At the age of 15 I began to get chronic urinary tract infections, vaginal yeast infections, and bacterial vaginosis. My parents dragged me from doctor to doctor desperately seeking a cure for my problems, but our concerns fell on deaf ears and we were usually sent on our way with the usual 7 – 10 courses of antibiotics and/or anti-fungal medications.

Usually, for about a week or two after I had taken the prescribed medication, I would feel better but without fail my symptoms would return with a vengeance. I would usually just ignore the discomfort and try to make it a few months due to my reluctance to explain my symptoms to yet another doctor and in turn, just have my explanation belittled. It was very frustrating.

The teenage years are difficult to begin with and my physical problems just made things that much more difficult. I guess in a way feeling that uncomfortable with myself all of the time, kept me away from boys and caused me to focus on my school work and sports. I was a pretty hardworking kid and eventually went off to college to continue to succeed.

With  Systemic Candidiasis there is often a fine line between misdiagnosis and the proper diagnosis.

For instance, a friend of mine was feeling really tired and when her normal doctor didn’t have the answer, she went to a naturopath, who diagnosed her with a Chronic Yeast Infection because she was tired and craved sugar. The naturopath disregarded all of the other common symptoms and put her on a Candida diet.

On the other hand conventional doctors often won’t even consider a diagnosis of a chronic yeast infection even though they have tried everything else, run every test and still cannot help the patient.  So if conventional doctors and naturopaths can’t always be relied on, what’s a person to do?