Candida Case Study 12: Sharon Chronic Vaginal Thrush

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• published: 01 Apr 2015
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Sharon contacted me almost two years ago after seeking help with vaginal thrush, which had been bothering her for over 15 years. She consulted many practitioners over the years and received all kinds of advice. She'd read one of my online articles and was desperate for a solution. One of the first things I ask patients like Sharon is are you willing to do whatever it is or are you going to leave my room with just the idea of “Oh, I'll give it a go and see what happens.” And I knew that Sharon had what it takes to get through and obtain the permanent solution she was looking for. You can see it in someone's eyes when they've been suffering enough, and they're sick and tired of all this crappy advice they get from people. They know there is a solution, but by the time they come and see me, usually they're ready to be truly committed. You need to sort the silver or gold from the coal. Lots of people are coal out there and occasionally get nuggets of gold. You get something really fine. What I mean is when people have really and truly had enough, they're going to do whatever it takes to get well. And that's what makes the difference between someone who's getting an average result and someone who is going to commit fully and get a fantastic result. And Sharon was one of these delightful patients. Her thrush was chronic and unremitting. She was getting it every time she had a period. She had three to five days of severe itch and discharge, and it was just driving her crazy and I could see it. The problem was the recommendations given to her by other health care professionals would only work for a few weeks at most, and then the yeast infection would come back with a vengeance. Sharon is a coronary care nurse who works at a large hospital. Her husband is an experienced pilot who is away flying overseas frequently, flying the big jets, long haul between Asia and New Zealand. Sharon works several different shifts and frequently works long hours at unusual times leading to sleep and energy issues. This in turn has resulted in her often skipping at least one meal a day and relying on foods from vending machines at the hospital. My concern here is the amount of processed food, including sugar, that Sharon was consuming. By the time she came to my room looking for a permanent solution, she'd been taking fluconazole or diflucan once per week for several years, which apparently was keeping the condition under control. My second concern was that her husband, when he could come home, they'd engage in intimate relations frequently in a short period of time, which is causing major discomfort and aggravation for her. My third concern was that her diet and lifestyle were faulted and were in dire need of an overhaul if a permanent change in her yeast infection was to be expected. What Sharon and her doctor were blissfully unaware of was that she still had the primary complaint of vaginal thrush, but in addition, developed side effects from diflucan for a five-year period on a weekly basis. And these side effects included low-grade nausea, pale colored stools, and annoying red skin rashes around the tops of her thighs and upper back. She was prescribed hydrocortisone cream for skin rash and took laxatives for constipation she was getting regularly. Incredibly, she learned to live with the nausea and accept it as a part of life, and was entirely unaware that it was a fluconazole side effect. What a miserable life this poor woman had to lead all those years? This case isn't unusual when you think about it. We get people like this quite regularly. The primary complaint has been suppressed by a drug, but then several secondary side effects are produced, which are given more drugs. How stupid is that? We see this all the time. That's like maxing out on a credit card then taking other damn credit cards to pay off the primary credit card. How stupid is that? How did Sharon fail? What recommendations did I recommend? Our first consultation was for one and a half hours, and we got a lot of things straight. Particularly, the point that something had to change if she wanted her infection to clear up. In my book, I've said time and again, the definition of insanity is doing the same crap over again and expecting a different result. You can't do it. This woman had to make changes. My recommendations for her were to change her shift work into a day shift to get her lifestyle sorted. Get her immune function right. And to make sure her husband was aware of the problem that was caused. All those three concerns I had, had to be addressed if we wanted a permanent result to ensue. This woman was put on Canxida, my antifungal product. We had a fantastic result with her.