There is a pretty distinct trend going around. A lot of people that I’ve seen were suffering not only from Candida, but from adrenal fatigue as well. Some of them had adrenal fatigue first; and others developed it as a result of their Candida. Regardless of when it developed, just about everyone needed some form of treatment for adrenal fatigue during the course of his chronic yeast infection treatment.
Understanding Adrenal Fatigue
Basic science and anatomy tell us that the adrenal glands are above our kidneys. These glands produce a series of hormones your body needs to survive – more than 50. Those who are suffering from adrenal fatigue do so because their adrenal glands are not able to function properly. They are literally fatigued – too tired to produce the hormones you need.
Why does this happen? Adrenal fatigue is often caused by stress, but you can have decreased adrenal function if you are suffering from chronic infections – bronchitis, respiratory, pneumonia, and even yeast infections. One of the main symptoms of adrenal fatigue itself is just that – fatigue; and it’s the kind of fatigue that doesn’t go away no matter how much you try to sleep it away. That lack of rest produces more stress within your body, making your adrenal function even worse. It’s a vicious catch-22 situation.
Let’s look at an example. Those who drink coffee think that the caffeine in the coffee is stimulating them. In reality, the caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands and causes them to produce some adrenalin. If you constantly drink coffee, you are constantly stressing your body, causing it to produce low levels of adrenalin. The stress and adrenalin will, over time, lower your immune function, which leads to all of the aforementioned susceptibilities to disease and Candida. Over time, that cup of morning coffee isn’t enough, so you go for a second; then a third or fourth. Maybe you start looking for energy drinks and other stimulants, too. Your adrenal glands can’t keep up and eventually they just give up and shut down.
Your body will, over time, try to make up for the lack of hormones your adrenal glands are producing. You’ll spend a lot of time looking relatively healthy despite feeling pretty tired and generally unwell. You’ll also begin to experience low blood pressure, weakness, and other symptoms as your body becomes unable to properly process sodium and other things you crave.
Adrenal Fatigue and Candida
Those who are suffering from chronic yeast infections are already under an immense amount of physical pressure. Their immune systems are severely compromised, which leads to physical stress on the body. Eventually, the adrenal glands stop producing cortisol, which in turn causes more damage to the immune system. Many are misdiagnosed at first, so they’re taking antibiotics, medications, and stimulants to fight what they think is chronic fatigue, IBS, or something else. They’re pressuring the adrenal glands without even knowing it.
On the other hand, some patients do develop adrenal fatigue before they develop Candida. Adrenal fatigue, in its own right, depresses the immune system because of the lack of cortisol. The weaker your immune system, the easier it is for Candida to grow and thrive within the body.
It’s incredibly important for you to talk to your naturopath about the possible connection between yeast infections and adrenal fatigue as you are being diagnosed and throughout the course of your treatment. While you’ll surely feel better if you’re only treating one, very few people fully recover without treating both conditions simultaneously.
Hey Deborah,
I enjoyed this post. But I am anxious to see what your suggestion is in treating someone with adrenal fatigue while simultaneously having systemic candida as apposed to treating candida overgrowth alone?
Thank you so much for your research and time,
Cody J Boyer
I am not Deborah but I do have both adrenal fatigue and candida. And I have found so much relief when treating both at the same time.
I treat my adrenal with ashwaganha (the higher the dose the more immediate and significant benefit). Also, with eating balanced meal that makes my blood sugar stay balanced. Meaning eat a healthy carb with a protein, don’t eat carbs by themselves. Don’t eat high glycemic foods. Cut out sugar as much as you can (you can have a moderate amount of sugar after treatment, when you have a significant relief of symptons).
No caffeine. A good multi vitamin and a high b-complex vitamin. Reduce stress as much as you can. Cut out things that cause you undue stress. I personally had to stop tutoring a child that was angry and fought doing school work.
In treating the candida I cut up raw garlic and put it in my food. Raw garlic is a miracle in my eyes in treating candida for SO many reasons. One it is cheap. It is so easy to buy. But a bigtime reason is it is so effective. I never got any results when I bought herbs to treat my candida and they were so damn expensive. However, raw garlic has an immediate and long term effect of candida. Maybe the best reason is that candida can’t become immune to it. Raw garlic also helps the adrenal glands. It has so many other kick ass results on bad things going on in our bodies because it is an anti fungal, anti inflammatory, anti bacterial and an anti viral.
Raw garlic helped kill candida so much that my sleeping improved so much. I actually slept through the night. That alone does wonders on healing the adrenals and the body itself.
I also took a digestive enzyme that has bromelain and papain. It has to be taken on empty stomach to work on candida. That did wonders for my pain.
I also took 5 htp because due to the adrenal fatigue I was very low in serotonin. That provided an immense relief of pain, irritability, physical tenseness mood, anxiety and also kept my blood sugar stable.
I hope this help you and so many others suffering from adrenal fatigue & candida. But I also want people to know I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and then years later I developed fibromyalgia. Imo, the ama isn’t interested in finding out what cfs & fibromyalgia really is. They just give these illnesses stupid names and very vague definitions. While they brush off real illnesses like candida and adrenal fatigue. My cfs is adrenal fatigue and my fibromyalgia is candida. When I went into remission from treating my adrenal fatigue and candida I felt the best I ever felt in my whole life!
It is absolutely criminal that the ama ignores illnesses like AF and candida AND bc of that, medical doctors brush us patients off when we talk about AF & candida. Meanwhile, candida and fibromyalgia patients gets mistreated with drugs that do more harm than good. It makes me so angry and frustrated bc nothing is getting done to help us suffering. Everyday more and more people are getting sick with AF & candida but doctors are mis diagnosising them and mistreating them.
Hi Susan,
I have been doing a lot of reading and believe I am suffering from Adrenal Fatigue and Chronic candida. I read your tips above in treating both but feel very alone in this and not confident. Did you see a naturopath to help yiu with this? Just wondering where to start.