A Turning Point? Live Blood Analysis & Candida

Seeing is believing. 

And in some cases, it's believing-and-smack-down-in-your-face-screaming that you have a problem. A problem laid before your very eyes.

This is what I saw when I looked into a microscope at my blood this week:

See all those white blobs and strings? They're massive, disgusting colonies of yeast and fungi taking over my blood and my body. I mean, we're not talking about a little bit of a yeast problem, folks. We're talking about a very serious parasitic issue.

Yes, all those white blobs and strings you see in my blood sample are parasites--living organisms who survive off sugar and fermented food particles leaking from my gut into my blood. 

This method of magnifying one's blood by 1000x is called live blood analysis, also known as blood microscopy analysis or blood smear. By sheer luck (or a divine plan, depending on what you believe in), I happened to be in the right place at the right time last Thursday—a quantum physics lecture on the dangers of EMFs—when I met a blood microscopy analyst named Joe. We discussed my situation and set up a time to look at my blood a few days later.

Let's step back for a moment and look at some healthy blood.

Okey dokey. Now we have something to compare it to. A healthy person's red blood cells should appear perfectly circular and spaced out, not overlapping. The spaces in between the red blood cells should be free and clear of any visible debri. 

Well, massive colonies of yeast/fungi are only the beginning of the problems Joe and I saw under the microscope. 

As you can see in both pictures of my blood, my red blood cells alone are hardly properly shaped, nevermind the yeast (or in this case, black spots which indicate an infection or foreign body of unknown origin). 

Parasites, infections, and fungi aside, what on earth is going on with my red blood cells? I mean, they look absolutely pathetic! They're not round, they're not spaced out, they are just one big clump of smushiness. Yes, I said smushiness. Yes, it's a word. Because I said so.

Based on these (and several other) pictures of my blood, it can be determined that the following are problems for me:

• Systemic candida infection, also known as a yeast or fungal infection
• A state of inflammation
• Imbalanced pH level of my diet (too acidic)
• Leaky gut syndrome (in other pics, we saw food particles)
• Improper protein metabolism (I have to look into this more, but has something to do with eating meat, which I find very hard to avoid—and need to avoid!)
• micro-organisms of unknown origin
• Chronic dehydration

Now, I can't say I'm surprised to learn any of this. After all, I've heard these diagnoses more times than I can remember at this point. No, nothing shocked me beyond the shock of seeing things wiggling and dancing in my blood. That alone was incredibly cool to witness.

I guess hearing a naturopath tell me I'm too acidic, or that I have candida, or that meat isn't being properly digested, has always been an abstract theory that, while believable, has been easy to put out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind, right? I guess the same would hold true for the opposite of that saying: In sight, in mind. I can't unsee what I've seen.

Medical doctors—the ones who spent 25 years telling me it was all in my head—still dismiss all this talk as quackery. Mmkay. Anything that hasn't been peer reviewed, published in medical journals, and funded by Pharma is labeled quackery. If you have any doubt on the validity of blood smears or anything else I discuss on my blog, Google "Kris Carr", read about the thousands of people whose lives she's changed (including her own), and watch her documentary "Crazy Sexy Cancer". Do it. None of this is a joke. She is one of the most inspirational people currently alive.

A final note on candida and fungi:

While many people with health problems of fungal or yeast origin can see white fungi on their toenails, tongue, skin, or yeast coming out of their genitals, I have not. (I've never had "cottage-cheese-like discharge" either.) Yet these seem to be the symptoms you read about on websites on the subject. Don't let your lack of visible, external signs exclude you from consideration that you have candida. As I've learned, if you crave sweets, suffer from acne, chronic fatigue, brain fog and unresolved sinus problems, you likely have the kind of candida that's colonized your body internally. 

And if you bring it up with your doctor, be prepared to be shrugged off. They're not trained to understand it unless they see it on your toenails, in which case you'll be prescribed Diflucan.

Craving sweets is really candida craving sugar to sustain its life. No wonder I've found quitting sugar to be so difficult. When you quit sugar, the candida goes into starvation mode, and you become irritable, and in some cases, rather ill while dealing with the die-off. Remember, candida are living parasites, and when they die, they don't magically evaporate—their dead bodies (all those strings and goo in my first photo) are still floating around in your blood and travel through your detox pathways as they leave your body.

Bottom line is, killing candida will cause even more sugar cravings as they fight for their lives, and then you have to suffer even more before you get better. It's a lot like killing Lyme, and the Herxheimer reaction.

Speaking of Lyme, if you take long-term antibiotics, you automatically have candida. You'd better be taking probiotics every single day and not eating any sugar. Otherwise, while those antibiotics are killing off your Lyme spirochetes, you're inviting lots and lots of yeast and fungi to grow in your body.

While I'm sure my limited doses of antibiotics for Lyme haven't helped my situation, I'm pretty sure my diet is more my culprit. My chronic candida can be traced back to puberty, when I developed untreatable sinusitis and started eating dessert for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Recent antibiotics have only aggravated it, I'm sure.

I've got a plan to clean up my blood. It involves quitting sugar (I'm terrified, but I can't cheat anymore), getting back on a low dose of anti-fungal meds, doubling and then tripling my probiotic intake, and replacing breakfast with a vegetable smoothie daily. I just ordered a bullet something-or-other on Amazon! (I'm opting for a blender over a juicer, because fiber will fill me up and sustain me while juicing will leave me hungry).

I want to share pictures of my blood in six months and see nice, round circles, no clumps, and no more yeast! I can do it! It will be done! I'M SO SICK OF BEING SICK.

I have a feeling this could be a turning point in my health! It's definitely a big part of why I've been so darn sick. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to see my blood and know what my priority should be, because truth be told, it can be very difficult to manage all the coinfections, viruses, bacteria, metals, and other baggage that come along with Lyme disease. Candida is a common piece of the puzzle, and in my case, it might be THE missing piece of the puzzle.

I'll be back in two weeks with an update on my appointments in Washington, DC with a rheumatologist and mast cell specialist. See you then!