I have Candida for about 20 years and after using various products including Threelac I was wondering how I could be sure it is completely out of my system?

Hi Gillian,

Candida is everywhere in and on everything. It is called an commensal organism because it should (under normal circumstances) pass through taking a free ride and a free meal as it goes.

Whatever triggers it to invade tissue makes it a parasitic organism. This would mean you would have to identify and repair the underlying imbalance that let it in in the first place.

All of my reading shows that bacteria and virus are very dependent on yeast for their existence. This creates a triple threat, however, if the intial imbalance is corrected that should remove the domino effect.

Here's the kicker. Everyone I ask how they knew that they had Candida, the answer is usually that they matched the conditions of a survey. I have never met anyone who had a clinical diagnosis by comprehensive stool examination or any other method.

Then, since Candida can invade tissue, even if you had a comprehensive stool test (highly recommended) then all that would tell you is if it was out of your intestines (not lymph, or any invaded cells).

Here's another curve. A LOT of symptoms of Candida can be matched by protozoa like Giardia or E. histolytica. If you haven't been tested for those - then how do you know it wasn't that?

A word about modern medicine laboratory work:
They use immunoassays heavily to determine if there are any infections. These are not totally reliable and NOTHING substitutes for putting a specimen on a slide and ACTUALLY LOOKING AT IT.

Matt can moderate here since this is not an endorsement - there were only two labs that I knew of in the old days: Great Smokeys Diagnostic lab and Doctor's Data that would actually look at specimens under a microscope.

Another thing you can try comes off of a recent Infomercial where they tell you to get a clear glass filled with water, work up some saliva and spit onto the top of the water. You need to let it sit for several minutes to see if things start growing down from the spit into the water. Apparently, if it looks like a jellyfish you have yeast.

I spit on the water and the little bubbles floated forever with no breakup and no streamers. Apparently, that's a sign of no systemic yeast.

If you find a good test please post

Hi guys,

Great input Vaccinator, good to have you around

Gillian: As Vaccinator quite rightly said, most people who say they have Candida have self-diagnosed by using a symptom questionnaire or have seen a healthcare practitioner who has diagnosed them in this way.

This is an important issue as the Candida questionaire is not exactly concrete evidence and should only be used as a preliminary screening. If someone has a lot of the symptoms and no other diagnosis then there are a number of lab tests that can be conducted to confirm there is actually a Candida problem (many other infections and conditions can produce similar symptoms).

I know of four different kinds of lab tests that help to confirm that someone has Candida related health problems (these are all from private labs):

1. Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis (CDSA) - involves providing a stool sample which the lab then runs various tests on. They look for the presence of Candida directly and determine how much of it is present. They also look for numbers of other organisms including other potentially harmful bacteria/parasites, as well as friendly bacteria such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. They also look at other markers of digestive health such as levels of secretory IgA, an antibody that protects the digestive tract from infection. All of this and more gives a good indication of whether Candida is a problem, why it may have become a problem, and a lot more useful information besides.

2. Anti-Candida Antibodies- involves providing a blood sample which is analysed for the presence of antibodies that specifically target Candida. Depending on the amount and type of antibodies detected, the lab and your doctor will get a good idea of whether you have a Candida infection and how your immune system is responding to it.

3. Organic Acids- involves providing a urine sample. This is tested to see if it contains abnormally high amounts of waste products produced by Candida/yeast. If it does this may indicate the presence of Candida overgrowth, most likely in the intestines (the waste products are absorbed into the body and then excreted in your urine).

4. Blood Alcohol- involves drinking a sugar solution and then having a blood sample taken around around an hour later which is tested for levels of various forms of alcohol. If your blood has a high level of ethanol (drinking alcohol) this is a good indication that you have a lot of Candida/yeast in your gut (since it would ferment the sugar solution producing ethanol). Presence of other forms of alcohol may indicate bacterial overgrowth.

So, there are a lot of tests that can be used to confirm a Candida diagnosis. The whole issue of Candida causing illness in otherwise healthy people is still very controversial, in part due to disagreement over whether the above tests are reliable. However, if positive these tests (especially in combination) along with symptoms certainly suggest a Candida problem is present and that a treatment program would be worthwhile. The CDSA even provides information about which anti-fungal medicines will be most effective in your particular case.

Have a look at our 'Useful Lab Tests' page (main menu)for more information on testing, prices and which labs offer them.

Matt,

Thanks for the marvelous volume of info. There were a few things that I didn't know were available (and I'll bet M.D.'s don't either). I wanted to add another simple test that Thomas, Goldsmith and Wick wrote about in 1974 where you swallow a duodenal capsule (a treated string) with the end held in the mouth so that it passes from the stomach to the small intestine. It is withdrawn after a while to look for Giardia.

I like simple things. A string, a microscope, a diagnosis.

One very important point here is that a negative test does not mean anything at all. Many organisms follow cycles of the moon or hormones of the host so tests should be timed for those peaks. Any organism that produces eggs can be missed if the cycle is missed. The reason I keep emphasizing larger organisms is that there has to be tissue damage before molds invade and there is lasting controversy as to whether the mold can cause the damage by itself.

The ultimate point being that since Candida is ubiquitous we are always exposed to it, but if there is some underlying condition allowing it in, it will always come back unless the cause is resolved.