Is Candida yeast secretly hijacking your health? 😬 This episode might change everything you thought you knew about your gut. After three babies, relentless symptoms, and years of mystery diagnoses, I discovered what was fueling the fire: Candida overgrowth.

In this deeply personal episode, I’m taking you back to the start of my gut-healing journey, sharing my raw experience with the Candida Die-Off Diet, and what happened when I finally stopped treating symptoms and started addressing root causes—with faith and food. 🙌

💡 What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

– How antibiotics, autoimmune flares, and sugar cravings are connected

– My experience with over 20 candida symptoms (some you’d never guess!)

– Why my “exorcism” of yeast was both brutal and miraculous 😅

– How Candida die-off symptoms can mimic chronic illness

– What a 30-day gut reset really looks like (and why Day 21 is wild)

– Faith-filled healing, brain fog breakthroughs, and God’s hand in every step 💖

📚 Mentioned in This Episode:

– Good Energy by Dr. Casey Means – a game-changing look at whole-body healing

– WebMD: Tetracycline and Crohn’s Disease

– Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 – “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

🙏 Final Takeaway

You don’t have to live in survival mode. Sometimes your healing begins with subtraction—taking out what’s hurting your body so God can restore what’s been broken. Candida was wrecking me…and I had no clue. But you don’t have to stay there. 💪

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📌 Note: I’m just a girl with a wild story and a passion for sharing what has helped me feel my best during difficult times. I share personal experience, documented research, and a whole lot of heart. Always talk to a professional when making changes to your health routine.

Podcast 3 Are Your GI/ Stomach Symptoms Actually caused by a Candida Yeast and How you can Heal Your Gut Naturally.

Well, hello! It’s fun getting settled in here. My son is my wonderful podcast producer…he might be regretting it now, but he is doing so much better than I would be. We are still learning the tricks of the mic, sound, the entire rhythm of putting a podcast together. There is much more to it than I ever dreamed. But its always fun to learn new things. He can never leave me. :) Bear with us. We hope to have this mastered by October when we plan to blow it up with a big launch event!

I do think its time to take the focus away from the more traumatic history for a bit as my parents told me they had to stop listening already. Im only on my 3rd podcast today and they are trying to leave me! My mom said it was too hard to listen. {sigh} Of course, that made me sad, but we all went thru our own grief and stress those last months when it got really bad before it got really great! While I was the patient, I know it was incredibly hard on my family to watch me endure so much, exhausting for them to sit in my hospital room for weeks on end and give up their lives to be with me and my family. Driving back and forth from houston to oklahoma. My parents and in laws sacrificed so much for us. And my friends did probably way more than I even know and they did so much for us. It took a village to get us thru that time as my husband had to actually work at some point when I was in the hospital from May thru mid July. And juggle the kids and go to hospital to see me and allow himself his own time. It was tough. For everyone. Between me and my new podcast friends, I still believe my husband and parents, sister, in-laws should truly go to therapy. While I dealt with physical pain, they dealt with so much more. I have always said it is easier to be the patient than the caregiver.

Alas, today I am going to go waaaaaay back. Lucky for me as I recognized my health was declining more rapidly after my third pregnancy, I started to keep a private blog as a kind of health record for me and maybe even for my kids, should they ever have to deal with anything I was going thru. I am so grateful I did as it has helped immensely with the details for this podcast, for the chapter I wrote and the book I am writing. Details I never would have remembered. While I used to say I only wanted to remember the good parts of my healing, now that I am more “balanced”, it is strangely really good to be reminded how bad it was to know how far I have come. Truly empowering to know “If I can do that, then I can do this.” I always favor challenges as growth and is the leading verse in my chapter. 2 Cor 12: 9-10 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When I was first pregnant with my number 3, the husband of a sweet friend from high school was diagnosed with cancer. She kept an amazing blog about their experience and his healing that I kept up with regularly. His doctors put him on the Candida/candada Diet while he was taking chemotherapy. I had never heard of it before, but as she spelled out what he wasn't allowed to eat, I thought it quite strange that most of those things were what were hurting me so terribly since I had been pregnant. (I went to the ER in my first weeks of pregnancy because the pain was so bad, I thought I might be having an ectopic pregnancy.) I did a little research on the Candida Diet and with renewed hope started to really believe that I might have found an answer to many of my symptoms.... Candida Yeast Overgrowth. The possible causes of the overgrowth include: long-term antibiotic use (check), auto-immune disease (check), high doses of steroids (check), having a parasite (check), multiple child births (check, check and check) and use of chemotherapy. I had five out of six of the potential causes. As for the symptoms, one website quoted a possible overgrowth if you had 18 or more of the symptoms. I stopped counting at 22.

I visited my nutritionist and shared what I had learned and he agreed. He said my blood work supported this and it was likely I could have Candida Overgrowth. He also told me something huge. Small symptoms began just after JBS was born for the first time since before I was married and I decided at that point, through trial and error, that I was fructose intolerant. Every time I ate anything with fructose in it, I got sick. He told me that I was most definitely NOT fructose intolerant, as he did that specific blood test. With new perspective, anything with sugar was actually feeding the yeast and making me sick! Since I was pregnant with Will, I couldn't begin to remove the Candida completely, so I was waiting until I had him and had finished nursing.

Shortly after I delivered Will and my symptoms started to return with even more intensity, I was getting discouraged fast. I developed terrible joint and muscle pain to the point that I was on chronic high doses of pain killers. I was so frustrated and I certainly didn't feel like a young new mom. My rheumotologist told me “Im so sorry, but you might be on pain meds for life. These are just the cards you have been dealt”. This absolutely horrified me.

Some things that make you higher risk for having a Candida Yeast overgrowth:

-history of taking tetracycline or broad spectrum antibiotics

-Persistent yeast infections

-hx of cortizone drugs for more than 2 weeks at a time

-do you crave sugar

-Crave breads

Some Major Symptoms I identified with:

Lethargy, poor memory, inability to make decisions, muscle aches, abdominal pain, constipation/diarrhea, bloating, belching, gas, anxiety, cold hands or feet, shaking or irritable when hungry

Some Minor Symptoms I identified with:

Inability to concentrate, feeling of head swelling/pressure above ears, indigestion or heartburn, food sensitivity or intolerance, burning or tearing of eyes, numbness or tingling.

If you haven’t read or heard of Casey Means “Good Energy”, I highly recommend this book. As a highly successful surgeon, she acknowledged that in medical school, the body was broken down into specialities, highly specialized focuses on specific body parts or specialty roles when in essence, the WHOLE body works together. Symptoms are usually symptoms related to a larger issue that the ENTIRE body is working thru. I will link it up in the Show Notes. Thus pointing to all of the above crazy symptoms that MANY people battle….they could all be related to one common greater issue. It is not how we have been taught to think and while it makes perfect sense, it goes against the entire medical model of “find the symptom and treat it.” Rather, find the root cause and the symptoms will disappear. Not a new model, but new indeed for those in the US Medical School System that hammers “find the symptom and treat it” in our heads. Which, as a side note, is how we end up on a different med for each symptom and many of those meds can cause more side effects and then we end up in the never ending cycle of pharma madness. But if we were to treat the root cause…..none of that craziness happens.

In that appt he had taken my blood, weighed me and while providing me with loads of Vicadin for the new “rest of my life” lifestyle, also provided a Day ONE objective baseline and motivation to launch the Candida Diet for the first time. Will was 4 months old.

What is Candida? Candada? It is an over-infestation of yeast in the body. It invades the brain and every tissue of the body and can be completing debilitating. It is a living organism and grows and lives on what you eat. It makes your body have cravings and it is incredibly difficult to get rid of. Yeast cells alone are on our skin, in our intestines and a normal body can keep the number of yeast cells under control. However, poor nutrition or impaired immune system weakens the ability for the body to fight off the yeast. Stress and environmental pollutants can also play a role in reducing the body’s fight over Candida.

2 personal notes: First: When I was in high school, my dermatologist put me on long term low dose tetracycline to prevent break outs on my skin. I didn’t have acne. I did have breakouts here and there, but it is listed as the first cause of Candida. To this day, I will not take my kids to a dermatologist for skin care because I firmly believe that my first symptoms started in high school while taking tetracycline. (See the VERY first question on the candida quiz…..Have you ever taken tetracyclines?)Within just a few months in high school, I had my first yeast infection. I got really puffy….just imagine like yeast does to bread. I was puffy and for no reason. I was an athlete. I played tennis 7 days a week and I wasn’t just gaining weight, I was really puffy. I still hate looking at pictures of me from high school. I had NO idea the storm that was building in my body….if only. And it was the first time I remember asking my parents for something for my stomach because it burned. I took an antacid. In the 90s I knew nothing of probiotics to counter the antibiotics, , nor did we understand the risk associated with the overuse of antibiotics.

I had never even heard of probiotics. I had no idea that these 3 major symptoms were related or that they were actually even symptoms at all. I gained weight and I had no idea why. I had a yeast infection and I had no idea why. I had heart burn and I had no idea why. Now, if I hear anyone tell me anything close to the above, my instinct is to tell them to address the Candida.

Mitchell Medical Group online states“Candida is an overgrowth of yeast that affects millions of people, many of whom are unaware of the cause of their symptoms. In fact, it is estimated that one in three people suffer from yeast overgrowth and candida.”

As I mentioned before, the symptoms of yeast overgrowth are endless and it is suspected that over 85% of the population actually has a yeast overgrowth and often overlooked or misdiagnosed by focusing on a symptom versus the larger problem. We are the first generation of Americans that have been raised on antibiotics, even more specificially the tetracyclines as a quick and easy treatment before we understood the long term effects of overuse. I do know my GI regularly tested me for Candida before I knew what it was. His reason: my tongue was white. White tongue apparently indicates yeast. He was such an incredibly doctor. The blood tests are not reliable and they never turned up positive, but he was certainly on to something well before his time. I only wish we figured it out then….I had 10 more years of multiplying yeast in my body that really ravaged my health. And who is to say it didn’t cause the breakdown in my gut biome to allow the crohns to develop?

https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/crohns-disease-antibiotics

An article on WebMd I will link in the show notes states: Several tetracycline antibiotics, namely doxycycline and minocycline, have shown a link to IBD, particularly Crohn’s disease.

As the yeast multiplies they produce toxins that attack the immune system and destroy the good gut flora. Drugs are typically used to treat a fungal infection or symptom treating meds when in all actuality, the yeast comes right back with more strength and power as soon as the drugs are completed.

So HOW do you Find relief and treat a Candida Overgrowth Holistically?

You starve it to death. You can never entirely get rid of the yeast with meds and even with holistic approaches, but starving the yeast is the best form of eradicating the majority of it.

The idea behind starving the yeast is to eat such simple God-made food vs complex highly processed foods. Simple food is the easiest for your body to break down and By eating simple food, no sugar to feed the yeast, you starve the yeast and allow all the little ATPs (energy in our body) to go where they need to go to heal all the symptoms we have discussed above. We use so much of the ATPs/Energy to break down our highly processed diets, this allows them to free up from digestion priorities and are free to go heal what needs to be healed. By relieving them of digestion responsibilities, they are available to go to the rest of the body and provide healing. You don’t take any meds, any ibuprofen, anything that will potentially push things into the liver. The goal is to Kill off the yeast, detox the cells into the bloodstream and send it to the liver to do its thing. I have never had more respect for my liver than I did during this diet. Ever.

Phase 1 of the diet is called the “Die Off Phase”. Because I was 35 when I figured this out and I know it started when I was a teen, even my nutritionist said i was the worst she had ever seen. My mom had to fly down to take care of my kids because I lived in the bathroom. For the record, when yeast dies it is as orange as an orange peel. Any drainage from all orifices is bright orange. I puked orange, pooped orange, sweated orange, blew my nose orange. As gross as that sounds, it meant I was doing it right. After day one of simply eating a very restricted diet of lean protein and veggies only. (You have to focus on what you CAN eat and not what you can’t or you will never make it). No sugar, even from fruit, no seasonings with “natural flavors”, no alcohol or fermented anything, no dressings for salad with sugar in them, no vegetables like carrots that turn to sugars. With Complete transparency, the first time I did this was brutal. The lack of what I called good food combined with the radical 20 year plus die off made me depressed. As the article mentions, the yeast takes OVER your body and gets into your brain, your tiniest of cells. It deeply affects you. My mom and I still refer to it as my exorcism. I had a violent die off. Most people I have spoken to did not experience it to this degree, so please don’t let me scare you off. I was simply YEARS into it where the yeast had taken over my body. This is one of the best things you can do for your body.

Day one I was feeling a little puny and questioning “should I call mom?” By day 2 I was nauseous and was definitely calling mom. The reason is this. Not only did I have a new born, but I was so sick, some call it herxing, or the Herxeimer effect.

What causes a Herx?

It is understood that a Herx is caused by the toxins from bacteria that are killed off during treatment Bacteria dying off and releasing toxins can cause the body to have an inflammatory response.

Here are some of the symptoms:

Flu-like symptoms

Fever and chills

Nausea and vomiting

Headache

Hypotension (low blood pressure)

Hyperventilation

Tachycardia (a heart rate over 100 beats a minute)

Flushing

Myalgia

Worsening of skin lesions

I started with feeling like I couldn’t cook for myself and then I just flat could barely take care of myself. One moment of cheating and you have to start completely over. If You feed the yeast just a tiny bit, it jumps for joy and repopulates. This is all about a starvation game. It is no fun, especially for a cheater. But cheating only prolongs or completely prevents the die off. My mom swooped in not only for the kids, but to create foods for me that I could eat when I was able and foods that I could get quickly that did not allow me to cheat because I was starved. I was using every bit of nutrition in my body to exist. So, Days 1-8 are the Die Off Phase. I remember being so miserable and my nutritionist praying for me on the phone while my head was hanging over the toilet. And she told me. Penny you can stop. You can eat sugar now and it will temporarily make you feel better, but within hours you will be back to being as miserable as you were when you started. She was so good to me and encouraged me. I felt like I was near death and this was simply by eating simple foods with no sugar. Over my dead body was I going to cheat. I was not going back. I slept on the bathroom floor for several days and remember waking up in my bed maybe on Day 7 or so and just looking around the room with my eyes. My body was not convulsing, puking, nose running. My body was totally still. Whatever devil of Candida lived inside of me was at peace….for now. And it is truly best described as the peace that comes after what I imagine an exorcism to be.

From my blog: “Grammy had to leave today and I was devastated, but she can't stay with me forever, unfortunately. She did say that she made her bed and not to wash the sheets because she will probably be back (yeah!). So, I will struggle through finding tolerable things to eat this week to try and keep myself fed. Four pm becomes my witching hour as I start to get weak and nauseated and the cycle begins for the evening. It is not fun. However, I had to quit my pain meds to be on the diet. Would you believe that every day my joints feel better and better without any medication? For the last couple years my mom has told me something was wrong with me...my brain! I am always in a fog and can't make decisions. As it turns out that is a symptom of the yeast. My head is clearer today than it has been in years. Every day I notice an improvement in my symptoms and even in things I didn't know were symptoms! For me and for my family, who was starting to be more and more affected by my poor health, this is a complete miracle.

The doctors told me over and over again that all these symptoms were a part of having an auto-immune disease like Crohn's and basically I would have to live with it. They helped me by covering up the pain with medicine and pain pills and I just refused to live like that. I want to be healthy, I want to be able to exercise again and play with my kids without fighting back pain and I don't want to take a hundred pills every day.”

I was determined never to take those pain pills as my lifestyle. I was going to be a normal mom.

Days 9-11 is the Detoxification phase. This is when the liquid diet gives your body one more big burst of healing allowing all those little ATP energies to rush to what needs to be healed. It allows your liver and kidneys, and blood supply to take the grody toxins from your organs and process them thru your liver and kidneys and out the body. Your body needs rest here. It is working very hard to detox and heal. Listen to your body. REST. REST. REST.

Phase 3 is usually begins on day 12 and you get to start adding foods back in. Starting with just a sweet potato. It has a low glycemic index and you MUST LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. If your body has any negative reaction….and itch, a headache, a stomach ache, you still have a significant amount of active yeast in your body, so you return to phase 1 eating again for 5 days. This cycle continues until you have no negative responses for 7 days.

Phase 4 Typically starts at day 22. 22-25 are pretty free, but don’t get too cocky. Day 26-27 we go back to phase one for one more kick in the bootie. Add the low glycemic foods back in for days 28-30 and if you have zero negative responses, you are cleared. If you have anything negative you return to Phase 1. Do NOT get discouraged if you have to return to Phase 1 multiple times. I did. I think I ended up doing this for 45 days the firs time I did it and I probably should have done it longer. I was just over it. And full transparency, the “exorcism” was brutal. My nutritionist said that she and her family did it once a year., which is a great idea and motivation for me to hop to it now. The next time I did it, it was NOTHING close to as brutal as far as my detox AND I had figured out what I could and couldn’t eat and focused on eating to live vs living to eat. I am getting ready to do it again, as I have noticed an increase in my sinus pressure and brain fog, some anxious feelings. I am going to climb back on for 30 days.

The results: First and foremost, my family is always incredibly supportive of me and the crazy things I do to detox or work to heal my body. They alway say, “Thats good for you, but I don’t need to do that. “ When my husband witnessed the healing that took place and the violent reaction I had to eating simplified foods, he was ALL IN. He waited until I could function and he climbed on the wagon. IT is so much more fun to do it with someone for sure. Accountibility is key. He has chronic allergies and for about 2-3 days he said he felt like his head was a balloon and had a lot of sinus draining and he was done. NOthing close to my reaction. So , please don’t be scared because of what I endured.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

My nutritionist told me on Day 21 I would feel like I was getting the flu and not to give up. It was my body’s push to heal. I kid you not, on Day 21, I told John I was so tired of it, and I felt like I was getting sick and I just wanted a “normal “ day. Gratefully, he said, “Wait! What day are you on?” Sure enough, after looking at the calendar, I was on Day 21. The exact same thing happened to him when he was there. He told me he was getting sick and it was Day 21. Does that not blow your mind? A perfect, systematic process each of our bodies have for healing? The more you study the body and the many processes we have that we have assigned stages of healing, like grief, brain injury, detoxification…..the more I realize our bodies can only be made by a very powerful and complex God.

The obvious symptom changes:

I failed to mention she told me that our bodies heal in reverse. So any major surgery I had, I was told I would feel pain for a day, it would heal and move on. I had had a now obvious unnecessary hysterectomy (blamed on the excruciating pain in my abdomen that was not resolved with the surgery, but ultimately resolved with the yeast diet. ) I had also had a meniscus repair. I kid you not, in my “healing phase” my uterine region (most recent surgery) hurt for a day and then the pain was gone for good. The next day, my knee hurt for a day and then it was gone for good. I did heal in reverse and it was nothing short of a miracle that there is a perfect equation to how our bodies heal. That still blows my mind! I don’t understand the reverse piece, but I am sure it has something to do with our body prioritizing our needs. But think about the fact that these surgeries were months out from my diet. And because of the highly processed foods in our American diet, I still had not fully healed from those surgeries UNTIL I did this diet. It was befuddling.

I had No more bloating, stomach pain, gas, burping, cramping….the gut issues go on and on. I had a strange itch on the top of my left foot. Who would tell a dr about that? But it drove me crazy. That disappeared. But my favorite story of all happened one day when I was sitting at my desk. My mom, which moms tell you all the truths right? She had been telling me for months I was not myself. I wasn’t making decisions, I wasn’t quick on my feet. My response was that I had 3 boys ,5 and under and a new born baby and I was exhausted on top of being sick. She said, “Nope. This is different.” I had nothing for her. I felt what she was saying, but I couldn’t give her a better reason. I was just tired all the time. As I sat at my desk that day, I was over come with a tingling in my feet. The tingle slowly went from my feet up my legs, to my stomach, chest neck, then my face and out the top of my head with a big tingle. This took maybe 2 minutes in total. The best way I can explain it was like the Claritin commercial where her head becomes clear? The minute the tingling went out the top of my head, I was clear as a bell. I immediately felt like a task master. Like I could make a list and complete it. No more sluggishness or fogginess. I sat for a moment alone thinking, “What the heck just happened to me?” It was very real and very palpable. I am fulling convinced that was the healing of the brain fog. The lack of decison making and slowness to react that my mom was seeing. It literally went up my body and out my head and my brain was crystal clear. It was truly miraculous.

This diet is usually a favorite in my conversations with others as I think SO MANY PEOPLE are in my shoes and no one has EVER told them that potentially a handful of their symptoms could be related and treated outside of pills and also related to their food or past meds. Please let me reiterate here, +++ You don’t have to have Crohns to have a yeast overgrowth+++. The symptoms may resemble IBS, Crohns, Colitis…..anything really! If you have been on any anti-biotics for any amount of time, this would be my first go-to. It is just so common and I fully believe that we can help ourselves SO MUCH by following this 30 day plan to eliminate or kill the yeast in our body. I am going to work on putting together more information with my favorite recipes and products, fair warnings and tips. I cannot encourage this more EVEN for those who think they are healthy. We are exposed to so many toxins that our body CAN address and remove if we simply give them the time and the proper diet to allow our miraculous body to do what it knows best…..to heal. I will let you “digest” this (no pun intended) as I think looking at the whole body of symptoms is overlooked more often than not. Most people go in for a complaint and doctors focus on the one or two symptoms. Then the meds end up helping for a minute before the symptoms all return, thus increasing doses of meds and you end up in a vicious cycle of pain, frustration and possibly meds that are never going to ultimately heal whats going on with your body. And, in the doctor’s defense, they don’t always know the questions to ask. If they haven’t been in your shoes before, how could they know you have an itch that won’t go away on the top of your foot or better yet, what to do with that? I had some of the most random symptoms and symptoms that I never would have sought treatment for from a doctor that disappeared after this diet. You must advocate for yourself. Don’t take “no” for an answer or “its in your head” or “Youre a hypocondriac”. Gratefully, I never heard those words, but I know many who have. Fighting for your health or the health of a loved one is one of the most important things you can do.

1-dietary changes are needed

2-increase friendly bacteria to the gut

3- good nutritional support

4-education to keep the yeast under control for good

A 30 day protocol includes

1-rebuilding the immune system thru supplements

2-detox the dying/dead yeast

3-yeast control diet

4-water/exercise

These are the posts I made during and after the diet in my family blog...

It is a lot easier to admit this now that I am hopefully being healed as I type. I am sure I have mentioned my crazy health, but in the past two years it has basically sucked. I continued to have weird things start happening, being diagnosed with Sjogren's Disease (probably didn't even spell it right) and Thyroid Disease last year. The stress of our move started to bring out an array of symptoms, each progressing to almost intolerable pain at times even throughout my pregnancy with WHS. As soon as I quit nursing WHS, I developed terrible joint and muscle pain to the point that I was on chronic high doses of pain killers. I was so discouraged and I certainly didn't feel like a young new mom.

In the meantime, I grew more and more confident and excited that this was what I had. I was talking to a sweet friend here who is a health guru and told her about my issues. She said, "OH! Penny, I have done the Candida diet and you need to talk to my friend Audra." And so it all began. Audra sells products thru Trinity Wellness and one line of products is made specifically for Candida Yeast Overgrowth. I called her as soon as I could, took a few tests, studied up and on January 7th, I started the diet. No yeast, no sugar, no stimulants (salt, pepper, caffeine, alcohol). The only way to fully get rid of the yeast is to starve it...and me. :) It is rough.

By day two, I was nauseated and throwing up. I couldn't function and I was miserable. My body was literally detoxing. She said my score on my test was so high and this might take longer for me than most (lucky me). The yeast was revolting and demanding the sugars it needed to live. It somehow made vomiting feel better knowing I was throwing up loads of impurities. The supplements I am taking include supplements that are going to my organs and detoxing all the chemicals out of my body fromanesthesia's past, epidurals, medicines. The crazy thing is that she told me that our bodies heal in reverse. So, she told me I will feel the pain of child birth again from WHS first, and I will feel the pain from my abdominal surgeries as those toxins are removed and pulled in to my bloodstream. I FELT IT ALL! I was amazed.

Babe, who was almost as skeptical about all this as I was is now a complete believer as he has watched me and helped me through this miserable time. He wants to do the diet himself...when I recover, of course. I should mention that it was no small effort on my mom's part as she flew down here to rescue us on Sunday. She cooked for me, found new "legal" recipes" and forced me to eat. That is the hardest part for me. I don't eat enough. Who would when I have to eat cardboard and vegetables all the time? (I am not a big veggie eater...)

Grammy had to leave today and I was devastated, but she can't stay with me forever, unfortunately. She did say that she made her bed and not to wash the sheets because she will probably be back (yeah!). So, I will struggle through finding tolerable things to eat this week to try and keep myself fed. Four pm becomes my witching hour as I start to get weak and nauseated and the cycle begins for the evening. It is not fun. However, I had to quit my pain meds to be on the diet. Would you believe that every day my joints feel better and better without any medication? For the last couple years my mom has told me something is wrong with me...my brain! I am always in a fog and can't make decisions. As it turns out that is a symptom of the yeast. My head is clearer today than it has been in years. Every day I notice an improvement in my symptoms and even in things I didn't know were symptoms! For me and for my family, who was starting to be more and more affected by my poor health, this is a complete miracle.

The doctors told me over and over again that all these symptoms were a part of having an auto-immune disease like Crohn's and basically I would have to live with it. They helped me by covering up the pain with medicine and pain pills and I just refused to live like that. I want to be healthy, I want to be able to exercise again and play with my kids without fighting back pain and I don't want to take a hundred pills every day.

So, that is where I have been...struggling to keep my head above water, relishing in the presence of Grammy to take care of us all and hopefully healing ever so slowly each minute of the day. Today is Day 7 for me. Most people move to detox on Day 8. Not me. Lucky me, I get to stay in the "Die Off" phase for another week making sure to kill every last little speck of yeast. I was miserable before the diet and miserable doing the diet. However, the misery of doing the diet with the hope of total healing on the backside really takes the cake. Praise the Lord!!