Category: Candida Crusher FAQ Videos

Hi there, Eric Bakker, naturopath. The question I get asked from people at times and emailed as well is an interesting one. And it’s a question that you may have yourself.

The question is why does Candida itch? Why does my skin feel itchy when I have a yeast infection?

Now that itch may be around the scalp. It could be around the ears, inside the ears, around the neck, armpits, groin, vaginal; it could be an anal itch, but the question remains the same. Why does my skin itch? Have you ever wondered that?

Well, there are many different opinions and varied opinions on this particular question. Some of the more plausible ones are that Candida can reside on the skin surface and particularly on the margins of the skin where the mucous membranes are. It will sit there because it’s nice and moist and dark and warm, and it will like those areas. A typical place I see people with yeast infections will be armpits and under the breasts of some women, and in skin folds of larger people. So these areas really provide the right kind of an environment for yeast infections to really proliferate.

But when we look at the itching side, some experts believe the itching comes about because when Candida changes, it mutates into a particular form, a spore form. It has these small hooks called rhizoids which can grab into the skin and latch into the skin, burrow into the skin. And this can create a sensation of itching. And the longer you’ve had the yeast infection for, the more established the more so this itch can really drive you crazy. It can burrow in there and create a major problem.

Another theory is that the yeast cells actually get affected by the immune system, so the immune system, in turn, in the skin will release chemicals, particularly chemicals like histamines or various other chemicals, which will try to attack the yeast and set up an inflammatory response, redness, itching, and heat. These are typical things that we find with some people with yeast infections.

So the other scenario is that yeast themselves can actually release chemicals which can affect the skin. So, you know, we’ve got three particular scenarios here, but I’m sure there are plenty more reasons why Candida can cause itching.

The big thing with a yeast infection is get it while it’s still recent. So if you’ve got a skin itch, and for males I see this a lot around the groin or for women a vaginal yeast infection. If the itch is driving you crazy, get onto it now. Don’t let it get in there and become a very chronic itch. And the reason is is because it’s going to affect you psychologically and physically. (A) It’s going to drive you crazy and literally crazy. You’ll develop anxiety around this and embarrassment and fear like I used to have years ago when I had a jock itch infection. It drove me nuts. And this can set up a fear where you don’t really want to be around a lot of other people for fear of embarrassment. And (B), when the itch actually becomes chronic, it becomes harder to get rid of. And you can actually scratch the skin all around the itch and create a secondary infection requiring, you guessed it, antibiotics. And so the cycle continues.

So you really want to get on top of the itch as soon as possible. You’re going to find some great solutions in Candida Crusher, in my book. I’ve written extensively on how you can help merely eradicate these acute and chronic conditions in various chapters.

So if you haven’t got a copy, grab a copy. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. You’re going to get a lot more good videos your way. And take a survey on yeastinfection.org.

Thanks for your time.

Good day, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher. Doing a video today on sugar and yeast infections on why Candida like sugar, want sugar, and need sugar, and what you need to do about this if you want to beat this thing permanently.

So let’s get one thing clear, Candida needs sugar to thrive and survive and multiply. It loves glucose, fructose, and sucrose. It loves those sugars. And, in fact, those sugars are indispensable to allow the yeast to form into its filamentous form. We call yeast a dimorphic organism. It can change. You’ve probably read this in my book, Candida Crusher. It can change quite easily from a cellular form into a filamentous form with hyphae on it, like lots of little strands on them.

A lot of people falsely believe that these strands actually cause leaky gut syndrome. I don’t believe that to be the case. Leaky gut syndrome – I’ll do on other videos – is caused by many other mechanisms and lifestyle habits that the person has. However, when a person has leaky gut, it’s very easy for this yeast to translocate and get outside of the gut into various parts of the body.

So yeast really needs sugars. And when you look at your diet, your diet’s loaded with sugar. Everybody eats sugar. The typical American now, we believe to have 30 teaspoons of sugar a day. Thirty teaspoons, that’s a lot of sugar! Sugar is in just about everything. A couple of common foods and drinks which contain sugar you may not be aware of are sports drinks, yogurts, and pasta sauces. Of course, all ice creams contain sugar. Chewing gum, toothpaste, lots of things now that you take into a diet contain sugar. And the big, big, big enemy today is high fructose corn syrup, which is about a third of the price of white sugar. It’s crazy, but people put this stuff into everything these days. You want to carefully look at your diet and take out these forms of sugar. In particular, are those foods and beverages I mentioned because these are the things that allow Candida to take off.

So when you restrict sugars in your diet, you’re restricting the ability of yeast to grow, proliferate, and change into its more virulent form. So it’s very important for you, therefore, to restrict as many forms of sugar as you can. Alcohol, full of sugar. And you look at a lot of carbohydrate foods, which contain quite an amazing amount of sugar as well. And for this reason, for the first few weeks, I restrict the high starchy carbohydrates from people’s diets. Sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets, these sorts of foods; they contain quite a bit of sugar. Pumpkin, squash, you think about them. When people are restricted in their diet with carbohydrates, they generally jump onto the high starchy carbohydrates. And a lot of people love French fries, for example, and chips and potatoes, and these are very starchy, sweet foods. So these need to be restricted. So it’s very important for you to restrict sugars in your diet, particularly for the first three months, four months, if you really want to reduce the growth and spread of Candida through the body. After that, we can liberalize it a bit more and slowly add some more natural sugars back into the diet. But we first need to get the population under control and stop the spread, and we need to stop the translocation and particularly the changing from the normal cellular form into the fungal or the more virulent form of Candida we spoke about.

So I hope this video is of benefit for you. Come back and check out my other video clips on high fructose corn syrup and other particular vegetable starches I’ll be speaking about. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and please have a look at yeastinfection.org, a website I helped to set up which contains the internet’s best information you can find on yeast infections.

Thanks for your time.

A question I get asked from time to time is Eric, can I have peanuts in my diet? I’ve got a yeast infection and I’m trying to overcome this yeast infection and I love peanut butter, I love peanuts, are these okay to eat? And why can’t I eat peanuts?

Peanuts are actually listed as one of the most allergenic of all foods. There’s actually a tendency to get an allergy against a peanut quite easily being a hyperallergenic food. The key allergenic foods with rank would be cow’s milk, peanuts, certain types of citrus like oranges and mandarins, you can get allergies toward these quite easily as well. Some people have extreme allergies to shell fish or crustaceans. There are many other foods you can get allergies against, but peanuts and cow’s milk all would rank among the highest.

If you’re trying to get on top of your yeast infection problem, then I recommend that you probably try to avoid peanuts and peanut butter as much as you can. Peanuts, actually, are not really nuts. They grow underground. They’re legumes. They’re very prone to various molds, and they produce this particular mycotoxin called aflatoxin. It’s a toxin produced by the mold that actually can live on peanuts. Aflatoxins cause a huge amount of liver cancer in many countries like China and Kenya where large amounts of peanuts are consumed. If you’re trying to get a strong immune system going and fight this Candida, you really want to avoid peanuts and peanut butter.

They’re part of my “no-go” foods in my low allergy component of my Candida Crusher diet. Do avoid peanuts whether you think you’re allergic to them or not. There could well be a link between them and lowered immune response, which is the last thing you want if you’ve got a yeast infection. You want a strong immune response. Try to avoid peanuts and peanut butter for that reason.

Hope that answers that frequently asked question. Thank you.