Photo by mark sebastian

Picture yourself healthy and free of your Candida symptoms. No more pain, no more wasted days. By the time you finish reading this series of articles, you’ll be in a better position to make that scenario a reality.

Candida treatment is simple, but not easy. Here are the 10 most important steps you can take to get rid of Candida yeast infection:

1. Talk to your doctor
2. Get the right diagnosis
3. Identify what’s the root cause of your problems
4. Eat healthy
5. Avoid scams
6. Take antifungals
7. Take probiotics
8. Minimize Candida die-off symptoms
9. Relax
10. End your fatigue

I wrote this series of articles not for people looking to cure severe Candida related problems (for this see a doctor or naturopath) but rather as a guide on how to better cope with your condition, so you can finally experience the kind of life you always knew you were meant to live.

Related posts:

1. 7 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Candida
2. Magic Cure-Alls? Not So Fast
3. Candida Die Off Symptoms and Prevention

“And what is a man without energy? Nothing – nothing at all.”

- Mark Twain

Feeling tired? Do you find it a struggle to get through each day? Chronic fatigue can be a major problem in both your career and personal life. In this article we’ll explore 3 intelligent ways to respond.

If you’ve ever had Candida infection, you’ll know how energy draining this condition can be. Over time, I learned three great habits to get more energy permanently – opposing to being drained down, where in the worst case scenario I wasn’t even able to get out of the bed.

1. Breathe properly

This may come as a surprise to you, but proper breathing is really so much better than a cup of coffee for boosting energy and fighting fatigue. By proper I mean very deep breathing into the abdomen, so that your belly is really moving forward.

I had great success with a breathing exercise known as the 1-3-2 breath. It is utterly simple, requires no equipment and takes almost no time – you can do this whenever you want simply by taking 10 deep and conscious breaths. The ratio of 1:3:2 means that if you inhale for 6 seconds, you hold your breath for a count of 18 and then exhale for 12 seconds. Practice twice a day and watch how you feel.

2. Get active

It’s easy to get stuck due to idleness because we feel too drained to do anything but plop in front of the TV and then doze off. The solution is, however, quite straightforward: overcome your procrastination and physically move your body, even if it’s the last thing you want to do.

It is common knowledge that regular physical activity can provide you with that spark of energy you are looking for. A bad day at the beach is better than a good day anywhere else. Experiment and see what kind of exercise is suitable for you – is it running, cycling, swimming, or something different altogether? It doesn’t matter – as long as you develop exercising as a habit.

3. Eat your breakfast – even if you’re not hungry

Several studies have shown that people who skip their morning meal feel worse both physically and mentally than those who eat breakfast regularly.

Eating breakfast can give you a morning energy boost and keep your energy up throughout the day. Why? Because the right breakfast foods can help you keep the levels of your blood sugar steady. Your energy levels greatly depend on the quality of the food you ingest.  So start your day right and make time for a healthy breakfast. (I highly recommend reading “justsayingno” blog for some inspiration)

The above 3 tips for raising energy levels are just scratching the surface of the ways that you can deal with fatigue and handle more activity when you have Candida yeast infection. What other techniques do you use to feel energized? Do you have advice for others? Share your experience in the comment section bellow!

Photo credits: *sean, marfis75, lisadragon , lululemon athletica

Related posts:

1. 7 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Candida
2. How to Get Rid of Candida in 10 Steps
3. Candida Cured In 6 Months, 4 Lessons Learned

photo by Seattle Municipal Archives

There’s a lot you can do to get rid of Candida and start living again – and your doctor can be a great resource. Here are 7 questions to help you start a dialog with your doctor and begin your journey to coping with Candida infection.

1. What do you think is causing my problem?

   Some risks for Candida infection – like your medical history, age, or gender – can’t be changed. Other factors, however, are well within your control. You may be able to  slow the progression of the condition by making specific dietary changes, getting regular exercise, avoiding antibiotics and birth control pills, and making other lifestyle changes that your doctor can outline for you.

2. How will you treat my Candida yeast infection?

   There are several options for treating Candida infection, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs and creams, alternative treatments, and lifestyle measures. Based on the severity of your symptoms and how long you have had yeast infection, your doctor may recommend you one or a combination of these approaches to relieve your discomfort.

3. Can complementary and alternative treatments help?

   Recent research has identified a number of promising natural treatments for Candida infection, including probiotics and natural antifungals (supplements like ThreeLac and Caproil ). Depending on your doctor’s comfort and familiarity with natural treatments, he or she may help you make sense of this information or may even refer you to other health care professionals with expertise in complementary medicine.

4. What foods do you recommend I avoid?

   Because poor diet establishes a breeding ground for Candida, your doctor may ask you to follow an eating plan to avoid nutrient poor, high-carbohydrate foods that encourage Candida proliferation.

   You can also ask about which foods specifically can negatively affect your Candida treatment.

5. How can I manage the stress of having Candida infection?

   Having any chronic condition can be stressful and yeast infection is no exception. As I wrote in article Candida and Lifestyle, making simple lifestyle changes, such as incorporating deep breathing, meditation and yoga into your daily routine, can significantly help you cope with the emotional effects of living with Candida yeast infection.

   If you’ve never done this, it may very well sound silly to you. So let it seem silly, and do it anyway.

6. What types of exercise can help minimize my Candida symptoms?

   Inquire about activities such as stretching and aerobics that can help you ease common Candida symptoms like fatigue and muscle weakness. You should also inquire about how your daily activities will change.

7. Do you have any suggestions on how to explain my condition to friends, relatives and coworkers?

   Your doctor can often provide advice on how to tell your loved ones about Candida.

Other questions to consider

I wish I could stop at seven questions, but Candida infection is such a complex condition that I’ll list a few more questions that came to my mind:

• What is your experience in treating this condition?
• Aside from your own partners, who would you go to for medical treatment if you had this condition?
• If my symptoms worsen, what should I do on my own? When should I contact you?
• Are there any warnings I should know about since I’m pregnant?
• How long will it take before I feel relief? How long before I’m cured of my Candida infection?
• Where can I find more information?

Don’t be afraid to ask these questions or to ask for clarification as needed. Learn about your disease, take an active role in your treatment, and you can help to greatly reduce your chances of having something go wrong.

There’s a lot to digest in this post I know – but I’m certain that among the eCandida readership there’s a lot of wisdom and experience that could be added – so what what was your experience with your doctor? Was he receptive? Did she get upset? Do you have advice for others? Share your experience in the comment section bellow!

Related posts:

1. How to Get Rid of Candida in 10 Steps
2. Vaginal Yeast Infection – Symptoms, Causes, Treatment
3. Introduction to Candida Diet

As I recently wrote in the article “How I Cured My Candida“, I was able to overcome my Candida yeast infection in only six months, largely by applying a variety of self help coping tips presented on this blog, some of them to the extreme.

I didn’t tell you that story to impress you but rather to make you curious as to how I did it. Because it wasn’t an easy journey, I thought this was a good time to put down some of the lessons I have learned from this period of time that I would recommend Candida sufferers to think of when beginning a treatment program.

photo by takomabibelot

1. Change your behavior

I firmly believe that apart from taking probiotics and antifungals we also need to change our behavior in order to effectively cope with Candida infection. That means doing anything that will allow you to get rid of the root causes of your Candida infection:

• eating a well balanced diet
• increasing physical activity
• avoiding antibiotic overuse
• reducing stress
• laughing as much as possible

No anti-candida supplement – not even Threelac – will make much difference until you deal with the deep-rooted elements that stand behind the yeast infection condition you’re experiencing.

2. Trust yourself

One thing I’ve learned the hard way as a former yeast infection sufferer is that it can be a serious challenge to trust ourselves and our own thinking when everyone around us is telling us we’re wrong. In my case, this was especially true about the Candida diet. It was the first time I had ever done anything like this:

• I didn’t have any personal  nutritionist helping me
• I didn’t know of anyone who’d done anything like this before
• and I can’t recall a single person encouraging me to do it

In fact, most people were highly discouraging of the idea when I told them about it. Friends and family who saw me urged me to quit seeing the “quacks”, stop following the Candida diet and return to the hospital (for more tests and drugs?).

I can’t blame them though – I must have looked as bad as I felt.

Most of the time I kept quiet about what I was doing, but if someone asked me why I was on such a strict diet, I didn’t deny it. This was simply something I decided to do for myself and when I look back on my experience with Candida infection from more than a year in the future, I’m glad I followed my gut instinct that I was on the right track.

3. Don’t push yourself too hard

It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to overcome Candida related problems. Why? With so much information being available on the internet and in books, it’s not hard to get caught up with getting healthy and completely forget to actually live.

If you attempt to follow every health recommendation out there, the combined restrictions will simply prevent you from doing and eating anything.

I was once tied up in conventional strict Candida diets and lots of high exercise in the gym along with a full time job and eating six times a day. This pushed me down a path of obsession and ultimately compromised my social life and love for living.

Don’t make the same mistake:

• don’t let the sheer quantity of health theories and eating styles overwhelm you
• remember to balance a good life with your Candida treatment program
• try to live life to the fullest without compromising on your health

With that said, however, I’m still of the opinion that it’s good to keep in mind that if you attempt to follow every health recommendation out there, the combined restrictions will simply prevent you from doing and eating anything.

4. Knowledge is paramount

A wise, preventative strategy is to arm yourself with as much knowledge about Candida and nutrition as possible. In this way, you will be able to:

• know what works and what doesn’t
• ask a very direct questions instead of blindly accepting what others tell you
• avoid scams

Let’s face it – in this day and age many people just don’t care about nutrition and fitness in spite of it being a cornerstone of life. And when health problems like Candida show up, all they want is a simple quick fix cure. Little they know they’re in search of something elusive or temporary at best.

This is what – by the way – sets them apart from the people who have successfully cured their Candida infection and reclaimed their health. Such results come  with a price, however, and that price is the time you must spend first learning and then maintaining the treatment process.

There’s a lot you can learn about Candida and health in general – and this knowledge can be a gift leading to a number of positive changes for you and your family.

Related posts:

1. How I Cured My Candida In 6 Months
2. 3 Ways To Fight Fatigue When You Have Candida
3. Yeast Infection No More Review

photo by jepoirrier

How many advertisements have you seen that attempt to position their products as a substitute for willpower?

• Cure your yeast infection in 12 hours!
• Reduce your Candida symptoms by over 50% in just 15 Days!
• Stop the frequent stomach pains and digestion problems you’re having – fast & easy!

I’m sure you’ve heard this sort of nonsense many times before. With billions at stake, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Candida infection and drug industries in general are filled with snake oil marketing vampires that are preying on your desperation. These opportunists claim that willpower doesn’t work and then attempt to sell you something “quick and easy” like a “very promising” pill, some miraculous herbal remedy or an eBook that claims it will solve your health problems overnight.

Do not trust them. Here’s a good rule of thumb: If someone charges you for an eBook about Candida yeast infection, you’ve been conned.

Pay Now, Live Later

Here are 3 quick facts that might help you better understand the situation:

• Yeast infection industry reaches billions in sales each year
• There are hundreds of different pharmaceutical companies that offer thousands different products
• Over 15 million people in the U.S. consume these products

Just imagine how much money these people struggling with Candida infection are willing to spend because they want to start feeling healthy once again! And so, just like the goat sacrificers and snake oil salesmen before them, a new breed of con man was born – the Candida eBook Author.

I’m going to tell you why it’s generally a good idea to think twice before you throw your hard earned money on an eBook that claims to cure your Candida infection overnight:

• The good advice is obvious. Look under the hood of any eBook about yeast infection and you’ll find advice like this: make sure to follow the Candida diet, take probiotics, change anti-fungals regularly, talk to your doctor. All of this is a good advice and none of it is a secret. It’s so obvious, anyone who pays for it is a fool.
• The rest doesn’t work. Occasionally a “professional” eBook author may include their recommendations for various “miraculous” herbal remedies that haven’t been scientifically proven, which may actually lead to a further deterioration of your health. In the end, you’re sacrificing both your health and money and end up with nothing.
• These eBooks are poisoning the web. It’s a game, and every purchase of such eBook is a score for the snake oil marketing jerkwads and their disreputable testimonials. And every time they win, those of us trying to create quality work and good experiences on the web lose.

Another thing that turns me off about typical self help marketers is their approach. I’m successful and you’re not. I’m fit and you’re not. You need me because something is lacking in your life and I have exactly what you lack. If you pay me – and make me even richer and you poorer – I’ll show you how you can have it, too. And if it somehow doesn’t work for you, it just means you’re even more of an idiot than the people who provided my testimonials.

The One True Way

Which brings us – finally – to the one true way to overcome Candida infection. It’s pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, based on my own three years of hits and misses – for free:

1. Talk to your doctor and get the right diagnosis
2. Identify the root causes of your Candida infection and deal with them
3. Eat healthy, take anti-fungals and probiotics
4. Exercise and relax regularly
5. Avoid scams

That’s it…

It’ll take time. And willpower. But it works. And it’s the only thing that does.

Related posts:

1. Yeast Infection No More Review
2. Candida Diet Plan
3. 7 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Candida