home › The Candida Forum › Your Stories & Journals › New here- my story of hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue and candida
This topic contains 7 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by Ruffian 4 years, 11 months ago.
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- May 4, 2013 at 12:00 am #103927
Hello everyone. I’ve been so miserable that I was begging to find a forum where I could learn more about this process…. and here you all are!
I’ve always been relatively healthy, active, did pretty much anything I wanted ie worked full time, was a wife, mother, vocalist with a group for 17 years, performed several times a month, restored three historic homes, practiced yoga for 32 years. I conceived easily, had one child when I was 22, then eight miscarriages. Divorced 13 years ago, did well for five then crashed in 2006.. literally couldn’t get out of the bed one day. Diagnosed with severe hypothyroidism and stage 5 Adrenal fatigue. I’ve had difficulty losing weight and yoyo’d from 120-140 most of my adult life. I’m 59 yo, 5’3″ and now weigh 135.
After being diagnosed HypoT and AF, I would stabilize for about 2 years, then crash, change meds, protocol, etc. In 2010-2011, I took HHCG 3x and lost the same 15 pounds three times. Always regained it regardless of diet or activity. In Oct 2011, I was in an auto accident that totalled my car, and was hit by both airbags, and hit my head on the roof. There were no obvious injuries, but within a month, I started getting sick… sinus infection, flu, another sinus infection- took antibiotics, tamiflu, etc and just couldn’t get well. I lost down to 116 and looked like a ghost. As the weather warmed up, I got some better but still had tremendous fatigue issues. Throughout all of this, since 2000 when I separated, I’ve had frequent diahrrea that looked like mush or sand, and was dark brown, regardless of what I ate. The docs and I thought at first it was stress. I also had symptoms of MS ie foot drop and eyelid droop… but again, they thought stress.
I got through the summer, spent a lot of time outside at the beach after work and on weekends, and felt better, but still had to nap and go to bed early. I also fell in love. I was feeling enough better that I tried in August 2012, to go off the topical hydrocortisone that I’ve been on for Adrenal Fatigue support, since 2008. It was not pretty… and I ended up in Winston Salem NC with the head of the endo dept, who took me as a patient as a favor to my boyfriend, who’s a D.O. but, he was very traditional and had nothing new to tell us, other than said that I just needed to get used to slowing down. Ha!
I felt like I was in a cave the winter of 2012… more sinus, more flu, more antibiotics.. and I rarely take medications, mostly supplements. By March, I was desperate… and a friend reminded me that her son is a chinese doc/herbalist/acupuncturist. I went to see him and started on a treatment of chinese herbs that seems to help with my energy. But I continued to feel bad/fatigued/depressed. So I found a therapist who specializes in supporting folks with chronic long term illnesses and uses jon kabbat zinn’s mindfulness techniques. That has also helped. Then, about a month ago, I read something about Candida, and it all clicked. I did the saliva in water test, and mine was cloudy, sank straight to the bottom, and stayed there… no dissipation. I called my doc, who’s alternative, and she said she’s suspected that for a while. Put me on Diflucan and grapefruit seed extract.
I’ve eaten a ‘clean’ diet for most of the past 15 years and for 3+ years absolutely no grains, no sugar, no dairy other than the occasional cheese and butter, and have taken coconut oil 5-6 T a day, plus probiotics for several months, as well as the A-biotic by Dr. Rawls Vital Plan- these two things made me feel better immediately after starting them.
I haven’t eaten anything processed in so many years i can’t remember.. only fresh veggies, seafood, chicken, eggs, meats, and the occasional strawberry or grapefruit sections on a salad with avocado and red onion. I was vegetarian in the 90’s for 5 years, but went to high fat, moderate protein and very low carb for Adrenal support.
The primary change since starting the Diflucan, had been giving up merlot. It hasn’t been difficult. Its been harder to give up cheese and butter. I found an almond cheese and am using Ghee… please let me know if those aren’t ok.
I started Diflucan on a Thursday, a little over a week ago, and by the second day was sick as a dog. Horrible headache, stomachache, sore all over, and tired. It got worse and worse. I was also jittery under my skin, felt weepy, and was tossing and turning at night. Doc said to stop it for 2 days, cut out 1/4-1/2 thyroid meds and see what happened.. and to add charcoal. I didn’t have the headache, nightly jitters, or flu feeling, but was so tired. Today, I started back on it and I’m miserable. If this is the way it is… I’ll just figure out how to tough it out. I’ve read that it can cause not only physical but mental/psychiatric symptoms… adn I believe it. As a former social worker, I wonder how many folks with thyroid or candida issues get misdiagnosed!
I’ve added oregano oil, charcoal and have also been using the Pau d’Arco tea.
My gut feeling is that Candida has been an issue for me for a very long time. Doc says after a month on Diflucan, she wants to start me on Nystatin.
How can I continue my life, go to work every day when I feel this bad? I though the adrenal fatigue was bad enough… but I could stay in the bed all day!
I’ll read the forum for ideas and learn from you all, but am grateful for any thoughts, suggestions, etc.
Best,
Szuzn
May 4, 2013 at 12:14 am #103928Szuzn;42430 wrote: I’ll read the forum for ideas and learn from you all, but am grateful for any thoughts, suggestions, etc.
Hello, Szuzn, and welcome to the forum.
Read our protocol and the testimonies to our strict diet and protocol. Then let me know via private message on the
forum if you’d like a link to the diet.
Testimonies to the Diet and Protocol
The ProtocolAble
May 4, 2013 at 12:53 am #103929I just got this error msg when I clicked on The Protocol above. Server Error in ‘/forum’ Application.
A potentially dangerous Request.Path value was detected from the client (:).
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: A potentially dangerous Request.Path value was detected from the client (:).
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
[HttpException (0x80004005): A potentially dangerous Request.Path value was detected from the client (:).]
System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateInputIfRequiredByConfig() +8884233
System.Web.PipelineStepManager.ValidateHelper(HttpContext context) +59Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.1
May 5, 2013 at 12:37 am #103974Try it again please.
May 5, 2013 at 7:22 pm #104018Szuzn, that was a very tough story, but I think you should be proud that you got through all of that and finally are getting closer to the core of your problem.
From all that you have mentioned here, to me it sounds that your problem definitely might be candida related. For example I had bad fatigue and insane need to take a daytime nap and it almost disappeared after 3 months of being on a strictest candida diet. Seeing that one of your biggest problems is lack of energy/fatigue I think this diet can only be beneficial to you, even if it helps just with that single symptom.
Just be patient and persistent and you will get yourself back on track! I wish you the best of luck!
May 5, 2013 at 8:58 pm #104022Thanks so much,Nekotamo!
I’ve made a list of the additional supplements, dosing and timing, but still can’t find the recommended foods list.
I’m very disciplined and certain that I can follow the diet, but every time I click on the link to ‘food items’, I get a general info page.Any suggestions?
Thanks,
susan
May 21, 2013 at 8:34 pm #104899Hi,
Just searched for ghee and found your post.
I had the same problem with the food list, its all a bit confusing but then I found another link that Able had sent which worked . I would ask Able to send it again, if you haven’t already.
With regards to how to cope with feeling bad (including anxiety symptoms) IMO the way to tackle it is(1) to work out how to have the anti-fungals high enough to be killing the candida (and producing die-off) but low enough to be able to cope(even if that means having a few days here or there feeling terrible)(2) I think the key is in using supplements and methods to detox the stuff which is being released into your bloodstream/system. I’m not an expert but I’ve been working this stuff out bit by bit for years, making loads of mistakes. Many of the anti-fungals I’ve taken -for example, oregano oil,made me feel terrible and so I simply cut the dose down to one I could cope with and then built up the dose slowly. There are so many things you can do also to assist your body detox, which makes it all so much easier.Some of the things that have worked for me are: walking (any othr exercise is too much but walking seems to be gentle enough to not make me ill yet also helps to detoxify me and I always feel better.Another physical thing to do is have a warm bath,even better if it has Epsom Salts in it(one cup),even better if preceded by something which makes you sweat(exercise,sauna, wrap yourself up in blankets even) Take milkthistle ,molybdenum,nettle tea, burdock tea and any other detoxifying herbs, or drink. Just drinking extra water(sipping) makes a difference.There are all sorts of micronutrients,minerals and phytochemicals which can help too, so you can build up an arsenal of ways to make the die-off much more liveable.
Hope this helps.May 21, 2013 at 10:19 pm #104901I can relate with so much you said Szuzn. For me it has been a slow battle over many, many months. Sometimes it seems I even take a step back. That’s when I change up what I’m taking a little bit and get stricter with diet, plus add more probiotics. I’m just now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. This is not an overnight fix I’ve learned. It’s a long war unfortunately. But I might be finally winning.
Goodluck!
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