Here’s a question. Can antifungal supplements cause a die off effect? Yes, they can, and in fact some can cause severe die off effect. Let’s just talk about that for a few minutes.
Many people have heard of the word “die off.” Another word for this is called the Herxheimer Reaction. This is a reaction that we see with some people, which can happen for a multitude of reasons. Many people feel bad when they go on an antifungal treatment and they may think it’s die off, but it may not be die off at all. It could be something entirely different. Let’s talk a little bit about that, too.
Die off typically occurs when large amounts of yeast cells die, and the immune system starts attacking these cells. Various chemicals are secreted, which work on the Candida itself or the Candida fragments. These chemicals create a lot of reaction in the body. It’s almost like a nuclear reaction. It starts small and it builds up and up and up until it’s a massive explosion. We’re not talking about binary fusion or some nuclear type of explosion inside your body, but some people get no reactions. Some people get minor reactions, and some people are almost hospitalized, so sick from a die off that they can be debilitated for weeks or months after, brain fog and pain and vomiting and nausea. I’ve seen some horrific cases.
Let’s look at a couple of reasons why die off could occur. Die off typically occurs when you’ve got a patient who is very sensitive, who starts too strong or too full on with treatment. I’ve told you this before. You may have seen my other videos. There are three types of people. You’ve got normal people, they’d be like you or me; you’ve got sensitive people, and then you’ve got the supersensitive.
The normal people can generally take a lot of different types of things like paracetamol, like Tylenol, for example, or Ibuprofen, various medications. They don’t react to antibiotics or penicillins. They don’t have a huge amount of food reactions or environmental reactions. They tend to get sick every now and then, but not sick all the time. They don’t have a lot of food allergies. These people don’t tend to react to a lot of things in their life.
Sensitive people tend to have a couple of food allergies, and they will have noticed some strong reactions to different foods, also maybe perfumes or chemicals. But the supersensitive are in a class all on their own, and these are people that react to everything. You can give them one B vitamin tablet or a bit of Vitamin C powder, and they can have a headache for two days. They can eat a particular food and have vomiting and diarrhea for a week. They’re extremely sensitive. They can be sensitive to smells, to noise, to lights, also to chemicals, to chlorine, to colognes or perfumes to the point where they can’t be around a lot of people. These are the supersensitive.
The supersensitive patient is the one who’s most likely going to experience the most severe die off or what’s natural in it [?]. And the sensitive are going to experience die off, but normal people like you and me aren’t going to experience die off, and if we do, it might be a mild headache for a day and it’s quickly gone.
There are other reasons why you may have signs and symptoms which you believe are die off but, in fact, they’re not at all. These could be detoxification reactions. When you go on a good multivitamin, for example, it’s not hard for your liver to be up-regulated or to work harder or faster and clear toxins from the body. When you cut caffeine and alcohol out, these things typically create reactions that are not die off, but they can masquerade like die off. If you’re drinking three or four or five coffees a day and you stop that, you’re going to feel like crap for three or four days, potentially. You may think that’s die off, but it’s not.
You need to be careful when you use the word “die off” around me because I’m going to ask you a lot of questions and find out whether it is or not. Be careful if you’re sensitive or supersensitive taking an antifungal supplement. You need to go very slowly. You may be better off including tiny little pieces of garlic into your diet, even just like a tiny slice of garlic, one drop of oregano oil in your food, and just sort of gently approach it like that.
If you’re going to take an antifungal tablet, you’d cut it in three pieces and take a third of it with your main meal, and you do that for three to four days and see how you feel. If you feel okay, then you take one-third twice per day and you gradually, gradually, gradually build up until you can take one to two tablets a day. That’s a clever move. That’s how you avoid die off. Nobody likes feeling terrible for several days. And with a bit of intelligence and the correct protocol, you don’t have to experience die off.
Another quick tip for you to avoid die off is to slowly ease yourself into an antifungal holistic program. Don’t jump in and take antifungals right away. Make dietary changes two to three weeks at the onset, so right at the beginning make the changes and slowly ease yourself into the diet program. This is an intelligent approach. Don’t take any antifungals for four weeks if you’re a very sensitive person. Make the dietary changes, drink more water, cut out the junk food, including high quality lean proteins and vegetables, take out potentially allergy forming foods, improve your lifestyle, reduce your stress, and then slowly put the antifungal in. This is how you’re going to avoid Herxheimer reaction. Common sense. But remember, common sense isn’t very common with a lot of people.