So Confused

[goodck]

Hi Shelley,

I think I'm getting so confused with trying to do too much at one time. I've been sick for such a very long time and nothing seems to be working.
Everything I try seems to make it all worse not better. I keep starting your diet and protocols but get so confused and don't know what to do anymore.

Here's what I know I'm dealing with:

candida:
intolerance to all sugars
athlete's foot
vaginal discharge
bowel irregularity
slow wound healing
brain fog
low body temp (95-97, up and down between there)
depression
weight gain (following a candida diet for 2 1/2 years and I've put on 20 lbs) I'm 5'3 and 137 lbs now. All of the weight is in my hips, thighs and stomach
bumps in rough of mouth that are always there.
raynaud's syndrome

I have been taking digestive enzymes with each meal and supplementing with acidophilus. After lunch I'm always full. I do eat a low protein (hummus and brown rice tortilla with cooked veggies) and a carrot salad. When I take the HCL I have a burning in my chest afterward. It's particularly bad after dinner when I have either basmati or quinoa with veggies. I have gas, bloating and burning in my chest for hours. I don't know if it's too much grains, wrong combo of foods, too much HCL or what.

I've had some blood tests, metal and saliva tests done but don't know how to interpret everything. The blood tests seem within range except the wbc which is low.

I'm confused as to what is best to do with the diet, supplements, cleansing, especially liver.

Can you provide some direction?

Thanks.

[shelley]

First thing I would do is get the thyroid checked. Did your lab tests include TSH? T3? T4 uptake? Your metabolism is practically non-existent, which means your liver is clogged and you're seriously low on iodine and zinc.

Have you ever supplemented Iodine?

What exactly are your bowel issues?

How much liver cleansing have you done?

Do you have any spine issues? Posture issues?

My guess, altho I'd want more information to be sure, is that you aren't producing enough bile at all. So here's what I would do if I were you:

500 mg of Taurine a day for 2 weeks.
1 tablespoon of a good oil (nut or olive or wheat germ oil or cod liver oil) 2-3x a day. The wheat germ and cod liver can only be had once a day or less. The nut and olive can be taken as often as you like.
Cleansing Drink once a day 30 minutes prior to main meal.
Eat a mainly no-carb diet for a month, just juices and broths, Protein Shake, turkey, buffalo, salmon, liver, cleansing carrot salad, very small portions of very spicy kichadi. Blend or slow cook all your solids. When you get your appetite back you can start having more solid, more complex foods.
Also drink lots of ginger and peppermint, and the occasional Eater's Digest tea for constipation, or Triphala.
Cal-Mag Zinc, 500 mg of the calcium 2x a day, one before bed.
Up to 50 mg zinc a day for a month. Take with oils.
Iodine, RDA, daily, for about a month.
Lecithin
Vitex, an herb that regulates estrogen issues. Julia sells it at www.sensiblehealth.com as Fem-Mate.
Dr. Cabot's Livatone Plus and/or Julia's liver tinctures, take as directed for at least 3 months. Follow the protocol for slow liver cleansing then do 4 major liver flushes.
Dry brushing, trampoline, slat board exercises, detox baths, all highly recommended.
If after all this you still have bowel issues, let me know.
After a lot of liver cleansing, you can add in castor oil packs if you still have disproportionate weight around the middle.

Hope that helps!

[goodck]

Hi,

My last test results from a few months ago show:

TSH 1.515
t4 7.1
t3 uptake 30
free t4 2.1

I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

I've never supplemented with iodine.

My bowel issues have been typically one poor movement a day. Sometimes not much is released. But now I also realize that the diet I've been doing for candida may be all wrong. With too much basmati. I had popcorn and potatoes too.
My gas issues depend. Occasionally it smells but mostly it doesn't. I just get the burning in my chest along with it no matter what I take and what I eat.

I've never done bowel cleansing but recently (the last 3 weeks I've been taking lecithin 3 x a day)

I do have scoliosis and see a chiropractor for adjustments.

Yes, I do have cravings for salt. I feel food is bland w/out it.

No, I haven't taken any B6 or B vitamins at all.

Is there anything else I'm missing that helps with my picture? I really appreciate it and if you can add anything else to this now that you know more.

Many many thanks,
Janie

[goodck]

Hi Shelley,

I didn't see what your thoughts were on the acidophilus and antifungals. Should they be included as in your FAQ's too?
Would a complete look at my metal and blood test results be helpful? Could I email them to you?
Thanks,
Janie

[shelley]

You can e-mail me any test results you have, but now that I know you have scoliosis I probably don't need to see them. Okay. One thing that everyone with scoliosis should know, and doesn't thanks to modern medicine's non-systemic approach to healing, is that it is both caused by and exacerbates mineral usage imbalances.

Scoliosis people need to be mineral experts because they aren't utilizing them right and that can cause other chronic issues. If you supplement judiciously, your chiropractic adjustments will take better and last longer. And if you do them in combination with acupuncture you'll be even better off. That's actually why acupuncture cures chronic symptoms -- it helps the nervous system utilize minerals better.

The key minerals depending on which subluxions get out of whack are calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, iodine, potassium and salt! All the ones you have issues with. So you really do need to be taking safe amounts of cal/mag, zinc, iron and iodine, and limit both potassium and salts. That is, get what you need, but don't overdose. No more than 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt a day. 1/2 a teaspoon is about 500 mg. You can take the larger amount of salt if you've had a high-potassium day, take zinc too on high-potassium days.

I'm not big on taking anti-fungals, I've seen negligible improvement from them. What I recommend is eating highly spiced food so that your food doesn't ever feed fungus. Some people with a lot of overgrowth do need to do a week or so of them at first, and if you want to you can, but really you need to be concentrating on your liver.

Your thyroid panel results are within normal so it's just your spine interfering with the nervous system's utilization of iodine.

[goodck]

That's great. My biggest subluxation areas are my neck and lower back. I do see a chiropractor but haven't been to an acupuncturist but will definitely do that now.

I'm already moving forward with all of your other recommendations by email and work on those in particular as you mentioned.

I see liver management is key for me so that's what I'll do. Would you say 3 mos. minimum of being really strict with your diet and then slowly reintroduce things I've taken out?

Thanks again for all you do. This is so tremendously helpful.

Janie

[shelley]

Yep, 3 months seems to be just right for most people.

[goodck]

Hi Shelley,

All of your suggestions have been great. In the last 2 days I've felt better than I have in months.
I just have a few more questions at this point.

I'm focusing on the liver cleansing and candida at the same time.
In particular here's what I'm doing:

cleansing carrot salad
cleansing drink
lecithin 3 x day
3 T. olive oil per day
malic acid with breakfast and dinner
taurine (500 mg) per day
iodine (1 tab per day in form of kelp)
calmag (500mg am and same pm)

(am finishing the antifungal and will start the kefir this weekend)

You mentioned I should take the taurine for 2 wks. Why is that? Do I switch to something else after that? You'd suggested that I do the slow liver cleanse and then 4 flushes. Do I do one major flush right after the other? A few days inbetween? I'm a bit confused on that. Do I need to replace the taurine with something else while I'm doing the flushes if I only take for 2 wks? How long until I do my first flush?
I'm awaiting the livatone plus and will take that for 3 mos as suggested. I'm certain this is a liver issue for me now more than ever.

The other thing I did was explore my Dosha. Surprisingly I tend to be more Vata. I think because of my liver/weight/estrogen issues I'd always assumed I'd be otherwise. So my question is this, should I try to focus on the candida diet but lean toward my dosha foods while doing that?

This is such great info. Thanks again,
Janie

[shelley]

That's a great start!

You shouldn't need the taurine for more than 2 weeks. Taurine is a protein, one of the building blocks for bile, so taking it ensures that you will have plenty of bile when you flush and when you digest. The candida diet can make us low in taurine if we don't eat taurine-rich meats, as taurine is most readily found in dairy products like cottage cheese, which is avoided on the candida diet.

Major flushes, when you take half a cup of oil with a lot of juice, should not be done one right after another. You should wait about two weeks in between flushes. The liver has multiple lobes and each lobe can have tiny stones, but only one lobe can actually exit them once they are formed. So you have to give things time to shift to the exit section.

When you're out of balance you need to accent the foods that will alleviate that symptom/issue no matter what their dosha. I use the Ayurvedic terms as a kind of shorthand. It is good to know what your base dosha is, what your natural procivities are, and to choose and prepare foods accordingly, but don't let it turn into a fanatic "can't eat that" regime.

[goodck]

Hi Shelley,

Still doing pretty well. I'm definitely feeling a shift in my symptoms. Overall better in many ways. I may be going through some die off though. Would this happen with a shift in the diet (eliminating all carbs and fruits, except veggies) and using anti fungals? Yesterday I did an enema and today I wasn't able to have a bowel movement. My stomach is more distended and I've felt a little worse today as a result. I went through the list of things to try to relieve the die off and did the skin brushing, detox bath and rebounding but still only felt moderately better. I also tried some emergen-c but still not great. I see that I should welcome die off. Could a worsening of my symptoms be die off?

You didn't mention that I needed vitamin c or b so wanted to check to see if I should supplement those at all and if so how much? Is it best to get the B's in the form of food?

One other question was when would be good to do my first liver flush? On Thursday it will be a week since I started the liver cleaners and bile looseners. Would it be okay to do the 1st flush then? Or do I need to wait until I"m on the Livatone for a while?

Thanks,
Janie

[shelley]

OH yes, that's enough to cause die-off. And it's normal to skip a day of BMs after an enema. The enema often clears out what you would have evacuated the following day, or you get a kind of boomerang effect where things slow down for a bit as things shift.

I recommend B's and C's in general so I don't always mention them in my specific suggestions. You get plenty of Bs from NYF if you're taking that, if you're not, then at least take the RDA of Folic Acid, or a B50 complex with the RDA of folic acid. B vits help with cleansing and preventing acne breakouts, insures that you can digest fats and make stomach acids properly. You don't need much, but you need enough, and you don't usually get enough when you're both reducing calories and avoiding grains.

The C I recommend is Emergen-C about 3x a week, or 500 mg of Unbuffered C to be taken prior to the main meal in order to acidify the stomach.

You should do at least ten days to two weeks of stone dissolvers before a major liver flush.

[goodck]

Great. I think I took in too much vitamin c then. That's good to know.

Today I tried the kefir with the acidophilus capsule emptied into it. I also added 1/2 tsp of fiber. I hope that's okay and doesn't constipate me. Would that be something to back away from since I've had difficulty with constipation at times? Or is the fiber good to have to get the friendlies delivered? My diet is the protein shake, small amounts of meat, cleansing carrot salad 1x per day, some guacomole, 3-4 servings of veggies (non-starchy) and tons of teas and water. I'm adding a bit of almond butter to the protein shake for a bit of extra flavor. I hope that's cool.

Now that I'll be taking kefir daily I see it has Vitamin D. Should I just take kefir instead of the vitamin D supplement?

You were right on with regard to the iodine. I did the iodine skin test and after an hour it was almost completely absorbed. Guess I'll keep on with that for sure...

Thanks,
Janie

[shelley]

that sounds like a good shake, but you probably don't need the extra fiber on the days you eat the cleansing carrot salad.

Occasional Vit D is still okay but yep, probably don't need it now.

[goodck]

Hi Shelley,

I wanted to check in on your thoughts on a few things.

The increase in symptoms (vaginal discharge, athlete's foot, gas and bloating has been awful the last few days)
I used my colema board the other night to try to alleviate some of it and really expelled quite a bit. The next morning I was able to have a bm and released what appeared to be a great deal of yellowish mucous surrounding the bm. I actually felt pretty good for a while.

Here's what's going on though.
I started the livatone plus on Monday along with the kefir and a great deal of acipophilus in the kefir (1/2 cup). I'm still doing the protein shake in the a.m. eating a cleansing carrot salad at lunch along with the kefir and possibly some avocado or cooked veggie. Before dinner I do the alternate cleansing drink and for dinner I have a few ozs. of protein and about 2 cups of cooked veggies. I am not having any carbohydrates (breads or starchy veggies) What's been happening is my increase in symptoms which is really bothersome (my brain fog seems to have disappeared) and I'm still having a hard time with non smelly gas and bloating. I am full for hours even though I'm hardly eating much at all. I've tried the digestive enzymes, adding HCL, ACV in water with a meal, drinking the peppermint/ginger tea and eater's digest and yet I can't control the gas and bloating. I'm still working on the slow liver cleanse and will be doing my first flush next week. Any thoughts on what's going on and what I may do differently?

It really bothers me that I'm so uncomfortable and trying so hard to correct this imbalance but I know with the gas the yeast is still being fed and with doing what I think is right why the increase in these symptoms?

Thanks,
Janie

[shelley]

Things always get worse before they get better. Your body is trying to expel toxins. Drink more fluids, Cleansing DRink, do enemas every day or every-other day until you feel better. Read about Healing Crisis in the FAQ.

When you expel a ton of mucus, that means your intestines are very damaged someplace, and you are very deficient in Vit A and Zinc. You've got a lot of healing left to do. Give your body what it needs to heal and you'll feel great someday soon.