Along the length of your entire intestinal tract, from mouth to rectum, lives a world of organisms - bacteria and fungi, including candida yeast species, that live in relative harmony with both each other and the host system. When things inside our body are balanced and constant, their presence has no effect.
Bacteria like candida are helpful because they help key body functions like breaking down food, secreting anti-biotic substances, and producing vitamins. Once this state of homeostasis is disturbed, chances are that over time this will develop into an intestinal Candida infection.
Overuse of antibiotics hurts your intestines and can cause internal dysbiosis. When one's intestine becomes disturbed, candida can morph from a static state into a pathogenic form (aka mycelial). The mycelial form grows what is known in medical terms as 'long hyphens, which damages the lining of the gut by puncturing holes.
A "leaky gut", the result of this phenomenon, causes larger molecules of toxins and partially-digested food to enter the bloodstream. Because they are foreign particles, our body activates our immune system to neutralize this threat. Eventually, the odds of allergic responses to these contaminants or molecules increase, and chronic problems may be a consequence.
The opinion of few doctors that after the use of antibiotics, any candida overgrowth will control itself just like bacteria is completely false. Candida has the ability to crowd out other organisms and prevent healthy bacteria from recolonizing the gut if it becomes pathogenic and takes over large parts of the intestinal lining.
A person who has an intestinal candida infection may exhibit a number of symptoms that seem to be unrelated. Many symptoms of canida infection in the intestine correlate directly to the digestive system and include such common ailments as abnormally copious flatulence, severe diarrhea, and abdominal bloating.
Patients are often misdiagnosed with irritable colons, also known as irritable bowel syndrome. IBS is described as a condition with the aforementioned symptoms, but with blood and bowel readings that aren't abnormal.
One of the reasons that candida infections are often erroneously diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome is that physicians often do not order the correct tests. Unless the correct tests are done, patients receive treatment only for their symptoms if they receive any treatment at all. Candida is found normally in our body and that makes detecting it and correctly diagnosing difficult. You can determine the likelihood of intestinal candida by filling out a thorough questionnaire and a complete health history.
Immune responses can also cause several other yeast infection symptoms that go along with an intestinal candida infection. Over a period of time pathogenic candida causes leaky gut syndrome which breaches the integrity of the walls of the intestine.
Symptoms of allergies, facial rash, eye irritation, hives, sensitivity to chemicals, sinus congestion, and skin diseases are all a direct response to your immune system overreacting to the presence of Candida and its related toxins. Sufferers or intestinal candida feel extremely fatigued and often develop generalized muscle weakness or bone pain due to the stress on their system.