Yeast and stuff

You know how you feel when you stay up until three a.m. watching Rock Hudson TCM or Three's Company reruns--that heavy exhaustion. That's what I've been feeling everyday, only at noon after eight or nine hours of sleep.

I talked to an old friend last night, who had a similar level of fatigue, and it turns out (after many unhelpful doctors and finally going to a naturopath and paying out of pocket) that she has candidas.

I googled the candidas symptoms and was shocked at how closely they mirror my own symptoms. Fatigue, digestive issues, sensitivity to the eyes (including styes, which I've been dealing with for the last month or so), brain fogginess (specifically forgetting words, which was shocking since I've been doing that for about a month as well), and most importantly thrush. Thrush is a yeast infection on the tongue, and I've had it since Ruby was an infant. Also an inability to lose weight. I've been eating about 1000 calories less per day for six weeks, and have not lost one pound.

So the treatment for candidas starts with a candida cleanse diet, which is EXTREME. The first three months are basically non-sweet and non-starchy vegetables, some limited amounts of grains, eggs and chicken. No dairy, no sugar, no fruit, no fermented foods (vinegars and yeast included.) Then two more three month periods, each increasing the amount of starches and sweet vegetables. Finally, after nine-months you can start adding back in dairy and fruit and fermented foods to see if you tolerate them. Which means adding them back one at a time.

In addition to the diet, there are herbal supplements and probiotics that add to and support the good bacterias in your body while you're killing off the extra yeast and bad bacterias.

I'm going to give it a shot. I'm nervous, because it's so extreme. But if it makes me feel better, it will be worth it. I have a feeling that I'm having a thyroid issue on top of the candidas. We'll see. If the first phase of the diet doesn't make me feel better after a month or so, I'll rethink the whole thing.

And if eating only vegetables and chicken and quinoah for a month doesn't kick start some weight loss I'm going to really be concerned.

In other news, our housing situation is reaching critical mass. The plumbing in the house we rent has finally given up the ghost. The washing machine backed up, so we called the landlady who first tried to make us call and pay for a plumber (I don't think so miss my-house-has-gained-$150,000-while-my-renters-are-paying-my-mortgage.) She finally sent one out, and it turns out that the simple snake job is going to be more like a thousands of dollars, jack-hammer up the living room floor type of job. The guys snake hit something that it wouldn't break through. He said it was likely that the old iron pipes had clogged up with erosion. On top of that, he tried to fix a leaky bathtub faucet and that job is going to run $1000 because the faucet is so ancient that there are no replacement parts for it.

The landlady was so bitchy to the plumber that he was actually smiling when he gave her the news.

She of course is being crappy to us. I can't stand her, there is something about her that really bothers me. I'm not sure what, but she makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

So we're thinking about renting an apartment for the rest of the time that we'll be in Las Vegas. Which sadly (very, very sadly) might be as much as another year. That makes me sick. But we talked to a mortgage guy this morning and it looks like we need to do some more work on our credit before we can get the sort of mortgage we want.

Sigh.