Unfortunately, if your daughter is gluten intolerant, it won't show up as an allergy. It's an autoimmune response to the gluten, so you have to test for antibodies.

Food intolerances are a delayed allegy that cause IgA instead of IgE. So they are two different animals. Apparently it is really hard to get a diagnosis of celiac in very young children. Some of the moms over on the brain talk forum had to just go by diet. One Mom was close to losing her child because she was eating gluten and breast feeding and the baby was getting it that way. As soon as she stopped that, the baby's diarrhea cleared up.

The reason some foods are allowed on SCD and not others is because of the nature of the sugars and also fibers. If something is the simpliest sugar, like fructose (fruit, honey) it is allowed because the human can digest it. That's called a monosacchride. Sucrose is a disacchride (two sugars, 1 molecule of fructose and one of sucrose). Those can't be completely digested. I think amylose (starches) tend to be full of more complex sugars and thus aren't allowed. FOS is totally undigestible and ends up as a major feast for the bacteria in the bowels.

So the goal is never send food down to the gut for the bacteria to eat because we need to kill them off. Good, bad, indifferent. They all gotta die. But the idea behind the probiotics and yogurt is that you're sending a constant supply of good guys down.

This should help with leaky gut and let things heal down there. I just read an interesting article about how the type of arthritis I have might be caused by a gut bacteria that gets into the blood stream!

So anyway, hope that answers your question why some foods are allowed and some aren't. There's more answers at www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info about specific foods and why they are/are not allowed.

What is FOS?

Thanks for that. I still find the choices confusing though. For example, certain legumes are allowed, some aren't. Also, glucose in a monosaccaride, I would stay away from that! And a high meat intake will have in influence of bowel microflora by changeing the pH, ammonia levels etc. It just all seems rather complex. That said, the proof of the pudding is in the punch, and SCD has helped a lot of people. Hasn't helped me much though, but that's probably because my parasites live in my cells. Definitely got gut problems too though.

Aetheana: F.O.S is a type of fiber that is known to feed intestinal bacteria. Usually its consumption is encouraged because it feeds good bacteria like lactobilii. But on the SCD, as Nancy mentioned, you don't want to feed any bacteria so FOS is definitely out. However, if the SCD really worked, I would think that at some point you could add back, e.g. FOS and so forth and help you good flora colonise. That would take place after you had effectively killed all the bad. But is this possible without medication? I don't know.

Another good (I think) diet for gut problems and associated conditions is the body ecology diet. Again the emphasis is on foods that won't cause problems (mostly veggies and proteins) and good flora replacement. The author makes a big deal out of kefir, coconut milk kefir, and fermented veggies. Unfortunately, I tolerate kefir pretty badly, but keep making it anyway. I'm working on the fermented vegetable part as we speak. Unfortunately, my veggies tend to rot in my very warm climate, so I'm creating a temperature-controlled environment and will probably add CO2 to the atmosphere to further help things along. Fermenting is great fun!

The SCD also takes care of flora replacement. That's why you eat the 24-hour yogurt with l. acidophilus, l. bulgaricus and l. thermophilus. Kefir is harder to tolerate, it also has yeast, I think. http://breakingtheviciouscycle.org/faq/kefir.html
If you can't tolerate milk, they recommend probiotics that contain acidophilus and no inulin/FOS. Elains didn't recommend bifidus.

As for FOS, the problem is pathogenic bacteria love it too, not just beneficial ones, so you don't want to feed those guys. Instead, the diet aims at starving them, good and bad, to make sure. And then you replace the good ones.

As for legumes, again, some have the wrong carbohydrates even after soaking. Plus Elaine had no time to test every single one of them, so she went by what Dr. Haas said, that is kidney beans, black beans and navy beans, lentils are safe after soaking and cooking. There's so many things you can do with these, focus on what you can do, be creative, and not on why some things are illegal.

You should get Breaking the Vicious Cycle and also study the SCD websites. That will answer your glucose and legume questions better.

I'm going to rant a little bit.

I'm so very irritated with all the reading and seeming contradictions I am finding when reading up on how to get rid of candida. I have absolutely no problem with gluten intolerance. Rock on, get rid of gluten, no big deal, get rid of dairy, no big deal again. really not the end of the world.

But candida? theres a BILLION contradictions it seems. Eat fermented foods, don't eat fermented foods, eat FOS, dont eat FOS, eat whole grains (like brown rice), eat no carbs, eat no cheese, eat plain cheeses. it makes my freaking head spin!

and everyone seems to know everything about it! everyone on each different website says to do one thing and they know its for sure. Oil of oregano kicks ass, but another book doesnt even list it for helping out! caprylic acid is the best thing to use! but my doc didnt prescribe caprylic acid for me (and i trust her a TON). eat yogurt, but non sweetened, but dont eat artificial sweeteners.

and nooone seems to be able to tell me if i can start eating normal foods again when i get over this candida. i dont want to eat grains, i know im gluten intolerant, thats fine, but FRUIT! dear GOD DO I WANT TO EAT FRUIT!

it just doesnt seem to make sense to me and everything contradicts everything else. im doing what my doc says to do. im eating brown rice. im taking Oil of oregano, a different herbal remedy and good bacteria (that has FOS ALREADY IN IT) and garlic. im not eating very much thats for damn sure.

and finally, eating to kill candida is NOT THE SAME as eating just plain old low carb. its MORE restrictive! No cheese, no condiments... no dairy. who can tell me than plain old low carb doesnt have those as major components of it!

i havent looked into the Specific Carbohydrate Diet so im really not trying to bash that at all. i need to do my own research on it first. but im complaining about die hard atkins folks claiming it can kill candida just by eating the atkins way! its not that easy.

Im just plain annoyed about everything.

life is hard enough without having to wade through contradictions.

I understand your frustration.
I have also gone though a lot of candida websites and they all had something different to say and ended with promoting their products. Just stick with what your codtor says for as long as she says it and if you see difference, great!
If it doesn't help after the prescribed period, I guess a few months, then you might want to modify.
I know I can't stand the thought of giving up fruit and cheese, what are you left with? Meat and vegetables. I'm breastfeeding!
Anyway! I don't know if I have a candida problem or intolernaces. The Atkins diet helped some, but didn't solve my problems. Garlic has helped, and in combination with a no-cheese low-carb diet it caused some die-off. Now I don't know what was dying, candida or other microbes. But it still didn't end my problems and I'm still searching. Right now I'm taking coconut oil that is supposed to have caprylic acid and lauric acid, mainly because I need the fat for my baby anyway and it tastes good. And I'm following the SCD. I sure hope this will help. The progress is just so slow, it's hard to tell what's working.

it is really hard to tell if its working. im taking coconut oil as well. i didnt realize it had caprylic acid til a lil earlier today. im calming down sort of, just irritated. you can always get a blood test to check for candida, thats how mine was diagnosed. im going back the first week in may to have another blood test and see if its gone.

its just really frustrating. i agree, too, that most websites on candida just promote products. even candidafree.net which doesnt sound like it should promot products, does. its just frustrating.

im going to keep doing what im doing until may. if by may i still have the problem (as per a blood test) im going to try the ThreeLac oxygen stuff. hopefully i wont have to though!

A LOT of information about Candida out there is a load of trash. Money-making, no good people. Often, genuine people who think they know, actually talk trash. Like some say stay away from fermented foods. Why? Stay away from cheese. Why? Some of it has like 0.1g carb/100g. Less than butter. Is high meat content really a good idea if it changes your bowel pH? But what else is there? Hard to live off low carb veggies... (I should know, I've tried).

What blood test did they use to diagnose candida? Are u sure u weren't conned with that? Was it an antibody test or what?

Personally, I believe that using the "candida diet" to beat candida is impossible. U need something to kill it and I personally don't believe that non-prescription antifungals work at all (including oregano). Never worked for me, anyway. I mean, your colon is like I don't know how many meters long. What's a little oregano tab going to do? But then the real question is: WHY do you have candida? Ordinary people don't get candida overgrowth. Even those who eat sugar. OR, if they do get candida overgrowth, it's easy to take care of (1 diflucan tablet and better eating will do it in many cases). And I know people who get white coated tongue etc., but not the fatigue and miserable symptoms that chronic cases like me get. But what if you change your diet, take the meds, take probiotics and it DOESN'T help? That's my story. Been candida dieting for like ever and my condition continues to deteriorate. Spent all my money. No help. But I don't think I had candida to start. I think I got Candida because so much else was shot (my eating, hormones, parasites, mercury etc.)

I don't have the answer, but I know that Candida is often not an isolated problem. It may be a side effect, not a cause. Perhaps u have hormonal or thyroid issues, mercury poisoning or parasites (that being the most common).

Try http://www.askshelley.com/ for some interesting insights. Try the board at www.curezone.com - but beware - DON'T TRUST ANYONE!! That's my opinion anyway. I've been led down the garden path too many times to count. But I don't buy into most everything I read on the net anymore. And that includes a lot of the info out there about low carb. Sure, high carb is bad, but I don't believe that indefinite ketogenic-level carb dieting is good either (but not many LCers do this, so perhaps it's a moot point). I also don't believe eating so much meat is good. The internet is a mine of misinformation. I wish I could help you, but I can't even help myself. My best advice would be to find out what's REALLY wrong with you. Maybe it's something else. And find out how your candida was diagnosed. Very few people get diagnosed with candida via a blood test. It's notoriously difficult to detect. And try sauerkraut!!! But the real stuff, not what u buy in the store. And most of all, good luck!

Tell me, what are your symptoms?

I agree with you, Yakumo, even tho we have different health problems in the details. I have had puzzling problems for years. The order that I went in trying to solve them was:
diet (allergies, diebetic tendencies, etc.)
candida
hormonal imbalance
infection/parasites
environmental (heavy metal poisoning, changing home environment)
After trying to find answers through the AMA system and personal research, I found a good ND and now am going to an acupuncturist/chinese medicine doctor. Both of them are helping me a lot.
So far I've gone down the list with low carbing, avoiding gluten, going through anti-candida treatment, and getting hormonal support without letup of the fatigue. I've gotten as far as infection (diagnosed with EBV, being treated now).If the fatigue doesn't let up with the virus being treated, I'll want to be tested for heaving metals. Maybe I will anyway.
Point is, many of us may have complicated health issues, and we have to be our own health advocates and work hard. No one is as motivated as ourselves in seeing us gain good health. There may be no magic bullet, just a lot of pieces to the puzzle and then, finally, an answer.

I don't consider myself a cadida expert by any means, in fact, I think it is probably a little bit like the diagnosis of IBS. Its a bucket doctors throw a lot of symptoms into they can't make sense of, IMHO. And I think probably a lot of people are diagnosing themselves with it when they've really got something else going on, like a major food intolerance.

As far as ridding the body of beasties, I tend to like Elaine's theory, avoid eating anything that feeds them. Starves them all out together. Let God separate the good from the bad. You just send down more guys you know are good. That the Akylosing Spondylitis researchers came to the same conclusion as Elaine did through I don't think they ever consulted, confirms to me that this is the right thing to do.

You know, I've been stalled at 165 for over a year. No matter what I did, how much I lowered my calories, I couldn't lose weight. Well... I finally lost a chunk! Ok, it is only 1.2 pounds but heck! After being stuck at the same weight, or more, for over a year this is really cool! I think maybe SCD is helping in that regard too. The other neat thing is my stomach is really flattening out and staying that way. I used to ALWAYS have this big stomach pooch, even though I weighed what I weighed yesterday. Now I see hip bones! The pooch is nearly gone!

I hear you, Gailew. I had the same probs. Hormones, food intolerances, I actually did have pretty severe mercury posining from my time at University which didn't help, autoimmune disease, insulin resistance, liver problems, etc. etc.. But NO treatment has helped me and all the diets have made me much worse.

Check out this link: http://www.regaininghealthnaturally...mon_Sense.shtml

I totally agree with this guy that any unbalanced diet negatively effects your bowel flora and makes you more sick. This includes low carb dieting that is devoid of fruit and vegetables. Once, even when I was sick, I could eat ANYTHING. EVEN SUGAR! Now I can eat HARDLY anything - including a chunk of stuff on the SCD list. And it was caused not only by my all-meat phase, but also by my juice fast (that was the worst!) my starving phase etc. I found that eating less improved my symptoms. Starving my parasites. However, it also starved me and the bulk of my hormonal damage was caused by that. Pretty dumb in retrospect, but at the time it helped SO much.

I like the SCD, good ideas. I am going to try vary my diet to include more of the SCD-allowed foods and take out some of the remaining no-no's (generally small amounts of lactose). I think Kefir is perhaps a better choice than yoghurt for those who can tolerate it. Just make sure you ferment it a long time. I also think that fermented vegetables (like in the body ecology diet) are a must in treating bowel disorders. I'm trying to make them, but my first batch went bad. I'm also trying to culture Saccharomyces boulardii. We'll see how that goes. It's a nice probiotic insofar as it is a yeast, not a bacteria, and I'm on strong antibiotics right now. It is also strongly anti-candida. It can survive stomach acid too. Really expensive though, which is why I'm trying to grow the stuff. Should be easy since it's a yeast...

I really don't think candida is a load of BS.

My doc did do an antibody test. Also, you can get it when your immune system is out of whack, from taking antibiotics, or from being on birth control.

I also do think you can change things with diet, exercise and supplements. You've stated you don't trust anyone, what about trusting a doctor? How can you know what the real answers are anyway? even if you think the real answer is to not trust doctors?

The reason you avoid cheese is not due to carb content, but because cheese is moldy. Thats also why you avoid foods like vinegar.

My symptoms were that I was completely miserable and falling asleep all the time. Total brain fog, back aches, muscle aches and just unbearable fatigue.

I have to tell you, though, after doing what ive been doing for a week, im down four pounds, have a lot more energy, and am feeling healthier.

also, candida dieting does not mean you have to starve yourself. some sites say you can have potatoes. im eating brown rice. some say corn tortillas. im still in the experimental stages, but if it were just a carb issue, how could i lose 4 pounds?

I should make it clear that in following the list I made, the solution to my health problem did not get solved by finding out one thing, but I found something in each area that needed attention.
I'm still hoping that in clearing up the epstein-barr virus, my fatigue will, finally, be gone and the last item on the list, environmental, won't have to be tackled. I mean beyond what every individual needs to be aware of in a reasonable way. But, if I need to, I'll be researching that area to see what changes I can make.
So, I think there's is something to candida for a lot of people. But I also feel it's going to turn out to be more complicated than that. Was it gluten intolerance or too much sugar that caused it? Is it a chronic infection and the antibiotics that are being used to combat that?
It's a chicken and egg thing, maybe.

That is definately something I agree with. After I posted I talked to hubby and I do think that for me, at least, it was a GLUTEN thing followed by a CANDIDA thing.

Thankfully, I'm young (although ive lamented having health issues while being so young before), that I think that's the end of what I have. And theoretically after fixing it up, I shouldn't have problems in the future, as I will be gluten free for life.