Candida Albicans: Yeast and Your Health PDF
Preview Candida Albicans: Yeast and Your Health
CANDIDA ALBICANS r% \ m Yeast & your health $ GILL JACOBS 4 Gill Jacobs is a writer and sociologist with a background in research. She also teaches health education, relaxation and stress management. This is her first book. CANDIDA ALBICANS YEAST AND YOUR HEALTH GILL JACOBS An OPTIMA book © Gill Jacobs, 1990 First published in 1990 by Macdonald Optima, a division of Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd A member of the Maxwell Macmillan Pergamon Publishing Corporation pic All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Jacobs, Gill Candida albicans: yeast and your health. 1. Man. Pathogens: Candida I. title 616'.015 ISBN 0-356-18685-7 Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd Orbit House 1 New Fetter Lane London EC4A 1AR Photoset in Century Schoolbook by ^ Tek Art Ltd Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd., Guernsey, Channel Islands. CONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 2 Digestion 7 3 U nderstanding immunity 15 4 Jessica 19 5 What Candida does 24 6 Allergies and food intolerance - paving the way 40 7 The Candida war 46 8 Patterns of denial 57 9 ME in the media 67 10 Candida and ME: working in partnership 79 11 Stage by stage 84 12 Case histories - overload 88 13 Case histories - Candida, tranquilliser addiction and antibiotics 94 14 Case histories - one symptom at a time 104 15 Case histories - turning points 111 16 Case histories - moving on 128 17 Case histories - men 135 18 Diagnosis and finding help 143 19 Rooting it out 147 20 Letting go of anger and fear, and taking control 168 Information, support and advice 177 Bibliography 185 Index 187 But where danger is Salvation grows as well. Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) PREFACE My initial motivation to write this book was a mixture of anger and curiosity. I wanted to find out whether a friend’s harrowing experience with conventional medicine was an isolated one. Three years later, after talking to many other sufferers of candidiasis, I hope to demonstrate that it was not. Stephanie, after a long and painful search for a diagnosis, eventually satisfied herself that she was suffering from a yeast condition known variously as Candida or candidiasis. Her GP and the numerous consultants she had seen had not been able to help her, and this had caused whatever health problems she had to intensify. Eventually she recognised herself when she read an article on Candida by the well-known naturopathic and osteopathic practitioner, Leon Chaitow. At about this time I learnt that a relative had just discovered that Candida was the cause of several years of extreme fatigue and debilitating health. Stephanie and I decided to find other Candida sufferers and publicise their difficulties in order to increase awareness about the condition. Our first attempt - an advertisement in a local paper - produced only one reply. However, that interview convinced us that we were right to carry on, so we subsequently placed a request in the Action Against Allergy newsletter for sufferers to contact us. Within a week seventeen women replied, and over the next few months a few more, including one man. At this point my friend left the project to concentrate on other work, but she remained in the background with advice and support. My previous experience as a sociologist had included a period interviewing school-leavers and their parents, using a method known as collaborative interviewing. Instead of ques¬ tionnaires, certain areas were defined, but for the most part the respondents were allowed to bring up what was relevant in whatever way they chose. This became my approach to interviewing Candida sufferers. It had the added advantage of giving me the chance to learn from others by letting them Vll PREFACE speak in their own way. It was only later that I realised how important that decision was. Many of the interviewees had suffered from not being able to talk about what was relevant to them, and the fact that interviewees were given the satisfaction of knowing that whatever they felt they needed to say was important to their story, proved of incalculable value. Over the next three years I worked my way through the interviews, learning as I went along. In the beginning I was only interviewing women. Rapport seemed to come easily; although I didn’t share their problems with candidiasis, there was an unspoken understanding between us as women about what it was like to be misunderstood or not listened to. Later on when I interviewed male sufferers it was clear that medical failure to treat their candidiasis appropriately was equally devastating. A separate book needs to be written on the problems of candidiasis in children. My biggest regret is that I have not been able to include all the material given to me. Each story had something to teach, and I have done my best to include all the lessons they provided. Vlll
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