Author: Eric Bakker

Can Candida give you pain in your stomach?

Well, let’s first explain where the stomach is because most people think the stomach is here when, in fact, this is not the stomach. The stomach tends to be higher up. Stomach tends to be more here central, not down here.

So when many people talk about the stomach, in fact, they’re pointing generally to the small intestine. The small intestine is more central in that region where you think you’ve got the stomach, and the large intestine forms the outline of the colon. So many people will often point to the small bowel and say I’ve got a pain in here.

Candida can affect any part of the gastrointestinal system, especially the small and the large bowel. These are key target areas for yeast infection. The colon can get very much affected by a lot of overgrowth there. So lots of gas, lots of bloating can occur. And, of course, the small bowel, especially the first part of the small bowel, really is the seat of the digestive system, the duodenum. This is where most of your digestive activity takes place. In fact, the first three inches of the small bowel or the 75 mils of the duodenum is where a big chunk of your immune system resides in the body. It’s no wonder that this area will often be affected with, particularly with “leaky gut” syndrome. Candida can also affect many parts of the small intestine and cause a lot of irritation there. Lots of infection. Lots of inflammation. So yes you can get pain in this area.

Don’t be confused with pain on the sides that you may experience, this side or this side, so people experience more pain on the right side, particularly right on the edge there going down.

Especially people of my age, 50+, this can be more to do with diverticulitis or small bowel pockets.

If you experience some sensations on the right side, around about this area here, we’re looking at a problem maybe with the ileocecal valve, so the value that joins the small and the large intestine together. This is often a spot where lots of bugs like to thrive around these valves and sort of areas of the bowel. A person who does massage can often sort of palpate around that area and you might find it to be a bit tender.

You also want to get your blood checked. Have a look at the white blood cells to see if there’s any kind of inflammation or infection there. That’s not unusual for the person to have fevers or temperatures; even a low-grade nausea can occur with these kinds of sort of low-grade infections. These can involve parasites and Candida and bacteria. It pays to get a stool test done if you’ve got an ongoing, long-term, chronic pain in the stomach and you’re concerned. A CDSA, a comprehensive digestive stool analysis, three samples, include parasitology, is a very smart move to get that done.

If you go to Erikbakker.com, you’ll be able to do those tests through my website. You can do those test quite easily, and that will determine for you if you’ve got any kind of infection or overgrowth, if you’ve got inflammation, what’s going on in the digestive system.

Many medical doctors haven’t got a clue often in these sorts of cases, so they’ll refer you to a gastroenterologist or a digestive specialist who will perhaps do an endoscopy or colonoscopy and again this may prove fruitless as it has for many of my patients. So stool testing is often a good way to analyze what’s actually going on in the gut if you’ve got chronic pain, so have a think about that.

Also think about doing my online quiz at CandidaCrusher.com, my yeast infection quiz that will give you an idea what’s going on in your digestive system as well if it’s Candida related.

I hope that answers some of your questions. Thanks for tuning in.

Can Candida cause hot flashes? Can it cause hot flashes? Or can it make you feel hot? Can it make you feel sweaty? Yes, it can. In some cases, I’ve seen patients complaining about this particular symptom. It can happen at nighttime. It can happen after ingesting certain foods with a lot of sugar or soda drinks. It can also be a part of what we call “fermentation dysbiosis.” The yeast inside the body is feeding on more and more sugar, and it can cause problems with your immune system. It can cause inflammatory response. It can also cause an up regulation[?] of various parts of the brain. It can make you sweat and flush.

Although it’s not very common, it certainly can occur. So not to be confused with hot flashes that occur with menopause, these are a different kind of hot flash. Those flashes will be associated generally with a particular age group of women and for other hormonal reasons which are really beyond the scope of this video.

But yes, it can occur. The thing to look out for, if you think that you’ve got hot flashes associated with Candida and gas and bloating and sugar cravings, it might also pay to get your blood checked, to have a good look at the white blood cell count to see if there’s anything not quite right there.

Have you had antibiotics recently? It’s a good question to ask. Again, if in doubt, go and see your health care professional and discuss your concerns with him or her to see what’s going on. But I have seen hot flashes associated with Candida; there’s no doubt about it.

Thank you for tuning in.

Lots of frequently asked questions. Here’s another one I got from a lady in America. Erik, can Candida build resistance against antifungal supplements? This is a very good question.

Well, resistance is something that we’re really concerned about when it comes to trying to find something effective to counter a fungal infection in our bodies, so what do we do? Well, it’s not really so much of a problem with natural antifungals as it is with pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical antifungal drugs target yeast infection. We know that they target Candida albicans. But the problem with these cells is that they target, as we call them, eukaryotic cells. They are a similar sort of cell as human cells, so they have a cell membrane and they have a nucleus in the middle. These are called eukaryotic cells.

The antifungal drugs target cells that are eukaryotic, so they are going to have an effect on our cells. To a lesser extent than the Candida, but they’re still going to hurt a lot of our body cells. Natural antifungals don’t really do this.

The other problem is what’s becoming a real problem with antifungal drugs is the increasing resistance of the pharmaceutical drugs to Candida albicans because Candida is quite clever. It keeps changing, mutating and becoming smarter and realizing that something is chasing it. We’re getting this resistance problem with Candida albicans with drugs like fluconazole, also called diflucan.

In December 2012, there was an article published in an interesting gynecology and obstetrics journal in America. Wayne State University, I believe, did research on this and they found that over an 11-year period, an increasing resistance of Candida albicans developing towards fluconazole, so in years to come, this drug will be useless. Just like a lot of antibiotics are becoming obsolete and useless.

Natural antifungals don’t have this problem. They don’t recognize eukaryotic cells and kill them as such. They work by other clever mechanisms to stop yeast from forming in our body. We’ve been eating garlic for thousands of years. We haven’t had diflucan for thousands of years. People know that these natural substances like oregano oil, coconut oil, Caprylic acid, undecylenic acid, Neem, clove, there are many different natural things that we’ve grown up with for generations that inhibit yeast in the body, and they do it naturally. They do it with minimal fuss without killing a whole lot of natural bacteria in the body.

These are clever things for you to take. Make sure you take an antifungal that’s broad spectrum that contains things that inhibit viruses, parasites and bacteria, so you’re not just working on fungus in the body. A clever move and I’ll tell you why. Because when you’re working across a broad spectrum like this, you’re allowing the immune system a lot of breathing space. If you’re just going to take a straight antifungal, you’re going to work a little bit like a pharmaceutical. But if you’re looking at a general product to get rid of pathogens in the body, it’s going to work a lot better for you.

Give that a go.Thanks for tuning in.