About ten months ago I had my first dentist visit in twenty years. My teeth are pretty healthy and no new cavities were found. I have one mercury “silver” filling that I want out. I inquired my dentist about her opinion this filling and she nearly laughed when I told her that I believe that this filling is one of the contributing causes to my Candida yeast and Anxiety/OCD disorder. She said it was a small filling, it was secure and it “looked” pretty good. She said it was not worth taking out but she would do it if I asked her.

I then went to my doctor and inquired about my mercury levels. The test showed that I had mercury in my blood but not in amounts that would be a cause for concern. My Whole blood levels were 9 µg/L and the safe levels are  < 8.0 µg/L  and for occupational limit in exposed workers < 15.0 µg/L  (Source)

So my level is just above the safe level.

So here are my thoughts about mercury:

If health professionals don’t take mercury amalgam poisoning seriously then you need to find another health professional that does.

Why?

1. Mercury is toxic even in small amounts. It is the most toxic, non radioactive substance in the world. It is more toxic then lead.
2. Mercury passes the blood brain barrier.
3. Mercury is attracted to lipids (fats) and the brain has the highest concentration of lipids of any organ.
4. Mercury vapour from dental fillings is highly toxic

Watch this startling video on how brushing your teeth can lead to toxic overexposure to mercury just by the dental amalgam vapours. Even drinking hot beverages and soups can leach more mercury into your body then in an undisturbed amalgam. Any kind of stimulation will disturb the mercury to release vapours. Mercury vapours are then released for a minimum 1.5 hrs.

I will be having my fillings removed within the next couple of weeks. I found a holistic dentist that will do this work and I meet him on Sunday. (An odd day for business, but it is the first day of the week) I will meet with him to see if I feel comfortable with him doing such work in my mouth.

I will also start taking supplements to chelate mercury. The supplements include Iodine, Selenium, Cilantro, Chlorella, High dose vitamin C to bowel tolerance. That is a start for now and as I find more info I will add to this list.

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The month of September was just so sunny and beautiful in my area. I was basking in the sun and enjoying every minute of it knowing that it was short lived. Last week the weather changed and the clouds rolled in and stole the wonderful sun away and brought with it the rain. That is when I found out that I could hardly get up from bed. I also could not stop crying and for no reason at all. It was extremely hard just to get my kids of too school and getting through the days was all I could do. It was getting worse and worse every day. This definitely was not normal!

I don’t know how it can happen so quickly – that one day I just can’t get out of bed anymore. I was feeling emotionally beaten up and had no fight left in me.

Four days of this was enough for me to go out and splurge on some vitamins. Usually I make a great effort to get sun on my skin everyday and take Cod Liver Oil all for the Vitamin D. However I picked up some Vit. D pills just to get me through the winter. I also picked up a Multi B vitamin as it is generally known to fight depression and good for adrenals and stress management.

I took my supplements that night which consists of:

• Vitamin C 1000mg
• Multi Vitamin B 100s
• Vitamin D up to 4000iu depending on sun exposure
• Vitamin E mixed Tocopherol 400 IU
• Cod Liver Oil
• Handful of Dulse for iodine
• Magnesium Powder

After adding the Vitamin D and B vitamins I feel like a whole NEW person. The sun did not shine for days but it did not matter anymore. The tears went away and the energy came back.

One thing that I was also looking to buy was full spectrum lighting to put in my kitchen as this is the place in my house that I spend a lot of time. I don’t need that right now but as the fall and winter season arrives I will probably have my husband install the new lights.

Absorbing Nutrients

I am eating a healthy and nutritious diet and getting lots of Vitamin B through my food as well as getting Sunshine. Why is it that adding these two “pills” would make such a difference. Why can’t I get the same effect from eating liver which is rich in those vitamins?

I am assuming that the food has to get digested and broken down by the digestive bacteria and fed to the cells and a vitamin pill is a lot easier to absorb.

A healthy gut is the KEY to optimal health.

Food digestion is critical to health and that is why I blog so much about my Candida Yeast issues. I am also an advocate for fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, beet kvass, kefir which replenishes the gut with healthy bacteria and fight yeast and pathogens. Fermented foods also aid with digestion problems like diarrhea, constipation, acid reflux, gas, bloating and food allergies.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety

My OCD normally gets worse when we start burning the wood stove for heat. So far it has not been so bad. I check the stove before leaving the house or going to bed like I always do but the anxiety around it is not there. My anxiety in general has gone down. Not totally gone away but I am able to fall asleep without worrying about the house burning down, my kids dying or someone breaking in.

This is a breakthrough! It is absolutely horrible to feel afraid to sleep.

As I wear my heart on my sleeve I hope that someone may be helped with my battles and breakthroughs. Instead of reaching for medication I try to find out what nutritional needs might not be getting met and then try to remedy it. This is the long way to healing but at the moment it is the only one I got. Hiring a holistic doctor is not affordable at this time.

My History Note: When I was battling suicidal depression as a teenager my father sent me to an Iridologist. This Iridologist put me on vitamins and I pulled out of the depression rather quickly. Vitamin D and Multi Bs were part of my vitamin cocktail. I thought that I was just growing out of the teenage hormones change and did not give much credit to those vitamins. Eventually I stopped taking them.
Right now I feel a lot better than when I was taking St. Johns Wort and Sam-E. Those are natural anti-depressants and supposedly work as well as medications prescribed by doctors for mild depression.

At this point I give the credit for my well being to the vitamins.

An exciting update: after I wrote this post I talked to my father and spoke of my health issues. He was witness to what I went through as a teenage kid so he understands greatly what it is to be “unbalanced”. So he has offered to pay for me to go to an alternative doctor! I am absolutely ecstatic!!!

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays hosted by Food Renegade

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There are many tasty ways that you can add probiotics and enzymes to your diet. Lacto-Fermentation is an ancient way of preserving your food and was done before the invention of refrigerators. By adding whey to your food and letting it sit out at room temperature allows the food digestion process to start before it even reaches your mouth.

The enzymes, lactic acid and beneficial bacteria created during this process ease the strain on the pancreas which is the part of our body that secretes pancreatic juices and digestive enzymes to the small intestine.

Lacto-fermentation helps heal the digestive system by reintroducing beneficial bacteria and discourages the growth of the bad bacteria and pathogenic yeasts. Lacto-fermented foods are crucial for healing from Candida Yeasts.

In these videos I show a wide range of lacto-fermented foods, from homemade mustard, salsa, pickles, sauerkraut, and the makings of fermented milk. I also share how easy it is to make home made sauerkraut.

If you choose to buy your own sauerkraut read the labels to see if it contains live cultures. The ingredient list should only contain “cabbage” and “filtered water” and “salt” and be unpasteurized.

Adding Lacto-fermented foods to your diet will do great things for your health.

To your health and wellness,

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Candida is such a nasty parasitic yeast and once you get it and don’t treat it right away it can make itself at home in your body living off of you and what you eat. Most people do not realize that their symptoms are a result of Candida and like me do nothing about it for many years.

Going to a primary care physician about Candida can be very frustrating because they don’t seem to be very informed about it. I asked my physician about this study that shows how Candida can cause anemia in its host by utilizing its iron for growth. To this day he has not gotten back to me.

Here is a medical study that found that giving Probiotic Treatment to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients helped to reduce their anxiety. This study shows that there is a Gut and Brain relationship.

From the article:

“(Subjects) felt less anxious, they felt calmer, they felt better able to cope with their illness, they were sleeping better, had less heart palpitations and less symptoms of anxiety,” she said.

Candida Yeast can also be a cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I just found it upsetting when I was asking the doctor about Candida Symptoms and Candida Treatment options that I was given a prescription for Prozac. Drugs for the anxiety and OCD would do nothing at treating the CAUSE of my symptoms. It would just be a band aid solution. I urge everyone to be crusaders for their own health.

To your health and wellness,

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This will be a series that I will be doing. I have friends who are raising children on a vegetarian and vegan diets and looking from the outside I see health issues in these children. The parents however do not see these issues.

Myself when I was vegan and raising my first baby I was very upset and offended when a holistic herbalist told me that my daughter would have health issues. She told me to just feed a little bit of meat to my daughter. I was in total denial when she said that. But she mentioned teeth problems and low and behold six months later my daughter was having teeth problems. I remembered this holistic herbalist when the health problems started occurring and wished that I had headed her advice.

Vegetarian Health Problem #1

The vegetarian diet is very high in carbohydrates. Whether you are lacto-ovo vegetarian or raw vegan you are consuming a lot of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are metabolised as blood glucose and contribute greatly to insulin resistance, diabetes and BODY FAT.

What types of carbohydrates do this?

• Grains, Beans, Fruits, Sugars

Through a Vegetarian diet I have become Insulin Resistant. I was continuously hungry for food and never satisfied until I was stuffed. I was feeding myself with bananas, raisins, pastas, breads, cereals, rice, and lots of soy.

Even when I wanted to transition to a more Raw Food diet and eating more raw fruits and veggies I could not understand why I was hungrier! But with eating more fruit I was causing my insulin to spike and then drop and therefore increasing hunger.

There are lots of Vegetarians and Vegans that are not skinny. Many struggle with weight issues exactly like regular folks with insulin resistance.

Vegetarian Health Problem #2

Carbohydrates also feed Candida Yeast.

There are a lot of people who suffer from Candida Yeast and they don’t know it. With the prevalence of antibiotic use in medicine AND in animal products, chlorination of tap water and high carb and sugar intake that there is a definite unbalance of gut bacteria. Yes, we are seeing more products on the market promoting live cultures, but watch those sugars in these products as they most likely have them!

Lacto-fermented foods (ie. Naturally fermented pickles, sauerkraut, kefir and natural yogurts) are not as popular as they once were. These foods used to be eaten at every meal to aide in digestion. Now pickles and sauerkraut are being mass produced and they do not contain any of these beneficial bacteria (due to high temperature canning methods).

What foods feed Candida Yeast?

• Grains, Beans, Fruits and Sugars (honey, molasses, cane sugar, maple syrup)

As a Vegetarian, these were the foods that I was eating every day.

Insulin Resistance and Candida Yeast are very serious health issues.

Insulin Resistance leads to diabetes and Candida Yeast attacks your body from the digestive tract and burrows in and makes holes in your G.I. tract called rhizoids. Candida Yeast has many side effects like bloating, allergies, skin issues and neurological problems.

It took over 12 years for me to actually identify what my health problems were. I would still probably be vegetarian if I had not had children and seen the problems that I had passed on to them. Sometimes it takes being removed from the situation to get the full picture. I have read many similar testimonials to mine.

Being Vegetarian and raising Vegetarian families is not as healthy as it is portrayed to be.

A question for you -

What are your thoughts on this?

Disclaimer: as a former long term vegetarian and vegan I have had some health issues. This is article is coming from my health research and experience and is not meant as medical advice.

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Some days I just want to cry. From the moment I get up till the wee hours of the morning. I visit my doctor and get blood tests done. I get referred to a councilor and get handed a prescription. I know the prescription is not going to fix me. I know the councilor is not going to really help even though her intentions are wonderful and caring. I feel that my problem is physical.

The blood tests reveal nothing really abnormal except some severe iron deficiency and some mercury. I did not think anything about the iron deficiency since I have had this problem for a very long time (probably since I was a kid). The problem is that I have been eating lots of grass-fed organic beef, organic liver, I also eat dark leafy greens almost every day! (visit my Low Carb and Anti-Candida Menus Blog)

So how the heck am I not absorbing all this iron that I am ingesting?

I found out that celiac disease (which is an intolerance to gluten found in wheat and other grains) causes damage to the small intestine and inhibits absorption of vitamins and minerals. Iron deficiency is a sign of celiac disease. Never in my mind have I ever thought that I had celiac disease. I don`t get the physical signs (diarrhea and skin reactions) but on occasion I would suffer from bloating and gas (before going on a low carb diet) – but nothing extreme or excessive.

The thing is that a low carb diet is an anti-candida diet. And Candida Yeast do create bloating, gas and digestive upsets. That could be the reason why I don’t have gas or bloating anymore.

So sticking to my guns I was still researching if Candida Yeast can be the reason for my iron deficiency and low and behold I came upon this research on how Candida uses Iron to grow by taking it from its host and creating Iron deficiencies…

I don’t understand this paper very well. I will take it to my doctor next week and discuss it with him. I did find this from the paper…

So now that I know that the Candida is the probable thief and robbing my body and organ tissues from vital oxygen, I can now understand the true impact of this pathogenic organism.

Not only is it impeding digestion, inhibiting vitamin absorption, releasing toxins,  it is also literally driving me crazy!

I know that I have talked about my Generalized Anxiety Disorder and my experience with taking Effexor. But I have never admitted on this blog to having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or from suffering from Depression. But they are all symptoms of Candida Yeast.

I have told my doctor and the counselor that there is something WRONG IN MY BODY that is making my mind crazy. And their response is that that is the reason very reason that they give medicines to control and regulate brain chemistry.

How Has OCD and Anxiety Affected My Life?

• It took me six years to graduate high school instead of 4. I dropped out 3 times and transferred to three different schools
• It took me years to learn to drive because I was so anxious in traffic. I had got my license and did not drive for years. I had to take another road test to get my full license years later and that is when I was forced to relearn how to do it. I am one of those people that you yell and curse at in traffic.
• I have quit several jobs due to extreme stress and anxiety. I even suffered from anxiety serving pizza, cleaning houses, and even writing this blog.
• I am afraid to sleep. Yup, I think the house is going to burn to ashes and my kids will suffocate in their sleep. I check that they are breathing before I can go to bed.
• My marriage is in shambles and my husband does not understand my issues. He is the classic definition of normal.
• My father is elderly and lives quite far from me. When I can’t get a hold of him I jump to the conclusion that he is dead. He lives alone and I always fear the worst has happened.
• I am anxious about God and fear that He has abandoned me and that I am going to Hell.

Candida and Weight Problems

Candida releases many toxins (over 70!)  into the body and blood stream like ethanol and acetaldehyde and can have great affect on the metabolic system and therefore weight gain. Those toxins can also mimic estrogen and have a significant effect on thyroxine (thyroid hormone) and other hormones in your body resulting in excess weight.

Candida messes with your emotions and mental health. Emotional and stress eating is a huge problem for me. When a person is depressed and in the dumps the “I don’t care about anything” attitude creeps in. So why not indulge in the immediate gratification of the sweet tooth? Candida feeds on sugars for survival. So those sugars will look mighty irresistible for Candida sufferers and of course it is sugar that causes that extra weight.

Where to go from here?

I am going to do some more research on the Gut and Psychology Syndrome. I had heard about this a while ago but kind of brushed it off. But I now see how the pieces of the puzzle are fitting and know that the link between everything is the Candida Yeast.

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I go to great effort to get high quality foods for my family. I eat Low Carb but my family does not. So that means I have to prepare our food differently. My children only get organic sprouted grain bread. I don’t throw out the end pieces even though I could (the kids would not eat them). I let the end pieces sit on my counter and dry up and then I put them through the food processor to make healthy bread crumbs for pork schnitzel recipe.

This sprouted grain bread is expensive – $5.79 a loaf (I have to learn how to make my own bread!). So when they come home with their lunch sandwich half eaten I feel bad for having to compost it. If I put it back in the fridge they will not have any desire to eat it later and then it just sits there and spoils.

Yesterday my youngest daughter came home and brought back a half a sandwich. When I was cleaning up the kitchen after supper I looked at it and thinking to myself “should I eat it or not?”.

Eat it Argument:

• The sprouted organic grain and the organic cheese have some good quality vitamins and minerals in it. I would not go and open up a bottle of vitamins and just dump them in the garbage. So I should not throw out quality food.
• This organic food is expensive.

Do Not Eat it Argument:

• The sprouted grain bread has carbohydrates that will feed my Candida Yeast.
• The bread will give me cravings even though I am full after eating dinner.
• Psychologically I have given myself permission to eat other foods that are high carb and high sugar.

In the end I ate the leftover sandwich. It was after dinner so I was not hungry. I just ate it to not waste good quality food. I also did end up eating other foods that are not so good for me.

When you are trying to lose weight and feed a family it is very difficult to make decisions like this.

What would you do?

(maybe I need a puppy dog??)

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Today I wanted to update you on my Candida Healing.

It has been ten months that I have been following the High Fat Low Carb Diet. It all started because of systemic Candida Yeast Infection that I have suffered with for 16 years. I never knew what it was in my early teens and college days. So with my ignorance I ate a high sugar, grain and alcohol diet for many years. I did eventually realize what was causing the huge discomfort and irritation and it was Candida Yeast.

I could not give up eating fruits and grains. I just could not imagine that natural foods could be harming my health. But they did. I was miserable for many years because of this thought.

Ten months ago I was suffering from yet another yeast infection and I had finally had enough. Diet was one of the only ways to get rid of this stubborn yeast. I had read online that the Atkins diet was a solution for Candida. I was yet again horrified that I would have to give up my beloved fruits.

Anyways… For the most part I eat low carb with a few slip ups here and there. The slip ups usually last a day. During more emotional times and New Year’s holiday it lasted several days. I eat very clean. I don’t keep a lot of junk food in the house, but my kids eat fruit and my husband likes his white bread. The sweetener for my kid’s food is honey. So that is the extent of my bad eating. There are no chocolate bars, cakes or candy in my house.

My last slip up (last week) I noticed when I had some honey on Ezekiel Sprouted Bread that I did not get a yeast infection. I normally get a reaction within hours of eating sweet food. That day I had bananas, sweet grapes, honey on Sprouted Ezekiel Bread (3 pieces) and very little reaction. The next day I ate similar food and very little reaction. The day after was my dad’s birthday and I had some alcohol. It was the alcohol that finally triggered the yeast and it was the third day of eating sweet things!

After 10 months of Low Carb dieting, I can finally have a small amount of naturally sweet foods without worrying about yeast. Even though I love eating the Low Carb Way, it is a relief to know that I am on the road to healing after suffering from yeast for half my life.

My Candida Treatment is…

• Eating No Grains
• Eating No Fruit (except lemon juice, or half a grapefruit occasionally about once a week)
• Eating No Berries (some Candida diets allow this but in my personal experience these feed the yeast)
• I eat probiotic foods such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, natural pickles (Bubbies)
• I eat two heaping teaspoons of coconut oil every day
• I still eat dairy products (some Candida diets don’t allow this)
• I take Cod Liver Oil every day (fall and winter months) and get 45 minutes of sunshine everyday for Vitamin D. Vitamin D is essential for immune health.
• All my meat that I eat is local and organic. Conventional meats have undesirable medicines and antibiotic residuals.

That’s it! I do not take any Probiotic powders anymore. I prefer to get my nutrition from foods.

To your health and wellness,

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I started to follow the Low Carb diet when I read an article that recommended the Atkins diet for Candida Yeast. My initial reaction was rejection but the more I learned and saw positive results in other people the more I warmed up to actually trying the diet. The first week of eating low carb was great. Digestion and bloating improved and I lost weight. Hunger and cravings disappeared and so on. The Candida Yeast symptoms gradually reduced and I did experience a yeast die off. And the best thing was is that I got to eat yummy food.

My main reason for sticking to the Low Carb diet is to get rid of yeast. It is not the weight loss or the other benefits that I described above. It is a physical discomfort and a constant reminder when I cheat. The foods that I am cheating with are small amounts of fruit and mostly berries. Fruit like berries, grapefruit, lemons, limes and cantaloupe are allowed while low carbing. But they still cause a Candida reaction in me. They may not cause my eating to get out of control but they are still sugar and my body is telling me that it does not like it. The reason I allow myself to eat these foods is because they are allowed even though it is not good for me.

Our minds desire things that create pleasure for us and stay away from things that cause us pain. Candida causes me pain so I stick to the diet. I don’t want Candida anymore. I will have to get my mind around the fact that even low sugar fruit causes me pain.

The immediate pleasure that we get from eating junk food is often much more powerful than the pain that we feel after we eat it. But if the food makes us physically sick after we eat it we are more likely to stay away from it.

Remorse, guilt, bloating, just overall bad feelings are not enough to stop us from raiding the cupboards. There has to be something more. On the weight loss show “The Bulging Bride” and “The Last Ten Pounds” they have the personal trainers come early in the morning and whip the poor participants out of bed and give them an extra gruelling workout to ensure that they will feel the pain for days to come. And this workout also involves the participant’s friends that allowed them to cheat. They also utilize the pleasure principle: at the end of the show they get to fit into their gorgeous wedding dress or in the case of The Last Ten Pounds they get to fit into a snazzy new outfit.

I am also creating more pain by setting exercise fitness goals for April 25. If I fail, then I fail publicly. I will have to find a nice new outfit that I can hang on my bedroom door to motivate me every morning when I get up.

Is there a way that you can implement these principles in your life?

What can you use for your pain and pain motivators?

To your health and wellness,

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Eating Low Carb is a great way to burn fat but there is some uncertainty if a low carb diet will cause muscle mass loss. It could depend on the type of exercise being performed.

Amino acids in protein build muscle. Muscle burns calories. If you eat enough calories than building muscle is possible eating low carb. Some studies have shown that muscle can be gained while on low carb diet. This is because the amino acids feed the muscle. So it is important to eat good quality protein that is found in meats, fish, eggs and nuts.

Exercise does deplete glycogen from the muscle. Carbohydrates replenish the glycogen. The problem arises when the glycogen stores are used up and muscle mass may be lost.

To increase and boost muscle strength it is beneficial to eat a combination of protein and carbohydrates. I prefer to eat vegetable carbohydrates because I am on an anti-candida diet. Grains and fruit sugars feed candida yeast and at this point I am not able to eat them. Coconut water is a great post workout drink. Coconut water contains some carbohydrates and sugars but it also contains essential vitamins, minerals and electrolytes. Coconut, coconut oil and coconut water are anti-fungal and are allowed on an anti-candida diet.

When doing long duration exercise like cycling or running the body will need more carbohydrates. Short burst exercise like High Intesity Interval Training has worked well for me on low carb. But you may need to experiment with your low carb diet and track performance and how you feel. If strength and performance begins to drop that is a good sign to increase carbohydrates. Just make sure to stay away from the refined flours. The muscles only use a small amount of glucose and if there is too much it will raise blood sugar levels and insulin.

Let me know what you think about low carb diets and muscle loss.

To your health and wellness,

Catherine Osthaus

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