Originally published July 3 2008
Candida Conundrum: Is It Really Allergies?
by Kal Sellers
(NaturalNews) A short time ago, I wrote an article on treating candida. This article took a lot of the stress and misery out of the typical candida diet and allowed you to heal your body while killing candida. This is something that is not typically addressed very well in most candida diets, which often leave you sick in other ways when you are done.
In response to this article, I literally got about fifty emails asking me to help with the fight against candida. The distressing common vein in nearly all of these emails was that they were describing symptoms that candida itself could never be responsible for.
If you have candida to the point that it is eating your skin and your mucus membranes, you are not walking around like a normal person with a normal life. Rather you are on your deathbed.
Still, people are being diagnosed, presumably after some experienced practitioner has tested them, with candida to explain eruptions on the skin and in the mouth, or chronic fatigue, etc.
Let's get the cat out of the bag right away and reveal that those symptoms are not candida infections, but are, rather, allergic responses -- well, a better clinical description would be autoimmune responses -- possibly to candida, but more likely to candida, a few viruses, dietary irritants, chemical warfare residues in the air, toxic thinking and bacteria.
In other words, it is a condition of autoimmune response to what would be better termed an irritant than an infection. True, the microorganisms are present, but the other implications of infection are not there, unless we specify "low-grade" infection.
Because of vaccinations, heavy metals, biological warfare circling our globe and a basically loveless society that is eating irritants instead of real food, autoimmune responses are truly epidemic. Pretty much everyone is experiencing some degree of them if raised in the conventional setting in this country.
Fortunately, as I profess quite often, our culture is feeling the stones of what would commonly be known as "rock bottom" and the more enlightened members of every class of society are engineering changes, often subtle, but cumulative and sometimes radical, but with fewer participants.
This movement is what brings you NaturalNews.com and other enlightened publications. There is still a lot of fear, anger and spewing of contention against this or that, which, hopefully, we will stop doing before we drag ourselves kicking and screaming to our graves.
What is it that Albert Einstein is credited with saying? "You cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it." Yeah, that is right, and going to war against those who have abused humanity is the same level of thinking. Instead, an enlightened perspective, determined to take humanity to a higher place is a much better solution. I believe that if we put all the energy that is currently burned up on contention, complaining and blaming into creativity, innovation and commitment to good causes, we would soon find that all current threats are no longer threats at all.
Today, though, we are going to deal with today's threats and how to nullify or at least minimize the cumulative impact of them for each of us.
So the responses that people are reporting, which they have blamed on candida are actually not the direct result of infection, but rather the result of an allergy, or auto-immune response to not just that irritant, but several others as well.
This calls, obviously, for a different approach. I find many natural healers using candida the way medical doctors use fibromyalgia. That is, when they encounter a stubborn symptom that they do not understand, they give it that label so they sound more intelligent. This is safe because these conditions are believed to be so hard to treat and results are not really expected.
Of course not!
In order to deal with the problem that is most often being labeled as candida, we need to start labeling it correctly. Let me tell you, first of all, that everyone (are you listening?) everyone has candida in their blood. This is not new, though it is a little worse because of some mysterious things in our air today.
The only difference is that today if a practitioner finds candida in your blood, you get a label to carry around that you can now use to excuse all of your health problems so you do not feel too bad about having them. The problem with this is that you soon find that your health is not really getting better. Candida control programs are not working. Then fear sets in and you are worried you are going to die, or not be able to live a normal life.
When we address candida, cleaning it out and healing the body so that it is healthy ecologically is not difficult, but there is no way every that you are going to keep candida out of your blood completely. If you are allergic to the candida, guess what, anytime you give your body enough irritants that it becomes irritable, you will have symptoms again.
Last time I wrote about candida, I explained how to wipe it out of your body and get your ecology healthy. That system works, but so many of those who contacted me did not have symptoms consistent with candida infections, but rather with autoimmune responses.
When an autoimmune response is triggered by one or many irritants, it is known as an allergy. Allergies can take many forms and can manifest in many different tissues. There is very little sense in a simple scratch test for allergies these days, even though that is almost the only thing most medical doctors even know about or support.
In order to deal with the allergies, we want to do three things that will keep them away permanently.
1. Diminish the number of irritants in the body
2. Release the tendency to respond to certain substances
3. Clean out the toxic residues in the body that keep it out of balance
To diminish the number of irritants in your body, think three areas: water, food and air.
Water is the easiest, just get good filtration systems for your water. You may want to test the pH after filtration and if it is highly acidic, add some healthy ions to it so that your body knows how to use that water. A simple solution is to add raw apple cider vinegar or fresh lemon to the water. These are acidic natural substances that our bodies understand.
Generally, I feel that distilled water is the best -- the hydrogen ions that are freed up in distilled water (which make it test acidic) are actually used immediately as markers in your body and help eliminate any debris that are not in use. It is simply a myth that distilled water will rob your body of nutrients you are using. The only time this could possibly occur is when under extreme stress. During those times, you can solve the problem by drinking herbal teas (as part of your water consumption), especially comfrey, alfalfa and red raspberry mixed.
Distilled water does come with a warning, however, and that warning is about xenoestrogens (literally, foreign, unnatural or abnormal estrogens) that can be leached out of the plastic if the temperature changes too radically. A local delivery service will not cost you much more and might eliminate this problem totally. Your own distiller will solve the problem totally.
I occasionally get asked about alkaline water. I personally watch out for anything that does anything that I would not encounter in nature. While glacier water is certainly alkaline, it did not get that way by putting a dropper full of some alkalizing chemical in it, but by absorbing minerals from the rocks and soil it sits on.
Alkaline water can cause problems with hydration (contrary to popular belief) and can cause alkaline shock, which will cause problems with normal function and with the normal cycle from alkaline to acid that your blood does if you are healthy.
In theory, something like alkalized water that comes purely from electrolyzing the minerals in filtered water could be very helpful without causing alkaline shock and that alkaline water would react with and neutralize many irritants in your blood, contributing thereby to your healing process.
If you decide to use alkaline water from one of these sources, the best I have found is explained at (www.enagic.com/). This way you can get a concentrated dose of some things we have been missing in our usual water, but that we would get, at least periodically, if we lived naturally. There are also other ways to micro-cluster your water into hexagonal water clumps. This should be tested before you buy, though.
Food irritants is the most complicated. Basically, if you understand that humans are, most perfectly raw-food frugivores, you can do pretty well. That means we are best designed to eat fruit, leaves and easily gathered vegetation along with some seeds and nuts. We are certainly designed to eat them raw. These foods hold little irritation for most of us. If you are allergic to nuts, you generally know about it. It is also useful to realize that two substances you could eat and would not react to either, might, when combined, create irritants.
So the first clue is lean toward frugivore foods. The second clue is make sure you have great digestion -- which starts in the combinations of foods you eat and then occurs in the mouth when you chew your food well. I promise you if you chew twice as well as you are now, you will have twice the energy and half the symptoms without changing anything else.
For a more detailed discussion of proper eating parameters, go to (www.bestfoodist.com) and get Traci's Transformational Health Principles book. This will give you the basics that you can follow and to which you can apply any food program you are inclined to follow to make it the healthiest it can be.
Air is a tough one. The air outside probably is laced with lead and chemicals... shall we call them experiments? It is also pervasively filled with mutated strains of everything thanks to the radical unnatural radiation circling the globe in the form of microwaves and electromagnetic grids.
On the other hand, the air inside your home, though filtered, typically tests to be up to 70 times more toxic than the air outside on a smoggy day!
The solution is to make sure you have some ventilation in your home. Keep wireless devices (internet, cell phones) and your microwave (if you have not thrown it away yet) down to a minimum or eliminate them. Avoid toxic sprays and chemicals in your home. Vacuum with a high quality vacuum and maybe even grow some plants, especially trays of wheatgrass that will revitalize the air in your home.
Oh, and do not forget the biggest one, think more positive thoughts. There is really only one excuse for the air in anyone's home being 70 times more toxic than the air outside: the chemicals produced from their own bodies.
I remember one study I had to learn about when I was studying self-help and reprogramming. In this study, the condensate exhaled by people in a room was captured. One angry person, who was in the room angry for an hour, produced enough poison to kill a guinea pig. A room full of angry people produced enough poison in one hour to kill a hundred guinea pigs!
We are actually capable of producing poisons that are far more dangerous than anything the outside air is going to contain on the worst day. The good news is, we are also capable of producing the most healing chemicals in the world for our own bodies (is that not the epitome of logic?).
So the most important way to clean up the air in our home is probably to take out the television and other sources of news, and then stop calling those draining people in your life and then start having gratitude and praying for peace, joy, faith and hope.
The most important thing to bring into your home is a package of increased love, faith, hope, joy, peace and wisdom (including reading helpful, enlightened books).
To release the tendency to respond to certain substances, one has to do number one well (diminish irritants in your body). The next thing is to start using tools that are specific in their ability to diminish the irritable tendency.
Of course, if someone has an irritable personality, it probably is going to appear in their physiology. If someone has a lot of fear, it is probably going to look like candida infection when that reaction appears in the physiology.
One of my favorite tools for decreasing irritation is soothing herbs and St. John's wort. St. John's wort is not particularly soothing, but it helps buffer the brain against irritable cycles and phases.
Soothing herbs are: Comfrey leaf, marshmallow root or leaf, slippery elm bark and calendula. These are not medicinally relaxing (like, say chamomile or lemon balm) but they are far more helpful in this case because they absorb irritants, sooth all tissues, absorb poisons and heavy metals, build strength in every system and provide temporary natural buffers for several hours each time they enter the system. I personally think that anyone in a stressful society, certainly in the U.S. and Europe, should probably select one or two of these they like and take them internally every day.
The next tool of diminishing irritable tendencies is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). It is not alone, but it is both simple and elegant, and it is fast. You can get introduced to EFT for free on the downloads page of (www.kalsschool.com) and a newsletter going out to all registered users soon is going to include an update about using EFT for this very specific purpose.
Using EFT, allergies can be released and the irritable response can be contained while you diminish the number of irritable things in your diet and life.
To clean out the toxic residues in the body means cleansing and doing it regularly. It also means cleansing the emotional heart regularly. If you have not found something to cleanse your emotional heart regularly, take a little free advice: Find Something!
This subject will also be addressed in the near future in www.kalsschool.com newsletters as well, so if you are not receiving that newsletter, please get registered.
The basics of cleaning out the emotional heart are that you have something you can do, usually something out of the ordinary, that takes you away from the tethers of your life for a short time. This is not about escape, it is about clearing out your heart. It is a good idea to include something physically exerting, but that is fun.
For me, a walk in the desert clears out my emotional heart. Now that I have moved to Georgia, I find that I can do it on my trampoline out back. I just go into a sort of trance and bounce and program myself, or imagine myself in different aspects of my consciousness (children do this without thinking about it, they fly or dig, bounce or twirl, or they are trees or bees or cats or squirrels).
The Chinese actually have a type of chi gong that works by pretending to be different animals (monkey, tiger, dragon, bear, eagle) and by meditating on those animals to heal the various organ pairs. While imagining oneself as said animal, the corresponding organ is regenerating. The longer the better, of course.
Hawthorn berry blossoms are very helpful for clearing the emotional heart. I am also told (though I have not tested it) that kudzu blossoms are very good for this.
Nothing will replace an activity that clears your emotional heart. The activity should be healthful and relatively free of technology. It should be totally free of your cell phone.
As for physical cleansing, there are many good products on the market. I like Richard Schulze's as well as Dr. Christopher's Original Formulas.
Detailed cleansing courses are also frequently offered through kalsschool.com also, which will allow you to understand how to cleanse for healing, for maintenance and every day without even thinking about it so that you can quietly eliminate many irritants and poisons that you are going to inevitably encounter in your life.
Until next time,
Kal Sellers, MH
About the author
Kal Sellers, MH currently operates KalsSchool.com and teaches a 2-year curriculum for Natural Medicine, via live teleclasses.
Kal is a Master Herbalist and holds several other certificates and licenses for hands-on healing modalities. He maintains a current practice in the Atlanta area.
Kal and Traci have six children, the last four of which were delivered at home. They live now in Powder Springs, GA where they teach live classes on food and medicine. Kal is also a full time Chiropractic student.
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