Hi Tom,

Well, the diet alone can produce die-off effects in bad cases, and in my case this happened. Most of the die-off, though, got bad when I combined the diet with the antifungals. Then I really noticed it and felt awful for awhile.

I noticed it start about 3 days after I switched to a candida diet and began taking antifungals (I started with Pau D'arco tea since I could buy it at the health food shop and thought it might be good to see if it made any difference before trying to find a candida doctor for additional treatment). For the first few days I just felt suddenly much better and all the symptoms subsided completely. Or so I thought until the die-off started a few days later.

The reason this happens is that a live candida organism releases a lot of toxins into your blood, but a dead one can release far more. Your liver can get overloaded and then the symptoms become temporarily worse until the candida is gone and the liver has processed all the toxins.

I'm afraid everyone is different, all the treatment options are different and there are people with long-term cases who have the die-off effects for several weeks very badly and then more mildly for a few months after that.

Other people report that the die-off in their cases was very short, and still others have only mild candida and so are better more quickly. It depends on type of treatment, severity of case, which tissues are affected (e.g. is the candida deep and entrenched in the tissues or just a little in the gut?) etc.

In my case, my doctor gave me Ozovit, which is a week-long course of hydrogen peroxide and various salts to sterilize and clean the gut and kill a lot of the candida before beginning the more potent antifungals. This was to reduce the amount of candida in the gut before beginning the antifungals to clear it out of the other tissues, and presumably to reduce the die-off effect somewhat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-STK2XvgM

This link might help to explain some of the issues with candida. I am not saying this particular doctor is the best at curing it or anything like that, but I am saying that what he says about oxygen therapy has also been backed by other consultants (such as mine in London) in dealing with candida cases, since my own consultant put me on Ozovit hydrogen peroxide (which also had the effect of giving the body tissues extra oxygen which kills the candida).

This is just to look at to give you a bit more information since, as I said, I'm not a doctor and I'm not advocating this doctor on youtube or his treatment methods necessarily. I just found it helpful for more information. I also disagree somewhat with his more dismissive view of the effects of diet in a post-candida person, since he made it sound in the video a bit as though you can go back to eating what you like and I doubt very much that is the case. But that's just my opinion, as I said . . . this is only to give you a little more information and his introduction about what candida is sounded pretty good, at least to me.

The length of the die-off will depend on the amount of candida in your body, treatment chosen, and also partly on how carefully you are able to follow the candida diet. A lot of people cheat on it and then find their candida takes much longer to clear or symptoms return straight away when they go off the diet.

Don't worry about the questions. It is perfectly natural to feel confused and daunted initially when you're gathering information.

Let me know how the appointment goes!

Annajen (Anne)