Dave's Post Viral Site

Post viral syndrome; Candida and Carbohydrate

By Dave Wood

(Printable version with smaller margins - opens in a new window)

This page is my story of the fun time I've had with mononucleosis (glandular fever if your from the UK) and Candidiasis. I've written it this way because I know that reading other such stories by people that have gone through this and recovered have helped me. But I've included a summary and overview so that the salient points can be pulled out as quickly as possible. However, for all the details and reasoning you'll need to read it all!

Firstly, I'd like to say that I am not a doctor and this page is not meant to diagnose or treat anyone. This page is all "in my opinion" but I do try to back that opinion up with descriptions of my experience and references to other sites. It's up to you to decide whether you trust my description and the other sites of course.

And it's always worth bearing in mind, no matter who's quoting impressive sounding studies at you, who might have funded those studies and why. Ultimately the only thing I think we can be sure of is our own experience. So, try things for yourself!

The suppliers mentioned in this page are all UK based but I always give the manufacturers web site so you can start from there to look for suppliers outside the UK.

You might wonder why this is all on one page and why I have shown the web addresses explicitly in the text. This is simply because I think a lot of people will want to print this off to give to someone else.

I'm sorry this is so long! I've tried to cut it down but there's just so much info that I want to include here. And I think that the context of what I've found out and what I went through to find it are important.

Update, March 2004: Sub title changed.

You may notice the title on this page has changed from "Mercury fillings and Candidiasis" to "Candida and Carbohydrate". This is due to the fact that I sincerely believe it was the level of carbohydrate and lack of fat in my diet that was the greatest contributory factor in my illness. The mercury fillings connection is very, very likely but I can't back it up with much from direct personal experience other than the fact that I felt a lot better immediately after I had the mercury fillings removed and I am now well. That's not to say that the Mercury wasn't a big factor, it may even have been the biggest deciding factor, I just can't be sure about it. The point is I rapidly stopped getting better if I wasn't careful to avoid carbs so I think it's more relevant to stress them. Would I still pay a lot of money to have mercury removed from my teeth? Definitely. It's something that can be ticked off the list of things that might be causing the problem.

Contents

• Summary
• Overview of How I Got Well
• First, The Virus
• Post Viral Syndrome and Candida
• What Causes PVS
• Anti-Fungals
• Diet
• What I Ate
• Cleaning Out Your Gut
• Drinking
• Orthodox Medicine
• How Long Does It All Take?
• Could It Be Placebo?
• Note on Candida and Mercury
• Note on Weight
• Conclusion
• Update
• Links

Summary

This is a very brief summary. The details are in the rest of the page.

• I had a severe viral infection that resulted in Post Viral Syndrome (PVS).

• I now feel completely well and in fact feel better than I did before I even got the virus (more alert, better memory and seem to have a lot of stamina!).

• The PVS appears to have been caused by an overgrowth of Candida in my gut leading to Candidiasis - systemic Candida infection.

• I have cured it (I certainly hope!) using a low fermentable sugar diet and anti-fungals.

• I very strongly doubt that I would have been so successful in doing so if I had not had the mercury fillings removed from my mouth.

• Tests for Candidiasis do exist. However, they will only target specific species of Candida (usually Candida albicans) therefore they can give a false negative if you actually have another strain. The only practical way to tell if you have Candidiasis appears to be to use anti-fungals and the diet.

• Candidiasis is now thought to be heavily linked to endocrine (basically hormonal) disorders. Essentially this means it could cause a huge array of symptoms from poor memory to mood swings.

• I did not have PVS or Candidiasis any where near as bad as some people that I've heard of. Yet, it was still enough to severely and tangibly effect my life in many, many ways. It is not something that can be ignored.

Post viral syndrome is not all in your head. Though a positive mental attitude will help you recover. I also doubt that all PVS is due to Candidiasis though much of it quite probably is!

Overview of How I Got Well

If you're looking at this page in amongst many others and you know all about Candida already you probably want to hear what I did to recover.

• Most importantly, I took anti-fungals. I didn't take prescription drugs as I was doing this without my doctor. From what I've read prescription anti-fungals are no more effective and appear to have more side effects than the majority of the things I used. Which were (see Anti-Fungals below for details and where to get these):

  • Kolorex capsules
  • Citricidal drops in water (you can use tablets instead as Citricidal tastes bitter)
  • Olive leaf extract capsules
  • Molkosan liquid

  I used Kolorex, Citricidal and Olive leaf extract all at the same time but I've often heard since that you shouldn't use them all at once, use one for a month or so then move to the next, then the next and then go back to the first. This is to stop the Candida building a resistance.

• I ate no fermentable carbohydrates, e.g. sugar (in anything), fruit, bread, potatoes, rice. This includes all alcoholic drinks.

• Importantly, I used the Robert Gray Intestinal Cleansing Program (see Cleaning out your gut). This sort of sponges out your innards and breaks up what's stuck in there (including "hidden" pockets of Candida infection!). This gave me a Herxheimer (http://www.nutriteam.com/herx.htm) reaction so I strongly recommend it.

• I took 2000mg MSM every morning (see Anti-Fungals below)

• I ate no dairy products.

• I ate nothing that has yeast in it, e.g. pickles, most sauces including soya, anything with flour in it (pastries, bread), foods with monosodium glutamate (most Chinese restaurants use this on all their meat dishes).

• I had the mercury removed from my mouth by a dentist using the correct mercury removal protocol. I cannot be sure what would have happened if I had not taken this step but a great deal of literature suggests that I would not have successfully recovered had I not removed it.

• I took a high quality probiotic to try to replace the good gut bacteria PB8 (http://www.nutritionnow.com/PB8.htm I got mine from Victoria Health Foods, Phone: 020 8444 2355)

• I took a good quality vitamin and mineral supplement (good quality, something from a health food shop preferably, not some basic stuff from a pharmacist).

• I ate L-Glutamine (http://www.kirkmanlabs.com/products/amino_acids/l-glutamine/H_Glutamine_C_100_Spec033.html I got mine from Higher Nature http://www.highernature.co.uk/ Phone: 01435 883484), which is an amino acid (what our bodies make protein into). So it is a food not a drug. It is the only thing that the cells that make up the gut wall live on. These cells need all the help they can get!

I've put the anti-fungals as the most important since I was already eating a very low sugar diet, because I believe we eat too much sugar, but that didn't cure me. I also was not absolute in my avoidance of potatoes and rice because not all literature says to avoid them but I kept them to a bare minimum (once or twice a week).

First, The Virus

Skip this section and go to Post Viral Syndrome and Candida if you're only interested in the Candida!

I've had "post viral syndrome" (PVS) for about two and a half years now. I had severe mononucleosis (glandular fever) over Christmas and New Year of 1999-2000 (the millennium sucked more for me than most I can tell you ;). I was at Sussex University in the final year of a computer science degree.

Mono is generally caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (there's at least one other virus that causes it). A good friend of mine who was doing his PhD in biology at the time was working next to a guy in his lab that was actually doing his PhD on the Epstein-Barr virus. According to him, it's extremely common; the majority of the western population carries it. But we only develop mono once the immune system is suppressed.

In my opinion, I got mine in the first place by going through a messed up relationship at the same time as my final year of university while running the mountaineering club and still going out drinking and dancing till the clubs closed! Well, duh!

Mono was quite an education. Bear in mind that I'm the kind of person that tends to ignore colds and things and still goes to work. I've always worked on the belief that my body is very strong and is quite capable of destroying some annoying virus while I get on with life. While I was in business with a good friend of mine for several years I only took four days off sick with a very nasty cold and that was only because he was smarter than me and insisted.

Full-blown mono is amazing. Tiredness like I've never experienced, eyes swollen until I could hardly see, headaches and a sore throat that made having my adenoids out when I was seven seem like a tickly cough. I got it when I was twenty nine, which is not a good time to have it.

According to medical sites I have read, if you get it as a child it looks like a bad cold. But getting it as a forty-year-old, they recommended hospitalisation immediately. I was somewhere in between.

I didn't know this though. As far as I was concerned, I had a bad flu.

I spent over two weeks feeling nauseous all day until my hunger finally grew too strong and I'd eat a small (Christmas!) dinner. I'd then feel very, very sick indeed until the next day, and so on.

Eventually my sore throat became infected with a secondary, bacterial infection. After three days of not being able to breathe through my mouth, and therefore only forcing down about a pint of water a day, I was finally persuaded to go to hospital. Like I said, I tend to ignore illness.

Once I was admitted a nurse gave me a check over and found my temperature was 39.9C (once it hits 40C they start to get very worried indeed apparently) and my heart was doing over 120 beats per minute whereas my resting heart rate is 55.

I was astounded. I was just lying down! The nurse said, "You see why you feel so tired? Fighting an infection like this is like running a marathon for your body, but it can't stop and it goes on for days!"

I was given very strong oral antibiotics and sent home after three days with the wonderful advice from the "specialist" that there was nothing I could do about it except avoid any alcohol for six months.

So I went home and started eating the huge pile of sweets that I'd missed over Christmas. (Anyone that knows my family will be being feeling woozy right now, at the thought of how much junk we get through at Christmas).

I went back to university some time in February but was still very ill until April. I was then only averagely ill till about May, which made my final project and exams fun.

I discovered that the advice about alcohol should have been to go out and get drunk. That way whenever you are tempted to drink in future you look back at the two-week mother of all hangovers and reach for the water instead.

I also had confirmed what I already thought; I know some very, very kind people, including my family, who will go to great lengths to help wherever they can. Without them and some very understanding lecturers, my final year would have been a nightmare.

It's very hard to deal with an illness that makes you feel so tired all the time and yet you have no runny nose and red eyes to make you look ill when you look in the mirror. It's also hard for others who have been used to you getting on with stuff with them. I know I would probably have been bad at understanding it in someone else.

You inevitably end up thinking "Stop being so pathetic and just get on with it!" Which lands you in bed for a day or two. So, you learn, slowly, to ease back.

However, after what feels like a hell of a long time, you fell well again. I judged my health by the fact I could get drunk and not regret it for days after (physically anyway).

And that, you think, is that.

For some people it is. But for a lot of others, it isn't!

I would be okay for a seemingly random period of time then I'd start feeling weaker and weaker, wanting to sleep more and more.

I went back to the doc he gave me a blood test series of some kind. It showed up "no viral indicators" apparently. Which meant I had Post Viral syndrome.

Yippee.

Update, late October 2002: What I would do if I had mono now.

I've been asked this a couple of times so here's what I'd do. Please remember though, that I'm not a doctor and hold no medical qualifications in this regard but if you want my opinion here it is!

I would up the proportion of protein and fat in my diet and avoid any sugars or alcohol. I say this for two reasons. One, because it is the best way of avoiding Candida and two, because whilst fighting a viral infection you will use a heck of a lot of protein (this is according to a friend of mine whose PhD was in viruses!). Eggs are great for that.

I'd also take a good quality vitamin and mineral supplement.

L-Glutamine is very good for energy (helped me!). It's a food not a drug.

There will be a lot of stress on the liver (mono can cause mild hepatitis occasionally) so lots of water, aim for around four pints a day. It's hard at first to increase the amount of water that you drink but it's necessary to help the liver flush the toxins.

There's a herb called "milk thistle" that you can buy in capsule form. It's good for helping the liver when it's under stress (I saw a full blown medical explanation once - it was very complicated but it did back up what herbalists have been saying for years!). I would take olive leaf extract, at least 3mgs a day. This stuff is supposed to be capable of actually inhibiting virus activity in the body and it certainly seems to be good at killing fungi (it was one of the things I used when fighting off the Candida). Overall I would take this whenever I was unwell. (http://www.nutriteam.com/oliveleaf.htm but search the web for references. Amazon even stock a book about it. I get mine from Higher Nature http://www.highernature.co.uk/ Phone: 01435 883484. It's not cheap but I think it's well worth it. In the UK Holland & Barret carry it in their larger stores and although the tablets are only about 175mgs each it works out cheaper than the 500mg Higher Nature version even though you have to swallow more tablets. I have no idea of the quality since I've not used it).

Also, echinacea (http://www.healthpartners.com/Menu/0,1791,2136,00.html) is supposed to be very good at boosting the immune system (though I must admit I've not used it myself). Don't take it for more than two months without a break of at least two weeks or the effect wears off as the body becomes used to it.

Post Viral Syndrome and Candida

There are plenty of definitions around on the web of what PVS is and I'm not an expert on it, (just a keen amateur!) so I'll just say that for me, PVS is like having the virus again but with less symptoms to point to.

My glands still swell up, I feel tired, and when I have even one pint of Guinness I wake up the next day feeling like I've had six, and the day after that, like I've had five.

The "foggy head" though, is the worst. The closest thing I can liken it to is having woken up only ten minutes before at 4 AM. You know what it's like. At 4 AM, you very often will wake up with a kind of shock. Your body's thinking "What? What? What the heck's the emergency here?" But ten minutes later when it realises you're just catching an early flight it stops bothering and just wants to go back to sleep.

And you find yourself brushing your teeth with your girlfriend's moisturiser.

No matter how hard you try, it's like thinking through treacle (which in a funny kind of way may not be far from the truth).

This PVS rubbish has gone on, with a bit of a break last year that made me claim with renewed vigour that I'd finally shaken it off, for two years.

This time I got hit with it very hard (too much work combined with too much Guinness! :) After Christmas 2001 (and the sugar binge), I found that walking up stairs was hard.

As usual I ignored it and took my girlfriend to Wales. I took her up Snowdon via the Pyg track and found to my horror that I could hardly make the last 5 minutes from the col to the summit on the tourist track. I was horrified because I don't usually walk Snowdon let alone the tourist track because I'm snobby about it and think it's too easy. ;)

Instead of the romantic night I had planned I was forced to go to bed at 7:30 and only surfaced using a lot of willpower at 9:30 the next morning.

"Bugger!" I thought "Not again!"

What Causes PVS

I spent a lot of time sat on my arse, with a laptop, not drinking or going out, just researching PVS on the web. After a heck of a lot of reading, I'm talking days and days here, I found that there seems to be four things generally blamed for PVS.

In a rough order of how loud the crowing about each one is they are:

• Poor nutrition
• Allergy to chemicals in cosmetic products (e.g. toothpaste and shampoo)
• Mercury (amalgam) fillings in teeth (http://www.pamshelpline.co.uk/main.htm)
• Candidiasis - systemic fungal infection of Candida albicans (http://www.nutriteam.com/candida.htm)

Now, the first things I did when I got ill was check what there was on the web about mono. All the information I could find said that the best thing to do was to sort out your nutrition thereby giving your body the best chance of fighting the disease. So I doubted that was the cause because I now eat healthily (to be honest I wasn't too bad before, especially by student standards!) and take very good quality multivitamins and minerals.

The second point, allergy to such things as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), doesn't seem likely since I have never found myself allergic to anything and have had allergy tests that have shown nothing. That being said, I'm starting to use toothpaste without SLS http://www.naturallyhealthyonline.com/convert-bathroom.php and Triclosan http://www.lindachae.com/triclosan.htm. Can't hurt!

That leaves mercury and Candidiasis. I always hated the fact that I had nine mercury fillings in my teeth. They look horrible and I've not liked the idea that they are made of 50% mercury (as are all metal fillings). Since it was something I could just do, and mentally tick off the list of possible causes, I found myself a dentist from the British Society for Mercury Free Dentistry (http://www.mercuryfree.co.uk/ Phone 020 7373 3655 Send and stamped self addressed envelope to: 225 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 and ask for their list of dentists in the UK. Try this link for a list for the USA: http://www.bioprobe.com/faq.asp#question_10). This is important since they use proper techniques to stop you being exposed to the massive doses of mercury you would be if going to an ordinary dentist.

So I paid my money (£275 overall - not at all bad really!) and felt very happy about my newly whitened gob.

And within two weeks of having the last ones out I felt better than I'd felt since getting ill two and a half years ago!

Party!

In the interests of medical research I stress tested my body. I got roaringly drunk one Friday night, got up the next day, drove to Wales and walked with a pack across the Carnedds for three days. I felt great!

But then I started to wonder. If it was mercury poisoning, why had I recovered in only a couple of weeks? Come to that, why had I not been ill before the mono?

I started to wonder about Candida...

I talked to my nutritionist about it and she said there was a strong link between mercury in amalgam fillings and Candidiasis. According to her, mercury fillings produce methyl mercury when bathed in saliva. Methyl mercury is a potent bactericide and it goes in to the gut where it wipes out the "good" gut bacteria we need to digest our food.

Hang on a min! What's that got to do with Candidiasis then? Candida albicans is a yeast!

The theory goes like this: Good bacteria eat the same part of our food that Candida eats, sugar. If you kill them then there's much more of the sugar around for the Candida to feed on.

Once it gets enough food, Candida changes from the harmless single celled yeast form it usually takes in our gut and gangs up in long chains called rhizoids to form a mat called a mycelium (the fungal form). Which then rampage about punching holes in your gut wall. Imagine a mat of white mould on an old bit of wood and you get the idea!

A good way to wipe out the bacteria in your gut is to take antibiotics. A really good way is to take prolonged, high doses of high potency, broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Arse.

Once you've wiped them out the best way to get the Candida growing really strongly is to feed it with all the nice sugar we have in our diets. Or in my case all the sugar in most normal peoples diet for one year in about a month.

Double arse!

This isn't some weird hippie theory about nasty old fungus eating us from the inside that I'm talking about here. Its well-documented medical fact. The only point of contention within the general Western medical community seems to be that mainstream thought says only immuno-compromised patients are at risk of developing it (e.g. AIDS, hepatitis, chemotherapy). When you think how often our immune system is compromised by the diet we enjoy (sugar suppresses immune response) then arguably most people are immuno-compromised. Someone with a severe infection such as mono is demonstrably immuno-compromised. How else would I have acquired the secondary, bacterial infection in my throat?

On the other hand, Candidiasis does apparently get over-diagnosed by alternative practitioners. It is common, but it's not the only cause of ill health!

There are thought to be other forms of Candida besides albicans that can cause it as well as there being other ways of letting it overgrow such as steroids and the contraceptive pill. As a weird side note - dolphins kept in captivity can get it! (Isn't the Web great?)

Candidiasis is also heavily linked to allergies of all kinds as well as other fungal infections such as athlete's foot and thrush. The allergies are thought to be a result of the rhizoids making the gut wall leak ("leaky gut syndrome") and allowing undigested proteins into the blood stream where they then cause allergies. They are also likely to be as a result of the endocrine system malfunction that Candidiasis seems to be strongly related to. The fungal infections seem to be either blooms of the Candida in other areas of the body or other fungi taking advantage of the weakened immune system.

But I was quite happy that I'd killed it. After all, I felt so much better didn't I?

Just to be on the safe side I thought I'd better have a go at the anti-Candida diet.

It sounds pretty awful, no simple sugars of any kind including fruit. No white flour, no dairy, no yeast based products (bread, beer and wine). But you just have to keep reminding yourself of how ill you have been and how this could be the key to getting back to normal.

If you're lucky though you get an amazing thing called a Herxheimer (http://www.nutriteam.com/herx.htm) or die off reaction. I got the works. Massive red raised rash over my back and arms and legs, fantastically sore joints, particularly my fingers, muscle ache and major tiredness.

I say lucky because it convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had Candidiasis. I knew I couldn't be imagining it since I wasn't expecting it at all, because I thought I'd already killed it.

My nutritionist had mentioned a die off reaction but I hadn't taken it in since I was sure I wasn't going to get one. So, when I got one I didn't know what it was and so ignored it. Which was stupid because all you need to do to stop it is to lay off the anti-fungals and the Candida stops dying so quickly, allowing your liver some breathing space before it gets any more damage.

But, as I keep saying, I tend to ignore illness.

It wasn't until I looked on the Web about something else Candida related and happened to find a description of a Herxheimer (http://www.nutriteam.com/herx.htm) reaction that I realised what I was having.

Up till then, I'd been following the diet really well but sneaked in a couple of pints of Guinness. The Guinness though was still not enough to save the Candida from starvation and the anti-fungal I was taking.

Anti-Fungals

Ah yeah, the anti-fungals. So much of what I've read screams that you will not get rid of Candidiasis without both strict diet and anti-fungals. Where people have tried to do without the anti-fungals, it's taken them in the order of two years and they are much more prone to relapse.

I was doing the diet fairly well but was taking Kolorex (http://www.kolorex.com/) suppliers: http://www.kolorex.com/wheretobuy.html#uk or http://www.candida-treatment.net/horopito.htm) morning and evening for about a fortnight before I had my first Herxheimer reaction (I've had a second minor one that lead to a nice cold-type secondary infection for a few days. Whoopee! There's a lot of gut down there). The point being that I am sure I would not have had the Herxheimer without taking the Kolorex.

Since I wanted to be sure of killing it I also took Olive Leaf Extract which is meant to be an extremely potent anti-microbial and Citricidal (http://www.nutriteam.com/oliveleaf.htm I got both these from Higher Nature http://www.highernature.co.uk/ Phone: 01435 883484). Citricidal is fantastic stuff, kills fungus, bacteria, viruses and even gut parasites. Again, this is not hippie rubbish; this is solid, clinically tested stuff that's been around for 25 years commercially. They use Citricidal instead of chlorine in South American swimming pools. But it's completely safe for mammals like us and biodegrades.

Update, late October 2002: Also worth mentioning here are L-Glutamine and MSM.

The L-Glutamine is an amino acid that feeds the cells in the gut wall. It's the only thing that they live on apparently. It also seemed to help my energy levels quite a lot. It is a tasteless white powder that can be mixed with a drink or simply taken on a spoon and washed down with water.

The MSM (methyl sufonyl methane) is mentioned on many pages relating to Candida and there's a lot of anecdotal evidence to say that it helps in recovery. Taking into account the fact that it is a readily available form of the fourth most abundant constituent of our body, and that many articles claim that because it is destroyed by processing food we are almost all deficient it in I thought it would be a good idea to add it into the mix.

MSM governs the permeability of the body's cell membranes. Since Candida is heavily linked to endocrine disorder it seems reasonable that a lack of permeability in the cell membranes would have an adverse effect. But whatever the mechanisms involved it does seem to be beneficial to many people.

There are people that have had what appears to be a die off reaction using it MSM. But since MSM is not anti-fungal in any way a more likely explanation is that their bile duct is blocked and is not allowing the larger and more normal level of bile to flow through it properly. This is since taking MSM is thought to cause the liver to release its stored bile properly if you were previously low in MSM. (http://www.healthyawareness.com/_Archives/_can_gen41/00000163.htm).

However, in another post someone else says that the liver can be badly blocked and therefore the production of the extra bile will make you feel very ill, whilst at the same time saying that it can clear the blockage (http://www.healthyawareness.com/_Archives/_can_gen41/00000285.htm Not very conclusive I'm afraid, but I would still take this as a supplement since it seems unlikely to cause harm but is far more likely to help.

I got both the MSM and the L-Glutamine from Higher Nature http://www.highernature.co.uk/ Phone: 01435 883484).

Diet

There's a heck of a lot of advice about anti-Candida diets and regimes around. Some of it makes sense and some of it's a bit hysterical. Personally I don't see mould from compost in my plant pots as a threat but I could be wrong.

That being said, yeast from things we eat is agreed to aggravate Candidiasis because around 70% of people with Candidiasis are also allergic to yeast (or rather "intolerant" of yeast which is essentially like being allergic except you can recover from it). So, it's possible that breathing it in and swallowing could be an equally bad idea. We end up swallowing the particulates that we breathe. The lungs push the mucous containing all the dust up into the throat where it drains back into the stomach. As long as you don't smoke of course!

If you followed all the advice from everyone, your diet would be even more restricted than it probably has to be. Some practitioners say no grains, some say no dairy, and some say no fruit. The only thing that's universally agreed is that the diet should be low in fermentable carbohydrates and that yeast (from pickles and alcoholic drinks) can make it much worse (http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Colon%20Health/abraham62.htm.

It's what's sometimes called a MEVY diet, meat, eggs, vegetables and (plain, live!) yoghurt.

No dairy because it contains things that Candida feeds on but plain (no sugar from fruit!) live yoghurt is positively good (as long as you are not allergic to dairy of course!). There doesn't seem to be complete agreement on exactly why this is but medical trials based on thrush patients at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center back it up (http://www.lef.org/protocols/abstracts/abstr-028.html#18). It seems that the bacteria have two basic effects, partly they just out compete the Candida for the sugar they both eat and partly they produce an acid environment that the Candida doesn't like.

There is also a lot of disagreement as to whether the bacteria in the yoghurt actually implant into your gut and carry on helping you after you stop eating it all the time.

One thing is generally agreed though, you need to eat things that the good bacteria thrive on. I am going to use Robert Gray's Lactobacteria Food but there is a lot of praise for fructooligosaccharide or FOS (bad bacteria like Salmonella won't eat it http://www.lef.org/protocols/abstracts/abstr-028a.html#16). The good bacteria unarguably love to eat FOS but there are some people that wonder what else might be thriving on it.

Meat and eggs are in there because we absolutely, positively have to eat protein to stay alive and healthy. We need a bunch of different proteins. Some we can make out of the basic ones but those basic ones we have to eat in the first place. If you're vegan, you have to get them from pulses and so on or you will get ill in the long term. I'm not even veggie so I can't comment there.

But I have always been a big meat eater. So one thing I'm going to try is The Sausage Shop (http://www.thesausageshop.co.uk) Tina Crossman does top quality mail order sausages and she will happily make sugar and yeast free bangers! (Look under "Special Diet").

Vegetables, well you need vitamins, and minerals obviously (duh!) and veggies are about the best way to get them. But importantly, you can't get at the vitamins and minerals if your guts haven't broken all the food up properly. The process of breaking the food up starts with the mechanics of mashing it all about and pushing it along the gut. Without the bulk of vegetables that doesn't work properly.

Just eating meat, eggs and yoghurt would make you very constipated. Meaning that even if you managed to kill the Candida it wouldn't leave your body, meaning you'd get very ill. I know whereof I speak!

There are a few other things that are worth noting. Some people say that dairy is okay if it's thoroughly cooked to kill off the moulds in it. Maybe, but I imagine it might still provide food for the Candida that's already in your gut and cooked cheese is great for causing constipation.

Pickled things have lots of yeast so I had to break my olive addiction. But omelettes just aren't the same! So, I decided to slice them really thinly and fry them first. No more yeast spores! I've since read in a couple of places that this is thought to be fine. I hope so but I keep it to a minimum.

Also, a lot of people say avoid mushrooms. Which makes sense if they're raw but if they are really thoroughly cooked to kill off the yeast spores on them, I see nothing wrong with them. It makes the fried breakfast I now have every morning more interesting too!

What I Ate

This section added late October 2002

I've had several people ask what I actually eat on this diet so here's some examples. Bear in mind I am not vegetarian! All this lot is very easy to prepare. As, rule I am too lazy to prepare anything that it would take me more than a day to train a chimpanzee to make! ;)

Breakfast:

• 6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon (that's the really fatty kind)
• 2 large organic eggs (they taste so much better!)
• 2 carefully sliced and thoroughly fried mushrooms
• 1 fried tomato
• All fried in butter

Lunch:

• Two lots of whatever main meat course is available at the restaurant where I work
• Loads of veg
• Salad covered in oil
• Soup (the chef was kind enough to hold back a pot with no dairy for me every day!)
• Hold whatever carbs there are!

Dinner:

• If I'm feeling very lazy I'll go to the local Greek kebab house and have a large chicken kebab, no pitta bread, large salad with fresh lemon juice
• Or, chicken goujons (thick strips) gently fried in butter and lemon juice with a salad of orange sweet pepper, red onion, raw broccoli (better than cooked - try the stem it's delicious! seriously!), rocket, lambs lettuce and baby spinach all covered in olive oil and lemon juice that you've beaten with a fork or shaken up in a bottle
• Or, three smoked mackerel fillets (cold) with about three ounces of organic butter (Yeo Valley is the nicest if you're in the UK) + the above salad
• Or, meat balls made by pressing whatever kind of mince meat you like into balls by hand. Mixed up with pepper and mixed herbs and a chunk of cheese in the middle (cheese once you're better!) + mixed veg
• Or, chilli made with the vital ingredients of a pinch of "mixed spice" (a good pinch in a large pan but don't overdo it!) and a glass of red wine plus chilli powder to taste (remember it gets a hotter as it cooks! wait ten minutes between additions), good pinch or two of oregano, fresh chilli pepper, kidney beans, canned chopped tomatoes, fresh tomato, sweet pepper, mushrooms, garlic, red onion, whatever your favourite mince is + plain, live yoghurt (and no rice!!)
• Or, turn the above chilli into bolognaise with some more tomatoes, mixed herbs (not spice!) and leave out the chilli powder, chilli pepper, kidney beans but add in some broccoli, green beans and ladies fingers (also known as Okra or Bhindi) it sounds nuts adding the veg to the sauce but it works!
• Or, any fish you like e.g. smoked haddock or salmon, put on a plate with some butter on top of a simmering saucepan. Cover with a plate + mixed veg
• Or, tuna steak lightly fried in butter + mixed veg
• Or, mixed cold, sliced meats from the deli with houmous + the above salad
• Cover the mixed veg in butter or cheese
• 1/2 litre organic live plain yoghurt with any of the above as a kind of dessert

Eating out:

• Tell the waiter/waitress you are allergic to vinegar so can you have lemon and olive oil for any salad dressing
• Look for the fattiest thing on the menu, it will fill you up whilst you avoid the carbs that make up so much restaurant food
• Ask for extra veg and no potatoes or rice and go for a starter to avoid the dessert. Then have another starter whilst the others have the dessert if you're still hungry (I've done this for years anyway!)