Greetings. New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker, author of Candida Crusher, formulator of the Canxida range of dietary supplements. Thank you so much for checking out my video. Today, we’re going to talk about recognizing different kinds of Candida patients. These are going to be different types of people that we see. I’m going to do a video on recognizing the female patient, recognizing the male patient, and recognizing the child patient.
This is recognizing the female Candida patient. This will be quite a handy video to have if you are a lady and you may suspect that you have a Candida yeast infection, but it’s also quite a good video for a naturopathic physician or a medical doctor to watch if he or she suspects that they may be dealing with someone who could have a potential yeast infection. I’m going to read some information from my book, Candida Crusher, and I’ll just add some comments to that as well.
How do you recognize if a patient has got a yeast infection? Is a yeast infection just a vaginal problem with a woman like some doctors tend to think? Well, it’s actually a lot more than that. Candida can create a huge amount of disturbance in the body. I’ve got a checklist here of different kinds of things that I want you to be aware of and different things that you could, if you are a physician, ask your patient, or if you are a patient, to try to get a feel for these types of bullet points I’ve got to come up with. If you can mentally tick off a lot of these things, it doesn’t mean to say that you definitely have got a yeast infection, but it means that there is a high probability that you’ve got one. I particularly would like you to do my yeast infection quiz. If you go to yeastinfection.org, you can do that quiz. You can also see if you’re a male or a female and go through that scenario on the quiz and just go through the checklist. That will really give you a good idea.
A case history will tell you if you are dealing with a female who has a Candida history or not. I just spoke with a patient in the States who asked me an interesting question about how do you know if you’ve got Candida? I said knowing that you’ve got Candida, it’s a little bit like when a patient comes to me as being sick for a long time, I consider myself a bit of a detective. It’s almost like one of those CSI movies where I have to find out all the facts. I also like to know about what’s happening around the case, the circumstances.
The history is very important to me to look at. Just like with any kind of investigation. We’re not doing a criminal investigation. We’re doing a health investigation. I like to know a lot about the person’s past. What kind job they have. What kind of foods they have been eating. What kind of living circumstances they’ve had. What kind of relationships they’ve had. These all will leave little telltale signs and vital clues. As a policeman or detective will tell you, most people end up getting busted on their own conviction. They’ll say stuff, and quite often, they won’t even know what they’re saying could implicate them in their disease. That will actually give me the information I’m looking for.
A woman who may have a history of taking the oral contraceptive or a mature woman with a history of hormone replacement therapy, estrogen therapy like Premarin. The pills, these hormonal pills, can sometimes really drive Candida up in the body. They can drive a vaginal yeast infection particularly in the body. I’m very careful to ask those kinds of questions. Look for the woman with persistent vaginal thrush, especially if she has had a vaginal yeast infection treated with fluconazole. Has she had that when she was younger, maybe say from 17, 18 up to about 25. Did she use any kind of medication for a vaginal yeast infection? Was she using applicators to put creams in there to try to get rid of it. Did she cure the problem? Did it go away? But then it came back later in life. Very interesting.
If there has been a history of recurring antibiotic use before the onset of the digestive health problem, you can almost guarantee that this lady will have had a yeast infection to some degree. People who’ve had antibiotics, particularly years prior, and then have had several rounds and you can see their health actually declining as a result of that. Usually, I will straight up request a stool test for that patient to look at what their level of beneficial bacteria are like. Low and behold, I will often find Candida there in the stool culture and a low level of beneficial bacteria.
Any woman with an annoying irritating white discharge. It could be bacterial vaginosis, but often it will be a Candida yeast infection. A female who experiences painful sex or who avoids intimate relations because of pain or discomfort, she should be checked out quite carefully for this condition. Suspect any woman with chronic polycystic ovarian syndrome or endometriosis.
I mentioned in a previous video, a good doctor friend of mine went to Canada years ago on an endometriosis conference and she said that they spent two to three days speaking about eradicating vaginal yeast infections. When a yeast infection becomes chronic and permanent, recurrent, and it gets suppressed by medication and then comes back again, there is often a potential there for that condition to go further in through the cervix, into the womb, and then create the infection and cyst development internally. There are many different hypotheses on the development of endometriosis, but one that I firmly believe there is some link with a bacterial or a yeast infection that actually got into the womb and created an immune response. Not all women, but many women with endometriosis have had yeast infections.
Look for the female who has a strong sweet or sugar craving. Carefully questioning during the case taking will illicit this crucial information. Does she crave chocolate, sweets or breads or maybe wine? Sweet cravings sometimes are a real red flag for a yeast infection. They need to be very carefully investigated. Don’t just look for a craving or strong desire for chocolate, bread, candy or sweets, look for the desire to consume orange juice, soda or fizzy drinks to dried fruits like dates, figs, or chewing gum, biscuits or a host of other foods that could be high in sugar. A person who wants a piece of bread recurrently could have a yeast infection, especially if it’s a strong craving or a desire.
I’ve recently discovered that various kinds of yeast affect receptor sites in the gut that can relay the information to the brain and drive a desire for glucose or for sugar, so it can actually be a yeast creating that desire for the glucose on a physiological level. Look for the woman who eats many pieces, three, four or five pieces of fruit each day. Fruit has plenty of sugar in it, especially oranges, grapes and dried fruits or bananas, too, can have a lot of sugar, especially very ripe bananas. Woman who love to drink wine, especially if there’s a history of oral contraceptive pills or antibiotic use. This can also be a key indication. White wine especially like chardonnay or pinot noir, the red wine, high in sugar.
Woman who love moldy foods like soft cheese like camembert and brie and sweet foods or drinks. A glass of wine with moldy cheese, again, can be an indication. Look for a woman who takes many kinds of dietary supplements, including probiotics, digestive enzymes, bowel products, detox products, cleanses. A person who goes to health food shops and natural people and they get all kinds of pills and potions to deal with multiple kinds of problems. Often there will be a yeast infection underpinning this problem.
Look for a history of unresolved digestive problems, particularly if this has been of long duration involving many visits to naturopaths or doctors. Many people who see me come to me as a last resort. They say, “I’ve been to 10 doctors. I’ve been to 5 naturopaths, 2 herbalists, 2 chiropractors, all sorts of people, and I’m still not right.” A stool test will sometimes really pick up some interesting information with this patient.
Woman whose partner suffers from yeast infections like jock itch. The problem can pass from the male to the female and from the female back to the male. Or in same sex relationships, this can happen quite commonly, too. Ladies with toenail fungus. Suspect digestive yeast related problems as well, especially if a localized toenail problem is of long duration. Wearing stockings, for example, all the time or shoes. I’ve seen this condition a lot with people who work on airplanes. Flight attendants can have this condition quite a lot. Wearing pantyhose, for example, office workers. Again, occupational. Having drinks after work and long hours of wearing clothing high in nylon can predispose you to this problem.
Poor motivation, depression or anxiety or any of the many different disorders that may develop in women without a firm diagnosis for Candida. So it’s important for me to understand not just the physical problems that the patient has, but also any mood issues that may be going on. People who have been sick for a long time often develop anxiety or stress. If it’s long enough, they may get depressed because they’ve been told that they’re crazy. That they, in fact, need to see a psychiatrist because it’s all in their head. It may be all in their head. They could actually have circulating garbage or bits of Candida antibodies floating in their head, so it may be in their head.
I hope this video gives you a bit of an insight into the different potential presentations of a female with a yeast infection. You need to think outside the square. Woman with yeast infections don’t just have vaginal problems. They can have digestive problems. They can have joint pain. They can have mood disorders. They can have many different problems going on.
They may have one or all of the above. If you put on your thinking cap and think outside the square, look at their case history, it could well be an issue there. If in doubt, do some testing that might further confirm what you’re looking for.
Thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to subscribe and please don’t forget to do my yeast infection quiz. And also check out my Canxida.com website to understand the kind of products that I make. I make a Canxida cream now. Very specific for men and for women with all kinds of problems. Of course, I make the Canxida Remove and the Canxida Restore. Check it out. I’ll catch up with you in the next video. I’m going to do a video now on men and yeast infections. Different things to look out for.