Well, I guess it all began 6 years ago. At the age of 16, I was a self-conscious teen who (like most teens) had acne. It’s funny, though, I remember being SO self-conscious about having a few zits but when I look back at old photos of myself from that period, my acne wasn’t really that bad. I guess we’re all our own worst critics.

Anyways, I remember spending each evening washing my face, applying acne creams and using numerous “home remedies” (baking soda, sea salt, tooth paste, etc) to try and clear the problem up. But NOTHING was working. I unfortunately became desperate and sought professional help instead of waiting to outgrow the problem.

One Spring day in 1998, my mother and I approached a doctor and request medical assistance for the problem. The doctor suggested an oral treatment, 50 mg of Tetracycline (twice daily) to help dry up my skin and clear my ailing complexion. I was so pleased to receive the prescription and began taking the medication religiously, never missing a dose. And, to my relief, it worked.

Looking back, however, I wonder if it really was the medication that cleared up my acne or whether it was simply that I had outgrown it but by Spring of the following year, my acne had pretty much cleared and I continued to take 100 mg of Tetracycline daily as a precautionary measure. Summer came and went and I entered my senior year with great skin and didn’t stop taking Tetracycline until Christmas of that year. By that point, I had been on the antibiotic for almost a year and a half.

Well the acne never came back and I have never had to worry about my skin since. I graduated high school and began studying at University in great health. But as time went on, I began to notice that my health was deteriorating. Nothing drastic, but in my second year of University, I realized that I had a serious problem consuming bread – my face would flush as if I had a fever. So I began a gluten free diet, eliminating that problem. (Luckily, I never got the reaction from beer, so I was still able to carry on as a normal University student :D ).

I entered my third year on a gluten free diet and once again felt quite healthy. However, about the time I was finishing up my mid-terms, I noticed more problems were developing. Whenever I ate sugar, within a day my armpits would emit an extremely foul odour (VERY embarrassing). But on top of this, I was beginning to have these strange feelings of being “distant” and “not really there”; feelings that I found extremely difficult to describe. ALL of this, I kept to myself – and I cut sweet foods right out of my diet. At the time, I was convinced that I had digestive problems and I spent most of 2003 playing around with my diet. At this point, I was still occasionally consuming fruit and beer but many of my symptoms had gotten better after cutting sugar out. So I thought to myself “alright, the BEST diet for me is one that has no gluten or processed sugar” and it was a moto I became prepared to live by for the rest of my life.

But by Fall 2003, things were only getting worse. The “spaciness” and feelings of being disconnected and “not real” were occurring more and more. I began to visit doctors regularly who threw up their arms telling me my symptoms fit nothing they had heard before. I became ADDICTED to scouring the internet, looking for answers (and spent HOURS each night online). Of course, my social life was suffering but I just kept telling myself that once I cure this, I will be myself again. I kept trying to convince myself that I was in a “cocoon” of sorts and that I would return healthy. It was at that point that I came across descriptions for candida (or “dysbiosis”, as I prefer to call it).

At that point, everything seemed to make sense and in a way, I was very relieved to find the cause of my suffering. But I was also terrified by the descriptions I found. There were message boards with members recanting battles that have lasted more than ten years. And others that described dropping THOUSANDS of dollars on supplements and treatments. I was so overwhelmed. I immediately bought a handful of products: Threelac, probiotics, grapefruit seed extract, Echinacea and the list goes on. I ate a pure vegetable diet for months and took these products religiously. I read endless amounts of info on the subject, from Medical Journals (Harvard’s and Yale’s) to pop-diet books (Atkins) to handfuls of health books (Gut Health, Back to Eden) to anatomy books (Gray’s Anatomy – I wanted to see what the intestines physically looked like) to numerous internet resources (too many to name, most of which had no scientific basis, anyway). But one of the most important steps I took was to get involved with real people who had the problem through message boards (ie. Curezone.com). Indeed, during this time, my health got a little better.

But looking back, I think I jumped to conclusions and didn’t look at the basics of the problem. I changed my diet to what was recommended most: vegetables. For months, all I ate was raw vegetables with olive oil. And I ate A LOT of them (probably up over 150 grams of carbs per day in raw vegetables alone).

I think that the reason my efforts at this point were NOT successful is that Candida is a fungus that thrives on sugar. All carbs break down into sugar. So my extreme approach with the vegetables, although better than eating ice cream all day, was still feeding the yeast. I decided to take a different approach.

In late February of 2004, I began eating almost a pure protein/fat diet very similar to the induction period of the Atkins diet. And I felt MUCH better. Within about a week, my brain fogginess was pretty much under control and I generally felt more optimistic. I stopped taking all products and decided to start from scratch. I ate this way for about a month. Then I hit my complete rock bottom.

I felt really good and I started thinking to myself that maybe I DIDN’T have candida, but instead had blood sugar problems (problems utilizing carbohydrates for fuel). So I decided to test myself. One day in early April, I ate an apple, a pear and some dates (dried fruit, high glycemic, similar to raisins). I felt fine after this so I continued to eat fruit the next day and ate fruit for about four days in a row. Well, the week that followed this stint was HELL. My fogginess became so prevalent that I couldn’t function. I became debilitated and felt like I was watching everything through a TV screen. I could not communicate AT ALL. My speech was jumbled and I couldn’t remember anything to save my life. I hate to admit it but I spent a part of each day in tears. It’s a place that nobody wants to be but dysbiosis sufferers unfortunately fall into at least once. These were the worst dysbiosis-related symptoms that I have ever experienced.

Well, I immediately began the high protein/fat diet again and about a week later, I felt like I was becoming myself again. From this, I have accepted that my problem is most definitely dysbiosis and I want my life back.

Anyone who has read this far has most definitely read every square inch of Karen Tripp’s recovery page. On top of being an extremely caring person who willingly shared her story to help others, Karen is like a shinning beacon in the dark – someone who ACTUALLY overcame this disease. And she is not alone. After reading through her entire site, I read her Guestbook which has been signed many times by people who have followed the program she did and have also completely eradicated their candida! It is important to learn from these examples. The things I see in common between all of these victories are two things – a diet that is low in carbohydrates (using only carbs from low-glycemic foods) and the use of a product called SF722 – an acid that has been on the market for decades to treat dysbiosis.

Now, you must trust me – I have not created this site to make money and I have no marketing connection (or any connection for that matter) with SF722 or the pharmaceutical company that distributes it, Thorne. I am putting myself online as a virtual dysbiosis guinea pig. I am going to start the program that led Karen and many others to victory over candida (I HATE that word) and document my progress as I go. I will record what I eat each day and how I feel and I share it to bring hope to any or all who come here, just as Karen Tripp’s site has brought me so much hope. I am hopeful that the program will work for me but everyone is different. So that’s a bit (or a lot?) about me and the purpose of this website. I write to you at the age of 22 on Thursday, April 29, 2004. Good luck to all of you in your personal battles and I encourage you to return regularly to see my progress.