Friday, September 4, 2009

The candida diet....

My grocery trip today lots of veggies for the "diet"
Some of you know about my yeast "issues". For those that don't I'll sum it up. Basically, every time I breastfeed a child I get yeast infections on my breasts (aka thrush) that DO NOT go away until I fully stop breastfeeding. Having been to many a Dr. and taken many, many, rounds of anti-fungals (like 3months of diflucan and others) it still seems to not go away.

What the Dr's tell me, stop breast feeding, or you can go on this "candida diet". Having discussed this with my midwife very early in this pregnancy (cause I really want to breastfeed this baby a whole year) she recommended that I start the candida diet 6 weeks before my due date. I have about 11 weeks before I reach my due date, but I've been sick for weeks. So, after talking to my husband I decided to go ahead and start the diet earlier than planned. I had planned on starting in early Oct.

So, what are symptoms for yeast? It can be a wide variety of things. For me, I get nauseated and feel like I have the flu, only it's my bones that ache, not my skin. For some it's actual yeast infections but can range to constant headaches and much more.

This kinda kills my no spending challange as I was trying only to spend $50 this month in groceries.....I've almost spent that already and we just started! But, my health is way more important.

When you see some funky food combo's these next few weeks you'll know why. After three weeks I can start adding some more regular foods in like grains and fruits. Yep, no fruit for 3 weeks, except green apples and blueberries, and even then only one serving a day!

To read more about the "diet" and yeast in general go here.

4 comments:

Gen said...

been on that diet...no chocolate and no coffee made me an unhappy, grumpy, mean mommy. lol. good luck!

Katie said...

It would be ok if I could at least have some fruit. I LOVE, LOVE sugar so it's hard...but worth it. I feel better when I am on it, or at least I did last time I did it.

Anonymous said...

Hey - I followed you thru your comment on Kimi Harris' site. I too struggled with thrush while breastfeeding our second baby, and a lovely lady from our church recommended gentian violet - it's technically an herbal kind of thing... I never did a TON of research on it, but it worked really, really well. Plus, it was cheap and easy (found it at 3 different drugstores). The only downside (and it's a biggie ;) ) is that it turns EVERYTHING it touches purple. This includes baby's mouth, your nipples, bra, and any cloth...

BUT - it works! :) Just a thought.

Katie said...

Meg-
Thanks. I have used that with both my other two. I didn't really notice any difference though. I don't reccommend using it for more than 2 weeks as it dries out your skin. I took months of Diflucan, with gentian violet, and still had yeast after 3 months. We are sure what happens with my body when I breastfeed but I am begining to think it's internal as well as external. The only way I have found to "cure" it is to go on a STRICT diet, but I love to eat and that just isn't fun.