Greetings there. It’s New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker. I’m author of Candida Crusher and I’m also the formulator of the Canxida range of dietary supplements. Thanks for checking out my video. I’m going to do another video today for one of my subscribers. This is a lady called Donna Collins. Donna is from Canada. Donna’s husband had a very successful result with the Candida Crusher program. Donna is asking me to do a video on die-off, so she’s saying “Eric, can you do a video all about die-off? Die-off 101. What are the signs and symptoms? Can you clear up the confusion for the subscribers about die-off and what it really is and separate fact from fiction?” Let’s talk a bit about die-off, Donna, and explain to you a bit about what it is, so it’s going to be a benefit to the subscribers out there.
I’ve just had a look at different blog sites on die-off on many different sites. There is a huge amount of confusion with die-off. Just like there is a lot of confusion when it comes to food allergies and food intolerances, which are completely different things. Lots of people get confused when it comes to understanding the terminology die-off and they’re very quick to jump onboard. I get lots of emails and have many patients telling me, “Oh, I had terrible die-off. I had a bit of pizza and I had die-off. I took supplement xyz. I had immediate die-off. I changed my diet. I started to eat more eggs. I got die-off. I took a probiotic. I had die-off. I went to the museum. I had die-off. I changed my job. I had die-off.” I’m hearing this die-off crap all the time. People are telling me all the time they’re getting die-off. I think people are getting confused. They don’t really understand what die-off is and how it really occurs and how it’s not that common to get classic die-off.
So let’s just explain a bit about die-off. I made a few notes here. Went to Wikipedia. Did a bit of research actually on the guy who really brought this whole concept to light back in the 1870s. A guy called Carl Herxheimer. Carl Herxheimer and Adolph Jarisch were two friends. They knew each other quite well. Both of these guys were dermatologists or skin specialists.
Unfortunately, Carl passed away in a concentration camp. He got placed in a concentration camp when he was 81 years old because he was Jewish, which is really unfortunate and passed away at 81 years of age. These guys basically treated a lot of skin problems.
They’re quite well known for treating syphilis, which is a venereal disease that was very common in those days, more so than today. Syphilis is quite well known to have a lot different kind of skin problems, so these guys would commonly use mercury. Would you believe mercury? Mercury was a medicine back in those days. They would give mercury to people with particularly secondary syphilis and it had a marvelous effect on the skin, but almost immediately the patient would suffer from terrible side effects. The underlying bug or spirochete that people with syphilis have was killed quite quickly with mercury, and it created horrific side effects with these people. So they would get fever, chills. I’ve got a list down here of different problems that they would experience. Fever, chills, muscular aches, skin rashes, flushing, tachycardia, so fast heartbeat, headaches. They would get very sick, extremely sick. This is what a typical Herxheimer reaction is, is getting hot and cold, fever, profuse sweating, fast heart rate.
Some sites say that brain fog is a part of die-off. I believe it is, but it’s very rare to get brain fog from die-off. Brain fog can occur with die-off, but it’s a much more delayed reaction as a result. I’ll explain what I mean in a minute by that. If you do get a classical typical die-off, it’s going too often occur very quickly after you take a very powerful antifungal and I’m talking like really quick. It could happen within hours. Certainly within 24 hours of taking that product. It will happen very, very strongly. You’ll get a strong reaction. And you’ll have those reactions that I just mentioned. Things like fevers, chills, muscle aches. If your nose is itchy, that’s not die-off. If you fart or bloat, that’s not die-off. Please don’t get confused with a lot of minor symptoms or fatigue, tiredness, a bit of headache. That’s not die-off. I’ll explain why these occur and how to really clearly define the difference between typical die-off reaction and generally what 99 percent of people experience but call die-off.
What people typically do that create problems that they think is die-off, they change their lifestyle. They alter the dosage of their supplements. They come in too high or too low with a supplement to start with. They start with generally way too high. They take on new foods or they do too big of a change. Hello? I’ve talked about this before in a video. You need to make change slowly. Please watch that video about making change slowly because that is a key thing if you want to avoid die-off, which it probably isn’t. If you want to avoid feeling like crap when you’re going to start the Candida Crusher approach, you need to do things slowly to start with, very slowly, then you won’t feel awful.
Another key thing that people get is inflammation. Inflammation can make you feel pretty crappy and that can often be misconstrued as die-off. Let’s break these things down now, this list I just read out to you and explain to you one by one the events that can lead to what you feel is die-off that actually isn’t really classic die-off. And then later on, we’ll come in and explain to you a bit more about some of the cases I’ve seen with real die-off and how serious they can be.
I get patients all the time on Skype now who say, “I suffered terrible die-off the other day. I took this supplement and I felt very sick. I had a bowel problem after that. I felt very spaced out. Surely, that’s got to be die-off.” When you start a supplement, you must begin – just to recap. You must see the video I’ve completed recently on going slowly. Any kind of supplement you take; I like you to start it very slowly. There is a whole lot of reasons why you can feel terrible after you take a supplement. But oftentimes, the body will not be used to that supplement, particularly if it’s an antifungal/antibacterial product like my Canxida Remove product. That’s quite a potent product. When you take that one right away, lots of different reactions can occur in the body. It can kick the immune system in the butt and upregulate it, make it a lot stronger. That’s one.
Two, it can have a very profound effect on liver function and kidney function. Both of those functions, in turn, can make you feel hot, cold, weak, tired, sick, faint, they can create lots of reactions in the body. Any time you have any kind of stimulatory effect on a major organ, it can certainly change the way you feel. That’s not die-off. When you start taking a supplement, it will often be also that you make changes on multiple levels, i.e., the lifestyle change, the diet change. So when you’re making changes on three or four different levels, of course, you’re going to feel different. You’re going to feel entirely different. It’s quite natural to feel different. If you moved to a new country and go on holiday, you’re probably going to eat different foods. You’re probably going to sleep in a different bed. You’re probably going to talk to different people. You’re probably going to do a whole bunch of stuff that’s different. The funny thing is, you’re going to feel different. That’s because you’re doing different things. Please bear that mind.
Coming in too high with a dosage, too high for you, not necessarily for Paul or Peter or Jane or Mary over there because every one’s dosage is going to be different. Every single person will require a slightly different incoming dosage. And then over time, the person will work out what the right dosage is for that kind of person. If you go shopping with 10 people, they’re not all going to buy a red shirt or a red dress. One will want a black one. One will want a green one. Everyone will want something different. People have different needs and suit different kinds of things. It’s the same with dosages. Even though a supplement may suit a wide range of people, the dosage will certainly not.
I’ve got many patients who gain great benefit from taking a quarter of the Canxida Remove I make per day. Quarter of a tablet and they feel fantastic on it with a good outcome. I’ve got other people who take three to six per day. So you need to feel your way around. If you’re a sensitive person, you start low. You take maybe a half a tablet per day if you react to a lot of things.
Don’t come in with three or six per day if you react. Of course, you’re going to feel like crap. Don’t blame it on die-off. Don’t immediately blame everything and say, “It’s die-off. It’s die-off.” It probably isn’t. It’s probably just because you upregulated your liver. It’s probably just because you stimulated your immune system. You may have even had a very powerful effect on your stomach or pancreas with that product for many different reasons. And that, in turn, will affect the bowel, the small intestine, the large intestine. It could have caused gas or bloating. You could have upset the bacteria in your digestive system. You may not have sufficient beneficial bacteria. And again, when you’re taking a strong antifungal product there, you’re going to get a lot of reactions there as a result of that.
A big thing that many people forget with “anti” kind of products, particularly antifungals, is the liver. Because many of these supplements like black walnut, berberine, clove, neem, they have a very powerful effect on a phase two liver detoxification pathway. There are several pathways that get stirred up by these herbs. This, in turn, can create a bottleneck of toxin. It can up or downregulate your liver function. This may hold toxins back in the body and your immune system is going to go to town on these toxins. Or it could increase or facilitate the release of these toxins on the body. This, in turn, can make it tougher for the digestive system to handle these toxins, especially if the bowels aren’t working well or it can make it tougher for the kidneys to operate and that can cause a lot of fatigue and skin itching and many different things.
Check out my video I did on urinary problems and particularly the one on kidney function. Best kept secret is getting the kidneys working well. Many people have kidney problems and that can make you feel tired, wasted, sick, itchy skin, dry skin. You can feel like partially hungover. That could be a kidney problem. It may have nothing to do with die-off at all. You may not be simply drinking enough water with your detox.
Inflammation. Let’s talk about that one. With a typical Herxheimer reaction generally what happens a drug like mercury killing a lot of things in the body. You’re much more prone to getting a classic die-off if you’re going to take a drug like tetracycline or a very powerful antibiotic. That’s because you’re killing huge amounts of beneficial bacteria and not the friendly guys. You’re killing them. You’re just machine gunning them all down. Wiping everything out. Way more potent than using an antifungal. Those drugs may well put you into die-off. What happens is you kill off all the stuff, the immune system has to start dealing with all that damage. The both beneficial damage as far as you’re concerned and the collateral damage.
A lot of these dying bacteria will release chemicals themselves. The immune system will pick up on this. It will be on high alert. It in turn will release chemicals called cytokines, particularly there is one called interleukin. There is one called tumor necrosis factor. They’re the typical interleukins that go town on these endotoxins, endo, they’re in internal, they’re inside. Toxins inside the body, so interleukins six and eight attack these endotoxins and that’s what typically creates a lot of awful feeling in the body. This is a typical die-off scenario and that reaction ramps up very quickly after you take that antibiotic.
Anaphylaxis like from penicillin, acute allergic reaction, that is a typical immune reaction that can kill you. It can actually kill you. Die-off won’t kill you, but it can make you feel like death warmed up. At least you feel at near death and really sick and crappy to the point where you need to go to the ER and you feel like you’re dying, you probably haven’t got die-off. Did you hear when I said “die-off”? If you feel like dying, it’s probably die-off.
Most people who contact me and think they’ve got die-off don’t feel like dying. They just feel like crap, but they don’t actually feel like near death. There’s a big difference between, so please don’t get die-off confused with a reaction in the body.
Introducing new foods into the body. Maybe your body can’t cope with those new foods. Maybe you’ve reintroduced them too quick. Maybe you’ve introduced new foods too quick. Maybe your digestive system can’t cope? Maybe your enzymes in your gut haven’t got sufficient power to break those foods down, creating bloating and gas. As I mentioned, coming in too high.
Supplements, lifestyle events, all the changes, inflammation, we spoke about that. I hope you’re getting a bit of a feel for what I mean. These are typical things that underpin feeling awful but don’t constitute die-off. We talked about the cytokine response.
Now brain fog. So many people think that brain fog is actually a result of die-off. I don’t believe it is. I believe brain fog is more related to the beneficial bacteria or lack of. I believe there’s a big relationship with the vagus nerve and the gut and the brain and it has got a lot more to do with a sympathetic/parasympathetic imbalance. People with brain fog often have stress. People with brain fog in most all cases when we do stool testing show really weird levels of beneficial bacteria. I don’t commonly find brain fog in people with three, four plus beneficial bacteria in the stool test. Don’t commonly find it. So I believe that in the future, research will validate what I’m saying right now to you guys is that brain fog, in my opinion, is more related to the beneficial bacteria than it is to die-off.
That’s not to say that endotoxins can’t create that feeling in the brain. Because when you’re hungover, you certainly got that brain foggy kind of feeling from the liver and kidneys trying to clean the body out. But I believe that in time research will validate that. That that foggy brain feeling – and how do I know that? I know that because in many cases when I’ve helped to restore the beneficial bacteria in patients, the brain fog disappears. Sometimes within a week it’s gone. I’ve seen that.
I think that just about covers most of things I wanted to talk about die-off. I hope it wasn’t too confusing this video. Again, just to recap. Die-off is severe. It’s extreme. It can last anything up to about a week in patients. It’s like a storm. It can come out of nowhere and it can disappear very rapidly. That’s my experience with die-off. I’ve only ever seen true die-off probably about a dozen times in all the years I’ve practiced, in the nearly 30 years. That’s not a lot of times, but I have seen it and it’s been very severe. In most cases, it resulted in the patient being hospitalized or going to the doctor feeling that they’re actually going to die. There is a severe reaction and it did have the things like chills, fever, terrible skin rashes, all of those things. That is true die-off.