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For about 7 years, I've been battling undiagnosed Candidiasis. Cutting down wheat and sugar dramatically has mostly eliminated my symptoms, though when I get careless it comes back.

I've talked to three doctors about my symptoms, and done various tests, which don't show anything. None of them seemed to accept the idea that it could be caused by Candida. It's interesting to see it getting some media attention, though certainly this particular report makes me a bit nervous.

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This article has little to nothing to do with chronic Candida albicans infection, which might or might not exist.

Having spent a lot of time in and around various "health food" type communities, I don't see any reason to believe that so-called Candidiasis is actually a fungal infection. It's some kind of chronic inflammatory condition, that's all we know. Anything beyond that is speculation.

True, nothing to do with the article but Candida Albicans does exists in the gastrointestinal tract of about half the population.

It's a commensal organism that sometimes overgrow and becomes pathologic under opportunistic circumstances: it's quite common to see it rise after an antibiotic treatment which kills the bacteria that keep this fungi in check.

Excessive consumption of bread ord sugar also fuel its proliferation

I had this in 2001 when I had a very bad bout of the flu. Toward the end, food started to taste like sand. There were really no other symptoms, though that was bad enough. Went to the doc and he asked if I had HIV (answer: no). He said he'd never seen it in a healthy person. He gave me some lozenges that were almost worse than the original problem. About 3-4 weeks later it was mostly gone. It minorly flared up in the years after that, if I had a cold and skipped brushing my teeth.

Received same HIV question. Severe Candida infections are apparently a new phenomenon.

*severe fungal infections in non immunocompromised patients would be new. Probably what you meant, just making it clear.

I wonder what this means? Have we become weaker or has Candida mutated into something stronger?

It may sound very strange, but I've been free from candidiasis for the last year after I've used Vyvanse 70mg (Lisdexamfetamine) for 1 month to treat a focus problem.

It caused me a big and risky dehydration of my body as a side effect that I don't known why (nor my doctors), but it eliminated candidiases from my body, and I wasn't using any other medication at that time.

How do you know you have candidiasis?

Data is missing. How can you know you've had an undiagnosed condition for 7 years?

Sounds like they have been convinced of it by their own symptoms but it has not had a proper diagnosis.

In my own life experience this is common. People bounce around the medical system with varying diagnoses for many ailments, at various levels of confirmation, and sometimes the doctors aren't sure either.

There is some distinction to be made between the verbs "convinced of" and "diagnosed with". Not to downplay anyone's medical conditions, but there's lots of FUD surrounding candida, too much money on the table, and we should all be careful with terms.

I take it that distinction is why they said "undiagnosed".

It's also quite common to be right and the doctors to just dismiss it (only to be proved by another doctors, sometimes year later).

I have ADHD. I have had it my entire life. I was "diagnosed" with it when I was 14. I was therefore "undiagnosed" for 14 years.

Similarly, cars can have problems that a mechanic can't figure out how to fix. These are generally called undiagnosed problems, but they're still there.

Sure, but this person implied that they had been to doctors and the doctors disagreed with their own self-diagnosis. That's a very different thing than simply not having been diagnosed.

Myself, I was increasingly certain I had an undiagnosed condition for years. My symptoms grew worse and it became apparent that they exceeded the bounds of normality. Doctors brushed off my questions with responses I knew weren’t true. Finally I was diagnosed with celiac disease, which explained why I was so tired after meals (I had thought it was a type ii or iv food allergy, which tests can’t easily detect unlike the type i (anaphylactic). It can make you tired 4-36 hours after ingesting a food). So as of 3-4 years ago I was saying I definitely had some undiagnosed food allergy or problem with eating.

Sometimes it's difficult to get a diagnosis, and sometimes you end up with crap doctors who run more or less the same tests for every patient and write off anyone that doesn't match as a hypochondriac/lunatic/time-waster. And sometimes doctors literally know less about your condition than you do yourself.

If you've never been in this position yourself, I can understand why you'd be sceptical of the OP's claims, and indeed I'm sure there are lots of people that are convinced they have a particular condition despite what tests say.

For context, I was written off by my NHS neurologist because I didn't match his standard battery of tests. My circumstances and symptoms pointed strongly to a small fiber neuropathy, but he scoffed and said it was very unlikely, and refused to do a skin biopsy to confirm it. Instead he labelled me with fibromyalgia, and hoped I'd disappear - but when questioned it was abundantly clear he literally knew next to nothing about fibromyalgia, and presumably used it as a generic label for "time wasters". Eventually I did get him to do the biopsy - which they fucked up. When the results were negative, he again tried to get rid of me, and I had to fight to get him to redo it properly - lo and behold, it was positive.

I had a very similar experience with endocrinology - I have a rare endocrine condition, but the symptoms point absolutely towards a specific diagnosis - instead, I was basically told to "stop this silly nonsense", and it wasn't until several years later that I was diagnosed. NHS endocrinologists have a terrible reputation for anything that isn't diabetes.

People rave about how wonderful the NHS is, but my (unfortunately substantial) experience has been shambolic. It's my observation that doctors (and consultants and registrars alike) don't update any of their knowledge or training since they left medical school, even if that was 40 years previous; they have no interest in recent medical developments; they have no interest in writing case studies or undertaking research; they could basically be replaced by a flow chart.

/rant

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