The Deadly Duo: UTI’s and Candida

Something most people don’t realize is that virtually every case of UTI coexists with and is exacerbated by a case of intestinal Candida overgrowth. The UTI itself may even have been indirectly caused by Candida.

What happens is, you get your first UTI, for whatever reason. Like any normal person, you take antibiotics for it. Presto, infection’s gone. You may or may not get a vaginal yeast infection afterward, which you may treat topically, and you may take probiotics and think you’re fine, intestinally. Especially if you took Diflucan, because if you take that, you’re alright, right?

Wrong.

Some people with find relief when they first take Diflucan.  They may have suffered problems for years and suddenly they are better.  But a few weeks later or after the prescription runs out, they find out that all the problems are coming back.  Unfortunately the answer from the doctor might be that the patient really did not have a Candida problem because if they did, the Diflucan would have worked.  However, this is not true.

What makes Diflucan ineffective?  Why does it not work for long?

The answer is that Diflucan does not get to all the yeast.   To understand why, you need to know something about where the yeast Candida albicans lives.  Candida lives in the inside of the entire intestinal tract, both the small intestines and the large intestine.  Diflucan only gets to part of the intestinal tract, by design.  Diflucan is meant to be absorbed high up in the intestines, in the part just beyond the stomach.  It is meant to travel through the body’s organs.  Diflucan does not get to the inside of the lower intestinal tract.  Because it doesn’t get there,  Diflucan leaves much of the yeast Candida undisturbed. When a patient first takes Diflucan, the drug kills some yeast, so the person feels better.  But eventually, the yeast grows back.

Then, you get another UTI a few months later. It may be caused by a different pathogen, or not, but you’ll probably be given a different antibiotic. That infection seems to clear up, but then you get another one, even sooner this time, and the antibiotics aren’t as effective. Now you’re in a downward spiral, getting infections closer and closer together until you have one continuous infection that’s resistant to most antibiotics.

What happened here was, the first antibiotic caused an intestinal Candida overgrowth, which created a gut environment in which the pathogens which cause UTI’s can flourish.

Bacterial dysbiosis results from the same situation as Candida overgrowth, namely disruption of normal intestinal flora by the the various factors mentioned previously. When the normal balance of organisms in the intestines is disturbed, potentially pathogenic bacteria are able to thrive. Common bacterial infections found on CDSA tests include klebsiella and proteus species as well as various strains of e.coli. It should be noted that doctors who routinely use diagnostic tests such as CDSA’s and organic acid testing often find evidence that Candida and bacterial overgrowth are both present in the same patient.

Whichever pathogens you had in your gut that survived the first round of antibiotics are now breeding in your intestines, and they eventually make their way to your urethra. You now have a new UTI that’s resistant to the antibiotics you took last time. This cycle perpetuates itself through further antibiotic use, and your physical condition continues to deteriorate through repeated infection and the slow poisoning of your system by a large (typically undetected) colony of Candida. 

I’ve seen this over and over and over again: almost no one has a UTI without also having a significant intestinal Candida problem.

Now, when the UTI is treated with natural agents such as olive leaf extract, which also kills Candida, the first thing that happens is Candida die-off, which is so miserable that the frightened sufferer assumes she’s allergic to OLE, and she’s more upset and frightened and despairing than ever.

When yeast cells are rapidly killed, a die-off (or Herxheimer reaction) occurs and metabolic by-products are released into the body. The Candida yeast cells actually release 79 different toxins when they die, including ethanol and acetaldehyde.

Die-Off Symptoms

Here is a list of some of the symptoms you might experience during a die-off (otherwise known as a Herxheimer reaction).

• Nausea
• Headache, fatigue, dizziness
• Swollen glands
• Bloating, gas, constipation or diarrhea
• Increased joint or muscle pain
• Elevated heart rate
• Chills, cold feeling in your extremities
• Body itchiness, hives or rashes
• Sweating
• Fever
• Skin breakouts
• Recurring vaginal, prostate and sinus infections

 

(Don’t freak out: there’s a way to mitigate this and get through it quickly with a minimum of discomfort. I’ll link to that, but just keep reading so you know how this stuff works and what to expect.)

The Candida is running interference for the UTI, because what would kill the UTI is either being expended in killing Candida, or it’s being deflected by it. (As strange as it seems, intestinal Candida seems to be able to largely deflect raw garlic.)

So, the supplement never even gets anywhere near your infection at first, because it gets used up in killing Candida on contact, or gets shunted through the intestines by it. If it doesn’t make it into your bloodstream, it doesn’t make it into your bladder.

What you need to do is press through, because when the Candida is killed and flushed out through a combination of Candida-killers like OLE, cinnamon, ginger, coconut oil, and activated charcoal, UTI killers like OLE, raw garlic, and cayenne pepper are free to move into the bloodstream without interference, where they begin to affect the UTI pathogens.

The good news is, treating a UTI naturally leads to clearing up every chronic (pathogen-caused) condition you have. The intestines have to be cleared of infection in order for the supplements to move into your bloodstream, where they kill localized infections as they circulate through your body and organs, and then they’re filtered by your kidneys and end up in your bladder, where they kill the UTI. The more you have going on in other parts of your body, the longer the supplements are going to take to affect the UTI.

The fastest way to clear your intestines of Candida is to take large amounts of activated charcoal, but first the bowels must be made to move freely, otherwise charcoal will not only exacerbate constipation, it’ll be much less effective in stopping die-off symptoms.

So, you make and drink cinnamon or ginger tea and take gradually increasing olive leaf extract doses until the die-off process has advanced to the point of having frequent loose stools, and then you begin taking 8-10 charcoal capsules per dose, alternating them with OLE, 2 hours apart each way.
Activated charcoal draws Candida to itself through a process called adsorption, and yes, I spelled that right. It can remove your Candida without any die-off symptoms.

Activated charcoal absorbs a wide variety of drugs and chemicals. Adsorption is a process in which atoms and molecules move from a bulk phase (such as a solid, liquid, or gas) onto a solid or liquid surface. In other words, the toxic substance attaches to the surface of the charcoal. Because charcoal is not “digested,” it stays inside the GI tract and eliminates the toxin when the person has a bowel movement.

How long it takes to push through to the point of loose stools depends on how much Candida you have and how constipated you are at the time. Some women have bowel symptoms in a few hours, some have them the next day, some take three days to see loose bowels.

Once you hit that sweet spot, you’re headed downhill and picking up speed in an avalanche of Candida and UTI-killing as you begin to feel better and better.