Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Various questions, and about Candida

Long story short, I was taking oregano oil at the end of 2016 for a while and I think my AS symptoms did improve after that after maybe a month of taking 2 or 3 capsules a day. (My diet at the time was fairly strict with basically nothing but meat,eggs, some spinach and some almond flour and extra virgin olive oil).

Having discovered that I wanted to replace the almond flour from my diet due to it's various weird things it can do digestive wise, I started to eat macadamia nuts and some fruit in February, but this obviously over a months time made my AS worse and probably did something with candida. I went back to slivered almonds instead and just meat/eggs/spinach again, but my symptoms never really got better. Then, I went off almonds completely and was just eating meat/eggs/spinach/olive oil for 2 months or so thinking this would help.. but it didn't? Not really. I also started taking a natren probiotic around then, healthy trinity. I'm thinking I should go back on oregano oil, I'm guessing? I've now gotten rid of eggs and am only eating meat and spinach/evo at this time, and I'm also off the probiotic as well.

So my questions are, I'm not entirely sure what else to do. My AS is mild to moderate but it's still obnoxious and I believe it can get better, and it was better some years ago.

Can Candida really prolong it this much? Could the probiotic make candida worse if I hadn't gotten rid of the candida?

Can you take too much oregano oil/should I worry about how much? I'm taking 2 or 3 capsules a day for maybe a month?

Do eggs actually trigger people with AS?

I'm taking 3 tablespoons of Extra virgin olive oil a day just for fat intake and for gut healing purposes, is the oregano oil gonna add a lot more fat to that or anything?

I assumed blanched almonds are safe since Ive been eating them for a while, and I'll probably try to readd them and other foods once I feel better.

Any other ideas? I'm kind of confused, but I guess it could just be the truth that this process takes a while. If you have any answers to these questions or ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it, and I'm sorry for the giant topic.

Hi Kj, figuring out the triggers can be pretty tricky, and everyone is slightly different in how they react. Here's some tips that have worked for me;

1. Take out the almond flour and any nuts (you can try add these back once you have figured out the triggers, but nuts in general can upset the gut) An alternative you can try are seed butters, try a bit of organic hulled tahini (the lighter the colour the better, the dark tahini can upset my gut)

2. Red meat can trigger AS and RA i would suggest sticking to chicken and fresh fish, hold back on the red meat for now.

3. The way you cook is really important. For chicken i make a chicken broth over 24hrs in a slow cooker (look it up on youtube how to make it) For fish a bake fresh salmon in the oven. If you are going to fry anything don't use EV olive oil only use Organic Coconut oil.

4. I actually highly recommend eggs, look for free range. You can fry them in coconut oil.

5. For the oregano oil i actually think its just too intense to take all the time and i'm pretty sure it kills both the good and bad bacteria. Personally i recommend food grade hydrogen peroxide at 35% diluted down to 3%. H202 only kills the bad bacteria and helps the body systemically getting rid of fatigue etc.. I take 10 drops three times a day in pure water with a bit of Braggs ACV.

6. Make sure the water you are drinking is purified water. Don't drink any chlorinated tap water with fluoride it kills the good bacteria in your gut.

7. Salt, don't use table salt, only use Celtic sea salt, Himalayan salt or sea salt.


Here's the menu i have everyday that has worked for me so far, it's still a WIP but I'm figuring it out slowly.

7am: Glass of water with 10 drops of food grade 35% H202 dilluted down to 3%.

Breakfast : x2 probiotic dairy free capsules and Digestive enzyme 10 min. before meal, 4 eggs (fried in coconut oil), 1/2 Avocado with Hulled tahini, Ice berg lettuce with EV olive oil raw, celtic sea salt,

Lunch: x2 probiotic dairy free capsules and Digestive enzyme 10 min. before meal, Baked Salmon fillet (i put a bit of organic tumeric and celtic sea salt) 1/2 Avocado with Hulled tahini, Ice berg lettuce with EV olive oil raw, celtic sea salt,

5pm : Glass of water with 10 drops of food grade 35% H202 dilluted down to 3%.

Dinner: x2 probiotic dairy free capsules and Digestive enzyme 10 min. before meal, Chicken broth with slow cooked chicken. 1/2 Avocado with Hulled tahini, Ice berg lettuce with EV olive oil raw, celtic sea salt,

12am : Glass of water with 10 drops of food grade 35% H202 dilluted down to 3%.

Hope this helps somehow, its an absolute mission to beat AS but slowly but surely we will unravel the mystery.

let me know if you have any questions
-d

I forgot to add two important points

1. H2O2 needs to be ramped up slowly so you would start with 1 drop 3x day for the first week and then each subsequent week you add another drop. Some people go up to 20 or 30 drops but i couldn't manage to get past 14 drops. 10 drops is my sweet spot.

2. For the oregano oil i have heard that some people alternate between probiotics and oregano oil. So they would take probiotics for a month and then switch to oregano oil for 2 weeks then switch back to probiotics. It helps to maintain the effectiveness of the probiotics and also doesn't overwhelm your body with oregano oil, just a thought.

Thanks for the response.

1. Yeah, I figure taking out nuts would be a good idea for now. Thanks for the other suggestions.

2-3.I mostly eat turkey and some chicken, I only ate red meat as a once per week thing but I suppose I can eliminate that as well. I also use a pan to cook turkey burgers with evoo, but I don't think I want to use coconut oil for this, since Im eating quite a lot of meat nowadays since this diet is so restrictive.

4.Really? I'd heard that eggs aren't good for leaky gut, however I was never sure if they triggered me or not and I kind of feel like I have no choice but to eliminate them and see.

Can you recommend the digestive enzymes/probiotic/and food grade hydrogen peroxide that you're using? Virtually every digestive enzyme Ive ordered has tested black for starch even with not as strong iodine. How well has the food grade hp worked for you?

Thanks for the suggestions and the help, again.

Hi kj,

A good place to start is looking for possible trigger foods. For me at least, blanched almonds are out. I avoid all seeds and nuts except hazelnuts and chia. I avoid even low starch veg like carrots and I'm careful about fruits (apples, grapes, pears are all out). All dairy including hard cheeses and yogurt cause me to flare.

I don't have any issues with red meat or eggs and eat both almost daily. So long as I keep my starch under 2g per day I'm fine so I'm confident red meat and eggs aren't a problem.

I also follow a 'weed and seed' protocol to help my microbiome: 1-2 weeks of herbal antibiotic (alternating berberine, oil of oregano, caprylic acid, garlic, etc) followed by 6-8 weeks of probiotics. I agree that the herbal antibiotics kill good and bad, so I keep the courses short in the hopes of killing off some Klebsiella, keeping it at bay through NSD, and then encouraging the beneficial bacteria by using probiotics.

I don't tolerate typical lactobacillis/bifido formulas - they make me break out and slow down transit time - so I use probiotics that include soil-based organisms, which I tolerate really well (clear skin, happy bowels, excellent digestion). I alternate between Prescript-Assist and Garden of Life Primal Defense Ultra.

I've been doing NSD since January 2017 and have experienced an amazing improvement. Pain is usually 0 or 1 so long as I stick to my very strict NSD. It's tough but worth it.

Good luck! Hope you find some relief soon!

Hi KJ, sorry for the delay i haven't been on the forums for a while.

Everyone's different so i guess it's a trial and error for eggs to see if you can tolerate it. I'm in Australia so our products may be different over here but the probiotics i take are Inner Health Plus. Digestive Enzymes are from Metagenics they are vegetarian. H202 is from a private lab from someone I tracked down over ebay.

The H202 was really helpful for me, i highly recommend it, It was super intense when i first started due to the bacterial die off and now it just keeps me cruising along.

Fat interferes with sugar entering the cell. This causes issues with blood sugar and candida. So you either reduce the blockage (fat) or reduce the traffic (sugar). You can eat lots of sugar or you can eat lots of fat. Don't eat both within maybe 6 hours to several days. This is backed up by studies and my own experience:

A) For two months I averaged 100g of coconut and olive oil daily. During this time I got blood sugar issues from eating asparagus.
B) Last winter I ate 50 to 80 dates daily without eating any fats (oils, meat, fish, egg, avocado, olives). I didn't have any candida problems.
C) If I eat 30 dates while eating some olives and occasionally meat then I get candia.

My tipps:
1.) Limit your fat intake or your sugar intake severely
2.) Eat your fat for dinner while eating your sugar for breakfast and lunch. Don't eat sugar and fat wihtin one meal.
3.) Drink a lot of water
4.) Limit very concentrated sugars (dried fruit, honey)
5.) Better eat Fructose than Glucose (e.g. better dried dates than dried figs), since glucose directly enters the blood.

If you have time and money go to Thailand for one month and only live from ripe fruit (exept bananas). I did this in April for the first time. It was my best time in terms of healt. No AS, no RA, no Candida.

kj243, as to your Candida questions..

1) Candida could prolong AS symptoms for too many reasons: the effects of Candida's mycotoxins on our hormones, sleep quality, immune system, gut integrity, other tissue health,...

2) Probitics could only help muscle out Candida. There is no need to eliminate Candida before taking probitics, but taking an antbiotic like oregano oil, cloves, etc while taking probitics might be a contradiction. On the other hand in some cases natural antibiotics may effect pathogens more than beneficial microorganisms if we co-evolved with beneficial microorganism while eating anti-microbial plants. I have heard Stephen F. Olmsted, MD claim that there are conventional anti-boitics that do not hurt "good" gut flora when taken with biofilm disruptors. I think this may be because the necessary doses of anti-biotics is very low.

3) Oregano oil is non-selective and will kill beneficial organisms as well. I was recommended by a naturopath to take 90 drops of oregano oil a day to bring down levels of Blastocystis Hominis but that much oil hurt my gut.



Without explaining why, I agree with SalomonDuggar's recommendation to not eat fat and sugar at the same time (the highway to Hell is paved with natural ice cream! Maybe the synthetic ice cream is better???)

There are essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, but there are no essential sugars. Our liver can make all the sugar that we need.

Related to C. Albicans I think that it was Dr Ann Shippy [B.Sc (Chem Eng), M.Sc (Eng), Ph.D (medicine), Certified Functional Medicine Doctor] that stated the glysphosate residue in soil and grains from Round Up is contributing to mold illness, and this probably also effects Candida. Shippy clearly is someone that can connect dots and solve problems like Stephene Senef. Senef describes how glysphosate disrupts a number of metabolic pathways in us and our microbiome resulting in various illness -- http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416/htm Many of her and her co-authors proposals are speculative but good food for thought/concern.

I apologize for the information overload but you never know when knowledge from another field will offer a solution.

No worries about long posts, thanks for the information everyone. Very good info here and I will definitely be separating any sugars that I try again in the future from fats and other foods.

Right now I've sort of had it with trying to 'not be strict' about NSD if I'm trying to achieve remission and a control over just what the inflammation reacts to, so I'm on a pretty strict diet of only Turkey/chicken/tuna and romaine/spinach, with 1 tblspoon of extra virgin olive oil per meal (3 meals a day). I didn't want to over do it with the olive oil but that's at least some fat intake.

Ive been doing this, without eggs for 2 months and I think it's slowly getting better, but it's frustrating. I just think maybe my AS is more leaky gut centric, since Ive had leaky guttish symptoms before (Acne, itching, dry skin, low level inflammatory arthritis in thumbs.) I was diagnosed with crohn's a while ago but it really doesn't bother me unless I just eat a ridiculous amount of almonds or something(Which I'm not eating at the moment).

I may add a probiotic back in eventually but honestly at the moment I kind of want to just not add in or mess with things on this strict diet. Like, this is so strict that it surely, has to have some effect. Maybe eating eggs for a year straight was contributing to an auto immune or inflammatory response, from what I understand they trigger some people but don't others, so ..in this process of elimination, I'm kind of assuming that's what's going on.

The information is greatly appreciated you guys and I'll keep a watch on this topic, again, great posts