What is candida? A type of bacterial overgrowth?

[Guest guest]

I've known about candida since I read The Yeast Connection over 25

years ago. But I'm wondering how it relates to bacterial overgrowth.

Do people on the SCD with candida problems need to do anything

different than SCD?

Is candida just one of the many forms of bacterial overgrowth?

[Guest guest]

I've had some long-term experience with systemic candida and being on SCD, so can answer your questions.

Candida albicans is a form of fungus, one of the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies. Another name for candida is yeast. Candida live in our mucuous membranes, so inhabit places other than our intestinal tract, although most live in our intestinal walls. Candida is a different creature than bacteria, but can overgrow just as bacteria do.

People with digestive disorders generally also have to deal with candida overgrowth in some form or another. And quite often it takes constant vigilance to keep them in check, particularly if our immune systems are suppressed by medications in order to heal IBDs, or are overworked dealing with other diseases.

I'm one of the people on SCD who found that I had to pick my legal foods in order to move SCD further into a candida elimination diet, and do this for about 18 to 24 months. I found that I had to do this to eliminate my candida-related symptoms and restore my gut ecology. Dealing with my candida overgrowth also helped improve my bacterial populations.

Wasn't difficult to move SCD into a more drastic candida elimination diet. Just did my research, and applied the strategies to my food choices. I eliminated some legals from my diet for a while, and was super careful to limite the few others that just fed candida.

There's some more information in the group files. You can also search the message archives for past discussions on this topic. And feel free to email me offlist if you want more details.

Kim M.

SCD 5 years