Sans Sucre - Candida/Fruit/PH Balance: My Lessons Learned
So, I started on this cleanse my doctor wanted me to do. I
began on Sunday. The cleanse involves drinking lots of water
and herbal and decaf green tea. Also, for the first 2 days I
am supposed to keep hunger at bay with bits of fruit and fruit
juice. After the 2 days, I add in vegetables, and a bit of
olive oil and continue on for a total of one week. I am also
to take a multi vitamin, and some liver/detox support
supplements (NAC, Alpha Lipoic Acid, NOW Detox Formula,
charcoal, and silymarin).
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I had over the past few months
been alkalizing with magnesium, calcium, and trace minerals,
as well as taking chlorella and probiotics, colostrum and
slippery elm for leaky gut, and HCL for additional stomach
acid. I discontinued all these for the cleanse. BTW, the
cleanse is designed to help my liver. I also have candida
which I had been having a hard time eradicating probably due
to my liver issues, up until recent months (alkalizing!), when
it had started to retreat.
The first day of the cleanse was great. I drank a lot of
water, and did not feel the need for any fruit until almost
5pm. I also noticed that I did begin to detox fairly quickly
and easily. I found LOTS of candida in my stool, and I got my
first menstrual period in about 4 months (over the last few
years of battling candida, I have observed that when candida
is in a bad flare, my periods get screwy or stop), so I was
pretty happy about that. And it was fairly cramp free. I had
read a long time ago that calcium helps with cramps, and I had
been getting a lot more calcium than usual the last month or
so when I read here on this site about needing to balance
magnesium with calcium. Hmmmm. Could menstrual distress be
caused by acidity, too?? :)
Next day my blood sugars, which had been running high, high,
high (I am a type 1 diabetic), normalized, and then began to
plummet. I was not prepared for such a drastic reduction in
insulin need, and not knowing where my blood sugars would end
up, I had to experiment with reducing my insulin dosage as I
went along. Of course, I inevitably made errors, and wound up
with many low blood sugars over the course of the day, and
needed to eat a lot of fruit to keep my blood sugars from
dropping. And that is where the trouble began.
During these days, I had also been watching my ph very
closely, and it remained in the 7.4 range the whole first day
and half of the second. Towards the end of the second day my
ph had begun to nose dive. By the morning of the 3rd day,
there were apparently not enough buffering minerals left in
me, and my ph remained at 5 the whole day, no matter what I
ate or did. And, lo and behold, at the very same time, I felt
it: Candida flare! Yup, there it was, all over my tongue
again. And I had an itchy vaginal area too. And my energy,
which had been fine, sucked. Also, I had cravings for carbs,
which always happens when candida flares. And bloat.
So, by now it was day 3 anyway, and I was able to start adding
in veggies that evening, which helped greatly with the hunger
that the candida surge had brought on. But, I decided to go
off plan a bit and so last night before bed I took some
magnesium oxide (Oxypowder) and some calcium, and when I woke
up this morning, my ph was a respectable 6.7 and it bounded to
7 by afternoon. I began feeling draggy again about 2pm, so I
had another hit of mag and cal, plus a little bit of baking
soda and citric acid, and within a half hour, my energy was
good again, and ph back to 7.4+. Also, here it is about 3pm my
time and I have not had any hunger, tho I am about to eat some
veggie casserole to keep my blood sugar up, because it too has
responded remarkably quickly and is going low again. At least
now I have figured out my situation and can continue on my
cleanse and actually reap some benefits now. Today, along with
my veggies, I am still eating some fruit, and candida is still
falling back, I assume 'cause I have the minerals now. If I
had not read this website recently, I would probably have had
no clue as to what was happening to me, probably would have
mistaken the candida surge for a detox reaction, and certainly
never would have come up with the tools to fix it!
I believe that what happened is that I had been going along
well last 3-4 months, alkalizing, candida was going away even
tho I was eating at least 1-2 servings of fruit/day, and then
when I began this cleanse, the fact that I ate so much fruit
(3-5 servings/day) and nothing else, without also having my
usual minerals, that the lack of minerals allowed the fruit,
which would otherwise have been healing, to cause the candida
to re-surge. And the fact that adding these alkalizing things
back has so rapidly changed things back around is amazing. To
me, this is proof in my mind that Moreless's assertion that
candida people can eat fruit as long as they have adequate
minerals accompanying it and/or in reserve, is accurate. It is
clear to me that I need a lot of work in the way of
mineralization, but am happy to be (FINALLY!!) on the right
track. This forum rocks!
THANKS!