Die Off?

7 years ago i was prescribed terbinafine by my doctor for a fungal nail infection that had hung around for a couple of years. I was also drinking alot of alcohol at the time, my parents were separating and we were moving house - stress! The course of antibiotics was about 3-6 months long and i found that after a night on the beer/any other form of alcohol i would develop red spots on my forehead. These would last about 1-3 days and then go away until the next time i over did the drink, and they were come back. At the time i also linked it to high sugar foods too and bread. The course finished and most of the nail infection cleared up. Then, 3 months ago the nail infection was back and having spent most of the winter (4-5 months) on antibiotics for a chronic ear infection, the doctor, once again prescribed terbinafine for 3 months. After the first few days of taking terbinafine these spots on my forehaed were back with avengeance. I stopped taking the antibiotics straight away but now cannot get rid of the spots. I'm fairly sure it's candida so i tried taking probiotics, pau d'arco, garlic capsules and now apple cider vinegar, but all of these seem to make my condition worse. Could this be the 'die-off' period, and if so, how long is it likely to last? My condition, apart from making me very tired and irritable, is quite embarrassing, i'm nearly 30 and sometimes look like a spotty teenager!! Can anyone help me pleeease??


Do you get them anywhere else?


Not really, just the forehead. Although i do get a similar thing at the top of my arms, towards the back, it's not exactly the same though, more like raised pimples and at least i can cover them!!


Dan, the terbinafine and alcohol can do serious damage to the liver, you might want to have some tests run, in rare cases it has led to total liver destruction.
The die off symptoms you describe are normal when you take antifungals and have a candida overgrowth, if you don't get them then they are not doing any good, its something you have to learn to live with, when it gets overwhelming, stop and rest and go back later. There is no answer to how long it takes to eliminate a candida overgrowth, its according to how long its been out of control and with all those antibiotics you have taken I'd say you probably have a pretty good case of it but you are young, if you do the right things now you could get lucky and get rid of it quickly, concentrate on the gut and liver, cleanse the bowels and replant the good bacteria.


Thanks Tom. I've recently had a blood test (i think the GP suspected liver damage too) but the results say my liver is fine. However, they have now referred me for a Glucose Tolerance Test, i figure this may be down to the candida though?! Do you think i'm taking the right things? ACV, Pau d'arco and garlic..??

Thanks for you help by the way..


Dan, what you are taking will do very little to cleanse and rebalance the intestinal track, you've got to do some serious bowel cleansing and some serious replacment of the good micro-organisms. I would suggest you do the liver cleanse with Epsom salts and look into Kefir for your probiotics, also there is a cultured product on the mkt now that contains the Bifido bacteria (activia), you can get it at the grocery, this would be good to take along with the Kefir. You can get the Kefir grains at www.kefirlady.com and the instructions for the liver cleanse are posted below to Banda.


Activia - you mean the yoghurt?


Yes, it has the Bifido in it which is the dominant bacteria in the large intestine and I'm not sure the Kefir has Bifido.


Thanks Tom.


I forgot to mention that I think its a waste of time and money to take the doc's GTT. If you have candida overgrowth hypoglycemia goes along with it, all the endocrine glands are affected, get the candida under control and the gut rebalanced and the sugar problem will go away. If you want to know how your blood sugar is acting, its a simple test you can do on your own and some drug stores now will give you the meter if you buy the strips.