What enzymes to use for biofilms?

[Lotus97]

I know that nattokinase, lumbokinase and serrepeptaise are recommended for biofilms, but which one depends on where the biofilm is located.

Is there a way to know where it's located?

 

[Rand56]

Just checked out Candex. It looks like a very powerful formulation for breaking down biofilms. It has 128,000 CU of cellulase, compared to 500 CU in Kirkmans Biofilm Defense. WTF. Just ordered some. Go Ninja

hi adreno

I know this post of yours is from a couple weeks ago and maybe you already got your Candex and started it. In case you haven't yet, I know that they claim that there is no herx reaction from it, but my experience was quite the opposite. First day I followed the instructions of only taking 1 capsule. Bad idea! For "hours" following, I had the worst severe bloating and discomfort I've ever had. Looked like I swallowed a basketball.

Hope you don't have the same kind of reaction, but if I were you, play it safe and start out with less than a full cap.

Rand

 

[adreno]

hi adreno

I know this post of yours is from a couple weeks ago and maybe you already got your Candex and started it. In case you haven't yet, I know that they claim that there is no herx reaction from it, but my experience was quite the opposite. First day I followed the instructions of only taking 1 capsule. Bad idea! For "hours" following, I had the worst severe bloating and discomfort I've ever had. Looked like I swallowed a basketball.

Hope you don't have the same kind of reaction, but if I were you, play it safe and start out with less than a full cap.

Rand

Hi Rand,

Yes, I started out easy with just a single cap. Like you, I had quite a herx reaction. Nausea, headache, malaise and the most severe depression. I've been on it a few days and doing better. I'm up to the full dose now. It seems quite effective.

Pharmaceutical antifungals actually work by destroying the cell walls of fungi, and as I understand it those cell walls are mainly cellulose. So it might be that Candex is as effective as the drugs, but without the same toxicity. I haven't experienced the same herx reaction, even with high doses of other enzymes.

Note I'm also taking monolaurin, garlic extract, probiotics, OLE and will add Candida Clear (NOW brand) soon. So I'm really hitting it hard. Death before dishonor.

 

[Rand56]

Guess my warning to you was a bit too late LOL sorry. Well, glad you got thru it and seems you were as miserable as me.

It pisses me off that it's marketed as having no healing crisis by many, and even on Pure Essence Labs home site it says "virtually" no healing crisis. Guess that's how they cover their azzes by saying virtually.

The sad thing is, I'm sure there are many others who got the same type of reaction like you and I had. The company would be better off giving some warnings or just have people start off slower. Misleading people can be dangerous and I wonder if some people say to themselves "great..no healing crisis? Maybe I'll move this along faster and start out with 2 caps instead of 1!" Wow, I couldn't imagine how I would have felt on 2 when I know how I felt on one.

You've actually given me some hope to kind of push thru this some more since you say things have gotten better. For a few weeks after that first time I took it, I was too scared to even try a much smaller dose, not really knowing if my reaction was just being allergic to it or I was actually doing some good killing off some critters. Just on occasion I dose with it but I do no more than like 1/5th of a cap. I'll start pushing up a bit more and hopefully it will get better from there.

Rand

 

[adreno]

For me the die-off was mostly gone after a few days. I was kinda disappointed, lol. I take the Candex with Medizyme; I read somewhere that taking protease will help tolerate the die-off. Enzymedica has a product that combines the two:

Cellulase is the enzyme that breaks down fiber. It is also the only digestive enzyme our body does not make. Fungi (Candida) is a group of organisms formerly regarded as plants lacking chlorophyll. They can either exist as single cells or make up a multi-cellular body called a mycelium, which consists of filaments known as hyphae. The cell wall of yeast and fungi contains some fungal cellulose or a compound called chitin. Chitin is a polysaccharide, or carbohydrate, which is structurally very similar to cellulose. Supplemental cellulase may help break down this “cellulose-like” chitin, aiding the body’s natural systems of purification and detoxification.*

Additionally, in individuals with Candida imbalance there is often a large amount of undigested fiber in the large intestine . It is believed that the mucus that the body naturally produces as a result of this impaired fiber (cellulose) digestion may protect the Candida from our body's immune system. By adding cellulase to the diet we provide support for fiber digestion, allowing it to be removed along with inappropriate mucus, allowing our body to achieve balance.*

Protease:
The inside of the cell of yeast is mostly protein. Proteases are proteolytic, meaning they have the ability to hydrolyze (digest) protein. Protease enzymes have a long history of beneficial use for detoxification and purification. The addition of protease to this formula helps the body deal with excess "die-off" or common symptoms of cleansing.

http://www.enzymedica.com/store/Candidase

 

[Lotus97]

I remember reading some customer reviews for Candex on iHerb where they also experienced herx/die-off.

 

[tatt]

May I suggest NAC - see this paper https://idsa.confex.com/idsa/2010/webprogram/Paper2660.html

Also if your problem is sinus infection then I have personally used both xylitol chewing gum and xylitol nasal sprays and found them useful. Xylitol is mildly laxative so if you have problems in that direction use the nasal spray. It has been known to release down throats foul tasting gunk.

 

[Lotus97]

Has anyone tried any of the enzymes mentioned in this thread (such as serrapeptase or nattokinase) for inflammation? I suppose it depends what type of inflammation you have and what's causing your pain (or other symptoms possibly related to inflammation). That's something I'm having a hard time pinning down.

 

[Gestalt]

I tried 1 capsule of Candex about 4 weeks ago, within 24 hours the brain fog I experienced for 15+ years subsided. My muscles also felt better than ever. Man was I impressed. Finally feel like I got to the root of my CFS and feeling normal. There is no doubt that in my mind now that candida is likely the sole cause of my CFS. I slowly ramped up the dose, and felt amazing for 2 weeks also switched to Syntol. No herx. Then I forgot to take it for a few days.

Started taking it again, and then BAM, within 30mins get hit with massive nausea and vomiting lasting for 4-8 hours. I can't even take 1 pill now without massive symptoms, where before I was taking up to 6 a day.

I have serrapeptase on order, and hoping it will be more gentle. If not I'm going to have to try taking 1/4 capsule and very slowly ramping up. I also have Lufernuron on order, but am paranoid to start it in case herx is worse than the Candex/Syntol restart.

In the mean time I'm loading up on probiotics and BOD patented Candida killer which I'm doing fine on.
Also taking a bit of zeolite to help with possible heavy metal release from fungal die off.

 

[jepps]

I take CDX from ThreeLac (Candidase+Protease), Virastop and Nattokinase since six weeks, and since this time I have die-off symptoms, temporarily very worse. But in my stool there is also temporarily much sticky mucus, which I believe, this is the biofilm (I have Candida+Parasites), and which I did not habe before taking enzymes.
Does anybody know, how the biofilm looks like?

I also take Saccharomyces boulardii, and several other probiotics and several prebiotics, next week I will begin taking resistant starch.

 

[Leon]

Interesting thread. Just to chime in on the Candex bandwagon, I've been taking it for two days (1 cap). I also use Pure Encapsulations digestive enzymes with meals, and am fairly confident there is a correlation between die-off and taking these, now that I'm tackling the biofilms with Candex. I also take S. Boulardii.

The die-off is pretty intense. I have metallic breath, nausea, headache and heavy diarrhea. I'm particularly interested in the correlation between metal dumping and breaking up biofilms. I've been taking ALA/DMSA for some time, and my symptoms of metal toxicity have improved markedly. I've done some urine/stool samples to see which metals are coming out. I'm doing some more on Monday to see what is coming out. My suspicion is more will be coming out. I'm happy to share the results if you want them.

On the side of metals, I can't recommend being on a safe chelation protocol prior to breaking up the biofilms enough. In lieu of the test results I'll have next week, when I last tried to break up biofilms I couldn't tolerate 1/10th of a tablet. The difference was that I wasn't chelating. DMSA or DMPS would be my recommendations. Once you become confident with DMPS, it can be used at low dose continuously - which is helpful if you don't want to have to pulse biofilm treatment. You can add in ALA, but because it crosses the blood brain barrier, and thus transports mercury both in and out the brain, an increase in blood mercury could result in it being shuttled across the BBB. This could also happen with chlorella. I can't advise against chlorella enough. If you are chelating safely, you will be dosing on the half life to avoid fluctuating blood levels of heavy metals, which might end up being dumped in organs and/or the brain. It's impossible to chelate safety with chlorella. Anyone interested in Cutler's work will be sympathetic to this approach.