Author: Dr. Blake Myers ND
Not getting the results you want from Candida treatment? Learn the top 5 reasons why and how you can break through to new levels of health with this expertise.
Taking on a new treatment approach often comes with high expectations and hope. You have experienced discomfort and symptoms that are holding you back for a long time, and the excitement of trying a new protocol with the promise of resolving your symptoms is high.
Perhaps you have tried many new protocols, each time with the anticipation of better results? If you don’t see these outcomes, it is disappointing and can feel defeating. It is easy to want to give up on your current trajectory or stop trying to find solutions all together.
If you’ve experienced this, it doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong or that the products you are taking aren’t right for you. Commonly, after a month or two of not seeing significant improvements in health, folks want to return products, thinking they don’t work as described or aren’t the right choice for them. The truth is, this may not be the case.
There are many reasons why you may not see the results you expect when attempting to treat Candida overgrowth and digestive problems on your own, or even with a trained practitioner.
This article will discuss the most common reasons – based on my over a decade of clinical experience – that some people don’t see the expected results in the time frame they had hoped and what you need to do to see greater results.
Targeting The Wrong Diagnosis
It is not uncommon in my practice to see people who feel like they’ve tried everything, they’ve done everything right, and little has helped. One reason this happens is because some folks have not gotten a proper diagnosis.
This may mean a medical diagnosis, but it is also true for diagnosis of the root cause of a medical diagnosis. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one good example. IBS is a medical diagnosis but with many potential causes and contributors. Knowing you have IBS is one piece to the puzzle. Knowing why is much more important.
Without the why, treatment can become a rough approximation versus a precise, targeted approach.
If you are treating Candida overgrowth, the first question to ask yourself is – how do you know you have Candida overgrowth? Did you do a stool test or possibly an organic acids test? Are you basing it on symptoms alone that sound like Candida?
If it’s the latter, the trouble is that most Candida overgrowth symptoms are very general. There are a hundred health conditions that can present with many of the same symptoms as Candida overgrowth.
It is ideal to have a positive Candida result on a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) stool test, typically as part of a comprehensive digestive stool analysis (CDSA). While these tests are perfect and don’t always catch the culprit, they are often extremely helpful in narrowing down causes of digestive issues – and a positive result lends a great deal more confidence to directly addressing it.
There are many websites, blogs, social media influencers, and so on that will tell you if you have x, y, z, symptoms, you’ve got Candida overgrowth. I recently heard one of these sources call Candida a bacteria (it’s a fungi). This just shows how little credibility there can be on the internet. In reality, based on symptoms alone you may not have Candida and treating it won’t give results if Candida overgrowth is not the reason for your symptoms.
One way to know if this is why you’re not finding improvement is that there will likely be little to no change in symptoms. If your symptoms do improve but Candida isn’t the problem, it simply means your treatment approach was close enough to the mark to help but not specific enough to fully resolve the issues.
I always recommend working with a skilled practitioner for this reason. Functional and naturopathic doctors are highly trained in “reading” symptoms and ordering the best tests to assess for root cause in cases such as this.
There May Be Multiple Causes
The reality I have learned in my 10+ years in chronic illness practice is that there is rarely one cause for chronic health troubles. Instead, there is likely to be a constellation of causes, resulting in a progressive overall decline in health and increasing bodily dysfunction.
Why does this matter? Candida overgrowth may very well be an issue that needs to be treated, but there may be five or more other issues along with it that together are creating your array of symptoms.
If Candida is one contributor to your symptoms of many and you address it with supplements such as CanXida formulas Remove, Restore, and Rebuild, you will see improvement. However, since it may not be the only problem present, it’s possible that you are not seeing the results you expect because the other issues are continued obstacles to healing. Or, you may get really great results that don’t last and you continually get relapses. Both are common.
If this sounds like you, it is again important to work with someone trained in analyzing chronic and sometimes complex health problems. They will be able to give you specific treatment advice that will likely give you enhanced and long lasting results.
You should also read the rest of this article and be sure you aren’t making any of these common mistakes that lead to less than optimal results.
Not Following CanXida’s Protocol
The conventional medical model has trained most of us to think in terms of one-pill fixes for health issues. This sometimes works with acute illnesses but is rarely effective in chronic cases.
Due to this culturally ingrained ideology, many people think that if they have Candida overgrowth they can take a supplement such as CanXida formula Remove, or medication to kill it and be cured. If only it were this simple…
CanXida has a specific clinical protocol based on decades of clinical experience and expert supplement formulation. If you study the protocol, you will see specific doses and timings of CanXida’s formulas, along with optimal timing of various dietary strategies – along with traditional naturopathic supportive modalities.
CanXida has a comprehensive 3 hour webinar on the entire strategy we recommend to practitioners treating Candida overgrowth in their patients. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. Afterward you will understand the details of the protocol and why each part is essential.
You can also share CanXida’s clinical protocol with your healthcare provider.
Unrealistic expectations
CanXida’s clinical protocol lasts at least 3-6 months. It simply takes that long for most people to get fully back to health and depending on your individual case, it may take longer.
For this reason, it is important to have realistic expectations – both for duration of treatment required and the pace of improvement. The motto I recommend is slow and steady. If you feel 10% better in a month, and 10% more the next month, within 5 months you’ll feel 50% better and within 10 months you’ll be back to your old self.
Of course, it’s always preferred when things resolve quickly, and sometimes they do – but it’s always nice to have things go better than you expected versus the other way around.
To be clear, there should be steady improvement along the way but 6 months versus 2 months is a much more realistic time frame for most folks to see symptom resolution.
How long you’ve been sick is another crucial variable to consider. If you’ve been unwell for 10 years, it will likely take you around twice as long as someone who’s been ill for 5 years.
Similarly, if your symptoms have been present for 1-2 years, it is expected to take you a bit longer to see the same improvements as someone who has had symptoms for 3 months and is feeling better within 1-2 months.
Be gentle and patient with yourself and the process.
Not Taking a Holistic Approach
If you tie everything in this article together, it points to the necessity for a holistic approach to healing. CanXida’s formulas Remove, Restore, Rebuild, and ReCharge play an essential role in treating Candida overgrowth. These 4 supplements are holistically formulated and are balanced in the way they support the natural healing mechanisms of the body. Watch the GI Candida Overgrowth webinar to learn more about this.
However, we recommend far more than supplementation for success. Dietary and certain lifestyle modifications are crucial as well. By addressing foundational aspects such as chronic stress, sleep disruption, sedentariness, and mental health factors such as loneliness, your likelihood of restoring your health exponentially increases.
Imagine you had a plant that was in a dark corner of your house, where you often forget to water it. It has had the same soil for a couple of years and now the leaves are starting to turn yellow.
You notice the plant struggling and your research shows the plant likely has a phosphorus deficiency. You decide you would like to revive this plant and nurse it back to vibrant health.
Which strategy do you think will be the most effective?
- Add fertilizer containing phosphorus and change nothing else.
- Add fertilizer and start watering it regularly, but leave it in the same place.
- Add fertilizer, start watering it regularly, and put it in a sunnier spot.
The obvious answer here is C. And while this may seem elementary, much of the same principles are true for us as humans. Just as the plant will do better with phosphorus fertilizer, you may do well with a multivitamin or an anti-fungal supplement. However, the plant will not thrive and will likely slowly deteriorate in health over time because a holistic remedy was not sought.
The same is true for humans. When we try one simple fix here, a quick short term fix there, while the foundational needs of our being are not met, we slowly deteriorate over time and can become chronically ill.
Conclusion
There are a host of reasons you may not be experiencing the kinds of improvements that you are expecting while addressing Candida overgrowth. This article covered some of the most common reasons based on what I have seen in over 10 years of clinical naturopathic practice.
If you aren’t working with a practitioner knowledgeable in naturopathic or functional medicine, I encourage you to seek professional support. Even as a doctor myself, I recognize the value of outside, objective insight regarding my health.
Lastly, remember to approach your health from a holistic perspective, while maintaining realistic expectations along the way. If you are struggling with Candida overgrowth, CanXida has an excellent clinical protocol and online education that you can share with your provider. Visit our online store to learn more about our products.
For more information please watch the following videos: