Candida albicans is a bacterium found in everbody's gut.     In ideal conditions, it does no harm, being kept in check by the beneficial bacteria that are supposed to inhabit there to help normal digestion - the whole spectrum of acidophilus bacilli.

Modern lifestyles are changing all of this. Antibiotics are completely indiscriminate in their targeting and the goodies are killed off as effectively as the baddies. Unfortunately, the baddies regrow most quickly, and there the problem begins. Other drugs such as steroids and the contraceptive pill also alter the balance of power in the gut in favour of the baddies - another reason why the cycle starts.

Another challenge is the upsetting of the vital acid/alkaline balance in the body - too much acid, and candida flourishes. Our present-day diets predispose us to acidity rather than alkalinity. On top of this, our immune systems are more and more compromised by inadequate diet, chemicals in our food and our environment (check here for ways to get chemicals out of your home), and modern stresses.

Do not look upon Candida as simply "the good old thrush problem". It's a lot more than that. If Candida gets the balance of power within your gut, then being a fungus, given time it will lay down its roots and infiltrate your body tissues and organs. It also alters the body's acid/alkaline balance, tipping the balance even further. It compromises the immune system, and it produces toxins which affect the body's operations. Once things reach this stage, the host can find they are faced with a mass of symptoms - tiredness, irritability, mood swings, exhaustion, digestive problems, gut problems, bloating, headaches, PMT, period problems, chronic fatigue syndrome, ME.....and the list goes on. It is not a good scene.

My experience with Candida began when I was a teen. My parents emigrated from Britain to Central Africa, taking me with them - an exciting move. It proved disastrous for me. Before we left, I had a bout of whatever nasty flu was going around at the time, but managed to recover sufficiently for the sea journey.

It was an ill-fated trip. The same flu was circulating on board and we took on bad water at Madeira. Dysentery struck the ship. On our way south down the western seaboard of Africa once we crossed the line barely a quarter of the passengers made it to meals at any given time. I succumbed - flu for the second time in a month and dysentery as well. I was running both ends at once and the ship's doctor doubted if I'd be well enough to disembark at Cape Town.

Our train journey from Cape Town into the interior of the mighty continent was already booked. Disembark she must. So the doctor by his own admission threw the book of antibiotics at me.

It was a very groggy girl who disembarked to a new future at Cape Town, and the extent of that new future did not become apparent for a number of years.

The first signs came only a few weeks after we reached our destination, though.     I looked in the mirror one morning to see a face full of spots and pimples: something I had never seen before, and not a good look for a teenager. We consulted the doctors, without much success. At first it was taken for "adolescence", and a very embarrassing adolescence it was. What's more, it continued into my twenties, by which time it was clear that something was not right with my digestion.

We had meantime moved to New Zealand, and become vegetarians, trying to learn as much as possible about healthy living and eating for my sake. My father - who had been a Regimental Segeant Major in the Guards - had firm beliefs about keeping the bowels moving, so we watched that very carefully and I did several juice fasts and took supplements. Nothing really fixed things, though, and in addition I had problems with my periods and was put on the contraceptive pill for a while to "normalise" the cycle. That certainly would not have helped.

I had always been a very bright student. Top or close to it in my classes at school as far back as I can remember. I went on to university and despite being dogged by my health, got an arts degree and followed it up with a degree in law. My brain was still ticking well enough at this point because in my first year in law, having already got the 2 arts units required by the syllabus, I took all the first AND second year law units in one year, and topped the class in two of them, coming second and third in a couple of the others.

So far so good. From then on, though, it was all downhill. I took a job as a government department legal advisor in our capital city and studied part time for 4 years to get the remainder of my degree units. It was a struggle and, though I functioned well and was always highly regarded in my job, I knew things were not right. My social life was very much limited by my health problems and sometimes I had great difficulty keeping going.

I did the rounds of the medical profession - had a thyroid test (fatigue), barium meal tests, barium enema tests, liver and gallbladder tests, a bilharzia test (yes! - fatigue again). I had pain in my stomach and at times could feel my food "scratching" my stomach lining in the lower left-hand side, so I ended up very nearly having an endoscopy - aborted by the specialist at the last minute. In effect, the medical profession told me it was all in my head - insult on top of injury.

I learned a lot about natural health methods and healthfoods, continued with supplements, and consulted some alternative therapists, still without success. I couldn't understand why some of the most highly recommended superfoods didn't agree with me (yeast, wheatgerm, cider vinegar and molasses for example). I carried on, watching very strictly what I ate. I fasted - on one occasion for well over a week - I had colonic enemas, and I kept my diet very strictly limited. Two other treatments I tried were color therapy (the Liley System) and Shiatsu - and I think they both helped me keep going. But I still didn't know what was wrong.

In 1984 as Regional Solicitor for the ACC in Hamilton, I got a break. I conducted a review hearing about a lady denied cover for an illness contracted while picking a bed of asparagus contaminated with spray. I was impressed by the knowledge and open-minded approach of the doctor - Dr Ricky Gorringe - who gave evidence on her behalf.

I had given up on doctors years before, but I decided to consult him. When I told him my story his immediate diagnosis was Candidiasis - something I and apparently most of the medical profession had never even heard of.     Given the implication of pharmaceuticals in the onset of Candida, maybe this was something the medical industry and its pharmaceutical mentors don't want to hear of.     "I can't prove you have this", Ricky told me (there were no definitive tests at the time), "but I will treat you and I expect you will be very sick for a while."

He put me on Nilstat (Nystatin), and sick I was. I was lecturing in business law at the Hamilton Polytechnic and some of my male students came and told me I didn't look well. One day - fortunately my parents were visiting me at the time - I woke up from a mid-morning sleep feeling so bad my father drove me to my afternoon lecture because I felt as if my head wasn't attached to my body and didn't consider myself safe at the wheel of a vehicle. "Little green men...." Ricky had said. This is "die-off" - when the candida organisms are killed off, their toxins flood the system. You feel rotten and sleep a lot. How I got through that lecture, I don't know.

Ricky Gorringe was well-versed in all this, and an expert on ME. He didn't exactly tell me I had that, but he gave me plenty of reading on it and sent me to another doctor for allergy testing. I proved to be allergic to over 38 foods - I still have the list - many of them everyday staple fare like grains and meats, and some vegetables. All food additives tested on me were allergenic, as well as brewers' and bakers' yeasts, some nuts, milk (even goats'), eggs and sugar. I was put on a 4-day rotation diet of things I could eat, and must say I felt the best ever on that, but it was pretty rigorous.

I cannot overstate what it meant to me to get a diagnosis and know what I was up against after 20 years of trying. To go that long in poor health and uncertainty, with the added strain of being branded a hypochondriac by the medical profession, was one of the worst life sentences imaginable. I shall be forever grateful to Ricky Gorringe for having the insight to think outside the pharmaceutical trap that currently hamstrings Western medicine.     Thank you Ricky.

I moved up north 18 months after my father's death in 1985. I hoped as time went on that I had got over it. I swore off bread, mushrooms, and other yeast and fermented products (so that's why beer never agreed with me), kept away from sugars, vinegars, mayonnaises and salad cream, and boxed on, working hard physically on completing a half-built home and building a small stud herd on our 10 acre property. At one point I had another course of Nilstat. But still things were not quite right.

In 1999 I consulted a visiting iridologist. She knew Candida, having suffered herself. She told me she could see signs of it throughout my body. That was a shock. My spleen, she said, was enlarged.

I didn't know exactly where my spleen was, never having thought much about it. I went home, consulted the books, and found the acupressure point for the spleen is under the bottom rib on the left. All of a sudden I realised the reason for the tenderness I had felt there for years, and which I had always put down to my bra "biting" me. It looked as if my immune system was in a mess.

At the time, a new product developed here in New Zealand had just come onto the market. Working part-time in our Kerikeri health shop, I got an early chance to find out about Colostrum and read up on the research and testimonials. I was impressed by the experience of Kaye Wyatt from Arizona who had overcome the effects of a very severely damaged immune system by using it, so I started on it just before Christmas 1999.

Kaye warned that pain would manifest in areas of the body where the Colostrum was working. Sure enough I had real agony under my left ribcage for some days over Christmas. I regarded that as a Christmas present, because it showed the reality of what I was up against, and the value of Colostrum as a healer and immune booster.

I found one other good product to use with Colostrum - Colloidal Silver, the antibiotic and fungicide. Colloidal Silver seemed to work the best. It was expensive to buy at over NZ$35 for 750ml (25 fluid oz), so I bought a little machine and made my own, still adhering to the diet as best I could. Colloidal Silver taken in quantity produces a grey/blue coloration of the skin so the amount you take has to be limited.

I don't have complete resolution yet, and if one thing in this story needs to be emphasised it is that YOU MUST ADOPT A MULTI-FACETED APPROACH for success if you have a serious Candida infection as I have. At this point I don't believe any product will solve the problem UNLESS you also observe the dietary regime for Candida control.

So....to view a very comprehensive "Don't Eat" list, Click Here. Some of the things you find in it may surprise you, but believe me, you will find out why you don't feel right all the time.......

Below are photographs of lesions that have developed through my fatty tissues from early 2001. It seems that although Colostrum and Colloidal Silver are excellent products, I just cannot get enough of them into my system to fix the Candida for once and for all - Colostrum is too expensive and there is a limit to the amount of Colloidal Silver you can physically ingest....... at times I begin to feel as if I am losing this battle.

Foods you Should and Should Not Eat