Author: Eric Bakker

Greetings. New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker here. I’m the author of the book called Candida Crusher and also the formulator of a range of products called Canxida. Thanks for checking out my video. A question I get asked from time to time from women all around the world in many different countries. Women from England, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Holland and right throughout the United States. I get asked a lot of questions regarding vaginal yeast infections.

Chapter 5 of my book contains a lot of information on vaginal yeast infections. You can also read many articles that I’ve written on yeastinfection.org and also have a look at this YouTube channel. There are many, many different solutions I give. This video is going to be about the best herbs for vaginal douching or how you can clean the vaginal area very effectively with herbal medicines.

You don’t need to use vaginal creams and applicators and pharmaceutical suppositories for this condition. I’ve been helping women with the condition now for a long, long time. Probably over 25 years. This is going to be some great information for women who suffer from vaginal yeast infections and are looking for a permanent solution. Let’s jump right into it. The best herbs.

Probably one of the better herbs to use is pau d’arco. Pau d’arco is an herb from the inner bark of a large tree in South America. Make sure you get a good quality pau d’arco because there are a lot of substitutes on the market. It’s got to have between two to four percent lapachol content. Ask your supplier for a standardized extract, preferably a bark with a high lapachol content. You get probably about 25 or 40 grams of the bark of this tree and you get about a pint of water, about 600 mils. Use a good quality water, preferably bottled or spring water. Don’t use tap water with chlorine and fluoride in it. And you bring it to the roiling boil in a stainless steel saucepan. Don’t use aluminum. And then you turn it down and simmer it for about a quarter of an hour on very, very low with the lid on it to keep the condensation inside. Then let it cool down to room temperature. Strain this, put it in some bottles, and keep that. That’ll keep in the fridge for a while.

What you do is you take a small amount out and you can just get it to room temperature, body temperature, and you want to roll a tampon in this solution and squeeze it out and insert that. Leave that in for about 24 hours. That will keep in the fridge, that bottle, probably for a week, maybe 10 days. You can make up smaller amounts if you want. Maybe 300 mils or half a pint. You don’t need a lot of it. And also, what you can do is insert the tampon in the solution and then use it vaginally. You can also drink a little bit of that tea as well, so the tea can be consumed when it’s warm and then use when it’s tepid vaginally. That’s the pau d’arco.

Calendula tincture is quite nice to use. Go to your medical herbalist or good organic shop and buy a small bottle of calendula tincture with a low alcohol content. Something maybe about 10 or 20 percent alcohol content and you can use a few teaspoons of this in a small bowl of water for douching and for cleansing. You can use a turkey baster or an applicator to suck up the solution and use that vaginally. Calendula is very antifungal and it’s very good for healing and soothing the skin. It’s also good if you’ve had an episiotomy or after childbirth. Calendula helps to tonify the skin around the perineum and vaginal area. It’s good for cleansing. Good antifungal.

You can also get some dried herbs. Coneflower, so Echinacea purpurea. You can use a little of herb like andrographis for example is another Chinese herb. Echinachea is quite a good one to use in conjunction with the calendula flowers. Both of those go well together. A small amount of dried Echinacea and some calendula flowers, and you can make, in this case, an infusion. The pau d’arco was a decoction. That’s boiling and simmering. Infusion is more how we make a cup of tea. We put a tea bag in some hot water and then throw the tea bag away. You can make an infusion of some Echinacea leaves or flowers and calendula flowers; make an infusion. And then you use that as a vaginal cleanse as well.

Tea tree oil can be used. One good tip I got from a patient in Germany. What she does very effectively, she gets some isopropyl alcohol and then she gets some tea tree oil and she’s making up about a 40 percent concentration, so about 60 percent isopropyl alcohol, and 40 percent tea tree oil in the right quantities. Blend that and then mix that in with a generous amount of water until you’ve got a nice strong tea tree smell about the water. Quantities are arbitrary. I’d probably use something like a half a teaspoon of tea tree oil and then make up, say if that’s the 40 percent, then 60 percent isopropyl alcohol. You’re going to use maybe two and half teaspoons of the isopropyl alcohol. Mix that with the tea tree oil. Blend it in well and then throw that in with a little bit of tepid water. You’re probably going to use about a half a cup of tepid water and then use that as a douche. Because it’s quite hard to get water-soluble tea tree oil these days. It seems to be taken off the market. It’s probably too effective. A little bit of tea tree oil. A little bit of isopropyl alcohol, mix them together, put it in a bit of tepid clean water and use that as a douche. Another effective solution.

That gives you a few different herbs you can use, the tea tree oil, the calendula, pau d’arco, the Echinacea. And there are many other kinds of herbs you can use, but these are about the core. Garlic can also be used as an herbal medicine. Dr. Torrey Hudson from America recommends making a garlic tampon, for example, getting three or four cloves of garlic that are peeled. Putting a needle and thread through them for a string, then you’ve got a tampon. So you can draw that out. That’s another effective solution for you. Some women get burning from garlic. Others don’t get so much burning, so you need to experiment with that.

I’ll do some other videos on boric acid suppositories because they are extremely effective and, in my opinion, 95 percent successful in completely curing a yeast infection. We’ll catch you in another video. Don’t forget to do my online quiz at yeastinfection.org. Check out my book, Candida Crusher, that’s available. Check out Canxida.com where I showcase the different products I’ve made. Thanks for tuning into my video.

Greetings. It’s New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker, author of Candida Crusher and formulator of the Canxida range of products. Thanks for checking out my video. A question I get asked quite regularly on YouTube, but also through my website and by patients that I see on Skype is Marijuana and Candida. “Eric is medical marijuana effective against Candida? Is there any link between marijuana and Candida?” A woman called Jennifer from Edenborough, Scotland, so Jennifer is asking me “Marijuana and Candida – tell me what I need to know about this topic.”

I could tell you something about marijuana a lot of people may not be aware of. Marijuana has quite a destructive effect on the body, and you may have read this kind of information. And if you’re a pot smoker, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.” Tobacco smoking is not good. Marijuana smoking is not good. But what you may not know is cannabis smoking has a much greater burden on the lung and on the immune system than tobacco has.

In fact, a lot of research spanning between 1997 right up until about mid-2000 has proven scientifically that you get about a 3.5 to 4 times greater tar burden from cannabis smoke than you do from cigarette and tobacco smoke. Every marijuana cigarette that you smoke is equivalent to about the burden of 20 cigarettes, so if you’re smoking one joint per day for a week, you’re literally smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. That’s the kind of burden it has on the lungs.

Researchers in Sweden also found quite a big link between regular cannabis smoke, regardless if you’re using pipes, bongs, or joints or however way you’re getting the smoke into your mouth, it was causing much increased incidents of different kinds of oral Candida conditions. So you’re predisposing yourself a lot more to Candida of the mouth by smoking. Xerostomia, leukoderma, and different conditions that effect the oral cavity. No doubt, you’ll also be increasing your chances of reducing the immune system’s ability to fight any ear, nose or throat infection. Because the THC, the tetrahydrocannabinol, basically the oil, the THC oil, it reduces the neutrophil count. So it actually has a direct effect on lowering neutrophil count.

Neutrophils are primary first line defense white blood cells that counter infectious disease. So people who regularly inhale cannabis or smoke cannabis in any shape or form are going to certainly have a lowered immune response. Those are things you need to bear in mind. The cannabis smoke also has a direct effect on suppressing the ability of macrophages to work in the lungs. Macrophages are basically scavenger cells or cells that line many different parts of the oral cavity, the lung tissue, different parts of the body are lined with these cells to help improve the ability of that surface area to reduce the ability of pathogens to get in and create infectious disease or parasites or pollen or bacteria. So macrophages scavenge these kinds of things and deal with them. But what the cannabis smoke does is it directly attacks the macrophages ability to do that, so this really stuffs your lungs up.

Cannabis smoke has multiple other effects. They did research quite a while back now with a group of about 1,250 female patients, and they had a look at the cannabis habits of these women over a four month period and found a direct association between regular cannabis over 16 weeks and vaginal Candida yeast infections. There is also a link. Somehow they’re not quite sure. It may be because of the reduced neutrophil activity, but they’re still doing research in that area.

Marijuana is not really good to smoke if you want to prevent a yeast infection or if you want to recover from a yeast infection. The medical marijuana debate is something different altogether. But again, not enough research has been done to look at the effects of regular medical marijuana use maybe in a tablet form and the effects that it will have on predisposing the person to Candida yeast infections.

But Jennifer, what I want you to get from this video is regular cannabis smoking is not really a good idea for health, period. It’s not a good idea. I hope people who are watching this video who keep asking me the question, what about having weed or smoking dope or having joints, can I still recover from Candida if I smoke marijuana. It is possible, but it’s very, very difficult for your body to do so. So regular cannabis consumption is not something I recommend to people for general health. Nor do I recommend regular alcohol consumption, or regular soda drink consumption. To me, cannabis, alcohol, and soda drinks all belong in that same category. They all screw your health up depending on how much you take and use over a period of time.

I think if a person had a glass of wine from time to time or had a joint once or twice a year at a Christmas party or a drink of coca cola at a wedding that happens every now and then, I think that’s perfectly okay. But that’s not what happens. The majority of people will smoke dope every week. The majority of people will drink alcohol regularly, several times per week. And the majority of people also when it comes to soda drinks, drink these drinks every day. Some of my patients drink two liters of coca cola a day. Some of my patients smoke one joint a day. And a lot of my patients drink alcohol every single day. And then they come to me and say, “Why aren’t I getting well? I’m not recovering.”

And a lot of people are also stuck in their ways where they’re willing to give up everything, but they don’t want to stop smoking dope, or they don’t want to stop drinking alcohol. If you’re one of those people watching this, there is no point in talking to me about your health if you’re not prepared to make that change to really improve your health.

I hope that answers your question, Jennifer. Cannabis or marijuana and Candida are bedfellows. I believe there’s an association there. If you regularly smoke dope, expect a very difficult time to get rid of Candida. Probably best not to even start in the first place. And it will save you a lot of money if you don’t smoke that stuff because it cost a heap I’ve been told. Thanks for tuning in.

Greetings. Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand, author of Candida Crusher and formulator of a product range called Canxida. Thanks for checking out my video. I’ve got another question here. This time, I’ve got a question from Nabil Sani from Bahrain. Nabil is asking on behalf of his mother. “Is there a link between Candida and arthritis?” Nabil, I’ll answer that question in a bit of a roundabout way and explain a little bit about arthritis in general.

There are about 100 different kinds of arthritis, so it’s not just one particular kind we’re dealing with. Candida has been associated with many different forms of arthritis through different mechanisms. The common types of arthritis that people have heard about are rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. But there is also gout, reactive arthritis, all sorts of types of arthritis.

Osteoarthritis we call the “wear and tear” arthritis, and that’s not generally associated with a yeast infection. It’s not autoimmune by nature, meaning it’s more like wear and tear in general. Although there are some relationships between Candida and osteoarthritis that don’t tend to be as strong as the autoimmune relationships that Candida has with rheumatoid arthritis. There are plenty of research now showing links between inflammatory arthritis and also autoimmune conditions in general and a yeast infection.

This happens by different mechanisms. But for example, Candida produces lots of different kinds of enzymes and there is one called phospholipase A, and this particular enzyme has been shown to have a relationship with causing inflammation in different parts of the body. These enzymes that Candida produce can upregulate and downregulate different parts of the immune system. They can activate and deactivate certain parts of immunity.

There is also research in Japan a few years ago now showing that there are cell wall fragments like mannan for example or beta glucans. If we look at beta glucans, it’s quite an interesting sort of a protein and this protein upsets the immune system. It doesn’t really like it. It’s a little bit like if you’ve got a loud party at your house, you turn the music up; it can really annoy the neighbors to the point where the neighbors just call the cops. They’ve had enough. And that’s what beta glucans can do. It can call the immune system, “Hey, get over here. I’ve had enough of this crap.” And then the immune system turns up and it starts attacking beta glucans and attacking tissues around it causing swelling, inflammation, and pain. And these are just little pieces of cell wall fragments from Candida.

I read an interesting article once that said that when Candida dies, it can actually; it’s like a champagne glass that drops. Have you ever dropped a wine glass at your house and had shards of glass all around the place and you can’t walk and people say, “Don’t move. We’ll get the vacuum cleaner.” Well, the vacuum cleaner is the immune system. It’s got to pick up all those shards of glass. And every tiny little shard can really piss off the immune system. It can like hurt it. So in turn, the immune system will release different kinds of chemicals.

And also, the immune system is very clever because it will actually shout out to other white blood cells all around and release chemicals we call cytokines or cell signaling chemicals. It’s a little bit like people getting up in the tree and beating the drum in the jungle to alert troops to come because there is a problem. And then of course white blood cells all come to the area and release chemical themselves, and these chemicals have got weird names like [trumenachrosis]sp? factor and interleukin and names like this. So these chemicals create pain, redness, itching, inflammation, all sorts of problems they can cause. And not only that, Candida is even smarter than that. They can actually release a chemical called gliotoxin and that chemical can actually neutralize part of the immune system creating even more of a problem.

Candida is definitely implicated with many different forms of arthritis and especially conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. In my professional opinion, I’ve found a lot of people with rheumatoid arthritis, in fact, have got a bad yeast infection. And I find the same with ankylosing spondylitis, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, any of these kind of autoimmune diseases.

I remember reading an old medical textbook from the 1930s and I think I might actually have it here in my library, a copy of it. Here it is. This textbook here, “Treatment and General Practice Articles from the British Medical Journal.” I’ve actually got a section here talking about rheumatoid arthritis. It says in this book, “In all cases, look for the hidden infection.” Have a look at the date on this book. What can you see there? 1936. One of the specialists in this book says, “In all cases of rheumatoid arthritis, look for the hidden focal infection.” There are not many doctors that look for infections today when it comes to rheumatoid arthritis. They just give drugs. These guys worked in an era where pharmacy wasn’t really big, and they had to try to troubleshoot things themselves and fix things up with patients. In fact, a lot of herbal medicines were used back in the 1930s to treat people.

I hope that answers your question in a roundabout way. “Is there a link between Candida and arthritis?” There definitely is a link and it could be multiple links. More so with rheumatoid than with osteoarthritis, so that’s worth bearing in mind. But osteoarthritis can also be involved in Candida, and particularly, if patients have been taking anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS, non-steroidal drugs, for many years, which will wreck their digestive system. Again, making them more susceptible to a yeast infection. That’s that link there.

I hope that answers your question in a roundabout way. Don’t forget to check out my quiz at yeastinfection.org and check out CandidaCrusher.com. I think you might find quite an interesting book. And also, don’t forget to check out my website with my products, www.canxida.com. Thanks for tuning in.