Hi Susan!

> Please tell me about your candida. I experimented with grainfed goat milk
> and got finger fungus as a result. Now it comes and goes so I have to be
> strict paleo. I would like to get rid of this.
> Are there any tips for paleosuccess in this dept.?

Brief history...

I lost 150 pounds in 2 years doing low-carb, wherein I gradually got
stricter as time went on.  First the LC treats (LC chocolate, fake breads,
etc) went.  Then soy went (the vegetable broth that canned tuna is processed
in).  Then dairy went.  I'd known about candida albicans overgrowth for a
long time before I hit a plateau I couldn't break without going paleo (what
was called "anti-yeast" or "gold standard") on my other list.  I knew I had
an overgrowth of candida albicans, but I also knew I didn't want to eat/live
my life this way.  So I hovered, then gained slowly because I was unwilling
to part with those last bastions of my diet I'd been depending on, namely
vinegar and tomatoes.  It's very hard to low-carb without vinegar because
it's in so many low-carb things like commercial mayo and prepared mustard.
I was emotionally unwilling to commit to this.  Then I got pregnant and was
on four courses of antibiotics during the pregnancy (the last one being
interrupted by delivery).  I went off the deep end with the "I'm pregnant,
so it's okay" routine and gained almost all of that weight back.  (I lost
about 30 pounds right after the baby was born, but bounced around a 30- and
20-pound weight loss.)

About halfway through my pregnancy, the weirdest thing happened:  My sense
of smell went a little askew.  At first it was only a very strong
hypersensitivity to carbon monoxide emitted by cars and by cigarette smoke.
I thought I was going to choke to death.  About a month after I delivered, I
found myself unable to eat any way *but* paleo because *everything*
(including me) smelled like rotten eggs.  Vinegar wasn't even an option
because of the taste/smell thing.  It was driving me crazy, and I was almost
in tears.  My allergist pinpointed the chemical I was reacting to, but it
didn't help because he put me on a soy-based nutrition shake-type thing.  I
was skeptical and finally just told him I wasn't doing that and he was going
to have to address my candida and treat it like a serious issue.

The final straw was when I gave my brand new child thrush (candida aka yeast
infection of the mouth) on her third day of life, and it was a raging case.
She went on formula, and I've never looked back.

ANYHOO...I went totally paleo except for the butter in the middle of January
(14th, to be precise) after I found an article that linked my smell/taste
dysfunction to a candida overgrowth.  Dumped the allergist's
recommendations, and started the serious candida killing.  I couldn't live
with the stink.  My soaps, lotions, perfumes, deodorants, toothpastes,
Carmex, etc. had an edge of some kind of petroleum-based carbon monoxide.  I
had to toss my *expensive* perfume because I couldn't stand it.  I hated the
stink more than I didn't want to diet, and besides--everything I had not
been willing to give up before I couldn't eat anyway because it stunk.  So
why not?

F'rinstance:  Chocolate has an edge of the previously afore-mentioned carbon
monoxide/cigarette smoke smell.  It tastes...I dunno...dirty and
contaminated.  I was out and about this morning and a car went by.  Carbon
monoxide hell...and my first thought was, "Chocolate.  Ick."

I've lost 10 pounds now.  What I find difficult is getting in enough fat
without overdoing the protein because I don't like olive oil.  My
taste/smell dysfunction is *much* better, but I suspect if I cheated, I
would get slammed right in the nose.  So I have other reasons to stay paleo
other than weight loss now.  I'm also taking a lot of anti-candida
supplements and probiotics.  I drink the juice of an entire lemon every day.
I'm getting to where I really enjoy it and it would suck if it had sugar in
it to make a lemonade.  (Now, if I can only find PINK lemons!)

For some really good candida info, there's a group at YahooGroups called
"candidiasis."  It's well travelled with lots of experienced people.
However, there are very few people over there who follow the candida-killing
diet, and they wouldn't know what paleo was if you knocked them over the
head with it--and it's the same thing, different name.  They don't get why
the candida killers and the probiotics aren't working for them very quickly.
They also don't know better than to eat soy.  There's a yeast group on
MAELSTROM also, but they're mostly clueless.

As far as paleo success stories, I can only give you two (because I'm not
well travelled in the paleo circles):

http://hometown.aol.com/adelestrat/myhomepage/profile.html  (my paleo
mentor)
http://www.conniems.com/ (another good friend with good advice on her page)

If you find no paleo references, it's because they refer to it as
anti-yeast.

I hope this helps.

Elizabeth