreciate it so much you will feel compelled to do great things ;-)

____

I just posted the above in another thread but it seems more apropos here. Gesalt, how's your experiment going? Remember it takes time. Way more time then I ever thought. focus on the detox. Take molyb, nac and lactoferrin to help deal with some of the toxins. Take detox baths or sauna if possible. Excited to see your results.


Hi PK, what exactly did you use to break down the biofilms and what did you use to kill the various pathogens. Eg. Lyme, mycoplasma, yeast, fungi? Do you believe you have totally eliminated the mycoplasma and lyme? Thank you.
 

knackers323

Senior Member
Messages
1,625
Treatment is moving along slowly. I take 4x Interfase per day now with no adverse reaction, however 1/2 a capsule of Syntol, gives me 4 hours of nausea/herx. The Interfase is thus more gentle, which makes me wonder about its efficacy however. I am 2 weeks in on the ketogenic diet. This first 1.5 weeks were a brutal adjustment. I had a hard time maintaining adequate calories and my metabolsim was crashing.

My current speculation is that, prior I had been taking liver support supplements, and those helped prevent reactions. I ran out, and didn't stock up again, and this may be why I got such a bad reaction when i attempted a 2nd start. Now I am going overboard, taking as much liver/detox support supplements as I possibly can. So I'll see in a few days if that helps.

No, I have not done testing for Candida. I take yucca stalk capsules. Two at night. Not sure how that compares to the root...

Gestalt, are you finding that the liver support was what was missing?
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
PathogenKiller

I had 4 abdominal pain related surgeries by age 20.

Its great to hear your story. It is very encouraging. Just one thing though. You related your abdominal surgeries to your bad diet. One of my sons had two - appendix and hernia and we ate a pretty good diet - very little sugar throughout his childhood. Just saying.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
Gestalt

Which means I am stuck with carbs.

I suggest that you only use whole grains, soak them and sprout them for a day or two, and then chew them very well - I mean very very well. This should help eliminate digestive problems.
 

Beyond

Juice Me Up, Scotty!!!
Messages
1,122
Location
Murcia, Spain
PathogenKiller now I understand your username! I thought it was odd (but cool) when I saw it in the genetic tests forum. Congratulations! Is always very encouraging and important for us reading from people that "made it".

Yes I agree, once I get well Internet will be pretty much put aside. Is only good for information research and a pitiful surrogate of real life and human interaction. My family thinks and says I am addicted but they don´t understand that I hate being in the computer at this point, I am just addicted to HOPE.
 
Messages
43
Gestalt,
i forgot to add that i tried a few transfer factors (lyme, myco and candida) and beta glucan. i stopped the beta glucan quick as i did not think it was helping me, i felt like it was helping the fungus. But let me know how your experiments go. The transfer factors were just too expensive for me to keep doing when I couldn't see any changes in my blood or feel anything.

Knackers,
I used olive leaf, anatumul, triphala, serrazimes, enzymes, probiotics and diet for strep, myco and Lyme. I could always see the myco in my blood and it did come down. Ive only caught lyme a few times.. havent seen it in about 4 months now. Blood tests came from 700+ myco to 405, and 880 strep to 420 in 6 months on that protocol. Cd 57 came up 50 points to 120.

Unfortunately that made my yeast go up and I got a wicked ear infection. We chose to take the first abx of treatment, Zithromax because it is active against myco and strep. Zithromax completely made what I think was myco disappear from my blood and gave me a huge energy boost.

For the biofilms..I used digest gold, gluten ease, biofilmzymes, serrazimes, NAC, triphala, lactoferrin, butyrate, biotin and cinnamon oil for the biofilms. I also think mucinex was helpful for me.

For the yeast/ fungus/mold
Digest gold, gluten ease, biofilmzymes, serrazimes, NAC, triphala, olive leaf, anatumul, berberine, sodium butyrate, biotin, lactoferrin, molybdenum, nystatin, diflucan (I trialed many other things that I listed above, but this set is what made the difference)

I used
Lmethylfolate, methylb12, p5p, riboflavin, b5, thiamin, zinc, ubiquinol, vit c, NAC, lactoferrin to support methylation, mitochondria and detox.

I did head out sauna, made sure my bowels moved daily and drank lots of water to focus on detox. I dabbled with binders but then had constipation, so I figured it was best to just keep my digestion moving and work on binders later. It's something I'm currently trying to decide on.

I don't think you can ever eliminate these bugs completely with any protocol. But what I am thankful for my microscope for is that it has allowed me to see that my immune system is getting stronger. In the beginning of looking at my blood WBCs were few and far between and what I did find was primarily macrophages. Now I have many many more and they are of varying types. I also can now watch them move to things and perform phagocytosis. Previously they just sat there and did nothing.

Brenda, then if your sone has chronic illness he has a leg up on healing. Lucky for him that you fed him well. ;)

Beyond.. Addicted to hope! Me too! Don't give up.
 
Messages
94
Location
NZ
Protocol
The following protocol is a synthesis of Dr. Ettinger’s Biofilm Protocol for Lyme and Gut Pathogens and Dr.Usman's.
Firstly I started a Ketogenic diet (zero carbs) three days ago. I plan on being on it for the next 8 weeks for that appears to be the time necessary to do a reset on the gut based off Dr.Ettingers experience. For really good info on the biochemistry and logistics of the diet Lyle McDonald's book "The Ketogenic Diet" has been an invaluable resource. In addition I am taking Pancreatic enzymes with every meal which incidentally may help a tiny bit with candida breakdown.

Now I am hoping by removing the preferred fuel source of the yeast that I can reduce if not eliminate most of the herx symptoms. If not I should be able to slow their growth down dramatically so I have no relapse. There are theories floating around that you can "starve" Candida to death but this is simply not true because Candida can eat nearly everything. Hence also why the diet is not enough on it's own.
The protocol is based off the 3 step formula devised by Dr.Usman. 1. Detach Matrix 2. Target Microbes 3.Cleanup
I am doing this twice a day once early in the morning and before bedtime.
Morning & Nightime
  • 1x Interfase + one of (Candex, Nattokinase, Syntol, Serratiopeptidase) on daily rotation
  • 1x Zeolite for instant metals/mineral cleanup
30 minutes later
  • One of (Oregeno oil, Grapefruit Seed Extract, SF722) on daily rotation
  • Monolaurin
1 hour later
  • 1 gram of D-Mannose
  • NAC
  • Glutamine -2g
  • Vitamin C
  • Apple Pectin
  • Modiflan
  • Yucca
Mid-day
  • 1 x Lactoferrin
  • 4 x BOD
  • 2 x Random Probiotics
In regards to the Candida & biofilm enzymes, I will be starting at 1/4 capsule 2x a day or less, and then slowly ramping up over several days/weeks till full dose to avoid herx reactions.
2-4 Weeks Later - The Nuke

Once I'm back to full dose on the enzymes, and established there for a week I will implement the second phase which occurs concurrently with the above. This involves doing the Lufenuron protocol and a day after stacking it with 1 or 2-dose Diflucan. This is an extreme measure however I am also going after a long standing fungal infection of my skin of Tinea Versicilor which cover my torso and arms in addition to the Candida.

Other Notes:
I am taking numerous other supporting supplements such as yasko's SHMT RNA and spray.

One thing I noticed reading through many posts on this forum and others is that people will start with a candida enzyme get a herx reaction, stop taking it and then never look back and then go after things completely un-candida related. Or they decide the diet is to difficult for them and give up. On the first point this really surprises me, if you are getting a herx reaction, then does this not mean the problem is even more important and needs to be addressed!?

Some people seem to think they "can't tolerate it" or that maybe they have an "allergy" to the enzyme. These seem like poor rationalization excuses. I am wondering for those who got herx reactions, if they had just cut back on the dose to 1/4 capsule or even less, and then worked up slowly maybe they would have fared better? Might they have solved their issues had they just been a bit more cautious, thorough and diligent?

For your consideration. Two things that helped me are:
  • sb floractiv. Its a Saccharomyces boulardii. This brand (for me anyway) was a lot more effective. I take it at the same time as the enzymes.
  • lutimax. Its a combination of flavonoids. I take this on an empty stomach is I'm getting a herx reaction. It almost reverse the herx within 30mins. Its a powerful anti-oxidant/ anit-inflammatory
 

Gestalt

Senior Member
Messages
251
Location
Canada
Just a quick update on my progress.

I went from 1/16 capsule of candex a day, to 1/8, to 1/4 and I have finally worked my way up to 1/2 a capsule twice a day. Took me about 3-4 weeks.

Slow incremental progress and I have managed to avoid full blown nausea the whole way. I only get minor stomach pains and only for 1 hr after taking 1/2 candex in the evening.

I have also added Pau d'Arco, Cinnamon Bark and Jatoba as anti-fungals.

As I increase my Candex dose I begin to feel better and better. The correlation between elimination of all my CFS symptoms and candex dose is a direct one. The stuff really works wonders if it doesn't do me over.


For your consideration. Two things that helped me are:
  • sb floractiv. Its a Saccharomyces boulardii. This brand (for me anyway) was a lot more effective. I take it at the same time as the enzymes.
  • lutimax. Its a combination of flavonoids. I take this on an empty stomach is I'm getting a herx reaction. It almost reverse the herx within 30mins. Its a powerful anti-oxidant/ anit-inflammatory

Thank you very much for the recommendation Gary. I got myself some Lutimax and started using it about 30mins after taking Candex. I believe it is helping keep the nausea away.

I have yet to try Saccharomyces boulardii and am concerned that all the anti-fungals I am taking may attack that instead of the candida. I will add it in the future, when I am back to full dose candex, and can wean myself off the anti-fungals.
 

South

Senior Member
Messages
466
Location
Southeastern United States
Gestalt: some questions/comments on this thread -- you mentioned seeing somewhere that "candida produces thiamine", but I worry that what the study means is that yeast produces enough thiamine for its own use, not that it spits out much extra. And that would be important (if I'm right about that), because people with candida would be at risk for thiamine deficiency, not thiamine overload. My reasoning is because candida produces acetylaldehyde, which is a toxin our bodies must detox using thiamine; thus the end result is that candida would cause us to be deficient in thiamine, even if the candida cells are making some thiamine on their own.

That doesn't explain your reaction to thiamine though, but I thought I'd bring this up as something to think about. I suffer candida problems, have for years, and am about to trial high dose thiamine, because I have some symptoms and history that I think may point to thiamine deficiency. If I get worse, maybe I do have thiamine overload instead, but we'll see.

There's a graph on this link about how acetaldehyde is detoxified: (granted it's a commercial site, but I've seen this graph on noncommercial sites in the past, so I hope it is accurate) http://www.vrp.com/digestive-health/a-health-destroying-toxin-we-cant-avoid-and-must-detoxify.

You mentioned a symptom that may be due to yeast, sudden overheating of the body -- I get that too. Have been chipping away at the candida problem for years, figuring out some things that do help me, but I still cannot indulge in refined carbs (not even white rice or potatoes if I don't have enough fat with them) without symptoms flaring up. Anyway, many candida forums don't talk about the sudden heat wave symptom, so I thought I'd mention to you that some other folks do get that, and some of us do think it's due to the yeast.

Just one more comment, keep track of things if you try beta glucan. I've read too many stories of it making things worse for people with candida. Not sure if that was die off for them or in fact, aggravation of their yeast overgrowth. I have not tried that supplement.