Thank you for checking out this YouTube channel and thank you for tuning into this video today. Heres a question Ive been asked from a lady in Australia. How long is Candida die off? How long does it take for me to finally overcome these dreadful feelings that Ive got a die off?
Ive done a few videos on Candida die off and lets get one thing straight. Are you sure that its Candida die off? Are you sure its not something else? Many people I see and have consultations with swear that theyre getting Candida die off, but in fact theyre not getting that at all. Theyre getting a totally different reaction. Theyre getting a detox reaction or theyre getting a reaction to a change in diet or theyre getting a change in the way they feel because theyve withdrawn certain foods from the diet.
So there are different reasons why you could be getting the feelings that youre getting, and you may misconstrue these feelings and believe that its actually what we call a Herxheimer Reaction or a die off. True die off occurs when lots of Candida die and release their contents into the digestive system. Not in the bloodstream. Youre not going to kill millions of Candida in the bloodstream and theyre going to create a toxic reaction. Its usually always in the gut.
When that occurs, you can feel pretty sick and toxic. Normally, its going to last anywhere between two days up to about 10 days. Generally, I would find five to seven days, and usually the first 24 to 72 hours are the most intense and toxic experience, and then it will taper off, then youll feel fine again.
How can you avoid die off? You can avoid die off with common sense like anything in life, but remember, Ive told you guys this before. Common sense isnt very common with a lot of people out there who are treating for Candida.
If youve got severe Candida, if youve got major brain fog, if you feel spaced out and youve got joint pain and youre very sick, youre tired, youve got a lot of gut problems, then you need to be very careful when you start on a course of treatment, particularly a strong antifungal treatment. If you go too quickly into something and take like a mega dose, there is a possibility youre going to set yourself up for a fall. Youre going to feel pretty crappy. What you want to do is go into it nice and slowly, nice and gently.
I look at the sensitivity of the patient. I mentioned before there are three types of patients I see. Theres the normal people like me and you most probably. They account probably for about 75 to 80 percent of people, and these people dont usually have violent reactions to things that they take. They can take B vitamins. They can take fish oils. They can take multivitamins, vitamin C; they can take all sorts of things. Theyre not allergic to pharmaceuticals. They dont generally react to things quickly. They can generally find that they wont usually experience die off, and if they do, its very mild.
The people who experience die off the most are the ones who are sensitive and particularly what I call the supersensitive. The supersensitive are people that react to everything in life. They can take one vitamin C tablet and feel sick for two days. They can take a B vitamin and they can have like a bad headache or not sleep for two or three days. Theyve got known allergies and reactions to multiple foods, chemicals, drugs, all sorts of things. If you know that youre very, very sensitive, then you need to be very, very careful if youve got Candida because youre the person most likely to experience the strongest reaction when you go on the correct course of treatment.
The regular patient will not experience this unless they do something dumb like take 50 antifungal tablets in one day, which some people do, by the way. Ive had some patients take 30 to 60, even 90 tablets per day thinking that theyre going to get rid of it fast. Theres no real benefit to that. All youre going to do is make yourself feel sick.
How do you know youre not experiencing an aggravation in terms of your diet? How do you know youre not experiencing a withdrawal from caffeine or another food? Many people who start on an anti-Candida approach make multiple changes at the onset too quick, too soon, too many. That is a silly thing to do because then youre not really sure where these feelings are coming from. Lets just say you were drinking three or four cups of coffee a day or five or six and you stop all of a sudden, you started to change your food quite rapidly in the same week and you took an antifungal and perhaps a probiotic all in the same week and then you get sick and then you turn around to me and say, “Its a die off.” Well, hang on a minute. What about the caffeine reaction? Maybe that could account for the skull-piercing headache you had for three days. What about the fact that you stopped bread or gluten all of a sudden? That could make the gut change. Bowel flora can change quite rapidly, too, with a diet change and that can make you feel quite spaced out, sick and bloating.
If you really want to know whether youve got die off or not is make the diet change very, very slowly and then very slowly introduce an antifungal. If you really want to know whether its die off or not, dont make any changes to the diet, just take the antifungal itself and then maybe take three or even four, even six doses per day. If you experience bad feelings with the antifungal medication, this could well be related to die off, but dont get confused. Too many people I see get confused and dont really understand what die off is. If its true die off, its going to last as I mentioned between two days to about seven to ten days max, but normally around five or six days.
I hope that answers your question. Thank you.