It Takes Two To Tango: Testing Your Household for Candida Overgrowth and Common Bugs

You’ve done a full lab work-up with a functional medicine provider and found out you’ve got an overgrowth of some bugs. Maybe Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), Candida albicans, and protozoan gut parasites like Giardia.   

You follow your doctor’s treatment program to get rid of these infections. The only problem? The infections stubbornly refuse to go away and your health problems continue.

So why, oh why, won’t your tests and health conditions clear up?

The problem could be someone else living in your household. Maybe it’s your lover. Maybe it’s your child. Maybe it’s another relative who shares utensils and dishes with you. 

The point is, they could be infected, too. And even if you follow your doctor’s recommendations to the letter, if the people living with you are infected but doing nothing about it, you could get re-infected over and over.

The key to getting rid of the unwanted organisms in your body and feeling better is to have everyone in your household tested. 

In this blog post I’ll share the story of one patient I’ll call Carla and her boyfriend, Neal.  I insisted Neal get tested to see if he had the same organisms that infected Carla. When he was tested, the results were interesting, to say the least.  

 

Carla’s Story: Resolving Pain and Other Problems

Carla’s symptoms began more than 10 years ago, although her health problems became extreme a year ago. She complained of excruciating neck and back pain that became worse a week before and during her period.  

She had extreme fatigue and a history of vaginal and urinary tract infections and now felt a frequent urge to urinate. She also struggled with diarrhea and bloating.  Autoimmune disease ran in her family, specifically her mother. 

To find out what was happening to Carla, I ordered tests. These showed she had a mild H. pylori infection. She had low levels of beneficial bacteria like Clostridia and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. This indicated she had gut dysbiosis, a condition where the good bacteria in the intestines are outnumbered by the bad bacteria.  

She also had mildly elevated levels of the protozoan parasite Giardia intestinalis, as well as some yeast.  

 

The Big Breakthrough in Pain Relief

One of the big breakthroughs in Carla’s case came when we tested her amino acid levels. Her levels of the amino acid homocysteine were very low. Normally, doctors get concerned about high homocysteine levels, since homocysteine is a red flag pointing toward cardiovascular disease risk and inflammation. 

In Carla’s case, since she wasn’t making enough homocysteine that meant she didn’t have enough of the amino acid methionine, which is recycled from homocysteine.

Methionine is essential for a process known as methylation, which regulates many processes in the body. Methylation is involved in the way your body processes estrogen and histamine. It regulates brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. And you need healthy methylation to detoxify those pesticides, herbicides, or pollution you’re exposed to while eating, drinking, or breathing.    

When your methionine levels are low, you don’t make enough of another important substance known as S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe).  

I gave Carla SAMe and guess what happened? Her pain almost completely resolved! The pain now only showed up right before her periods. She was in tears while she was on the phone with me, saying she had “got her life back.”

That was major progress. But we still had to get the pain to go away completely and to improve gut health, because there was likely an autoimmune component to her problems. That’s when I suggested that we order the same tests for her boyfriend. 

 

Fungi and Parasites and Bacteria, Oh My!

So why did I insist Neal get tested? It’s because not everybody who has an infection with a pathogenic microbe actually has symptoms. It’s a concept called, “asymptomatic carrier.” People can have H. pylori or Candida and because they have no symptoms, they would never know they had it- until they get tested. 

Whether or not a person has symptoms from a pathogenic bug is determined by a few factors. It has to do with how robust and resilient our immune systems are and how a bug interacts  with our genetics and our health history. Someone who has leaky gut or autoimmune issues from other causes is going to have a much higher tendency to be symptomatic.

Likewise, someone who has any microbiome destruction is less resilient. It’s like an equation. It depends on how resilient we are versus how pathogenic is the bad microbe.

If you’re sick and your sexual partner isn’t, that can still mean that they have  Candida or H. pylori. Candida can be a reservoir for H. pylori, which is why H. pylori is known to be sexually transmitted. H. pylori can live vaginally inside the Candida.

So, if you have oral sex (blush! blush!), guess what?  Your partner has Candida in their mouth and now they  give it to you after you’ve finally gotten rid of your vaginal yeast problem. Or you could give your partner H. pylori. Not the kind of gifts you want to give each other!

H.pylori infects at least 50% of people, but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. Although it can be asymptomatic, it causes so many problems in so many people that when possible, especially when treating kids, I make sure we do our best to get rid of the infection.

Carla’s boyfriend Neal didn’t have any specific H. pylori or Candida symptoms but he did have some health problems that served as red flags.

He had colon issues including diverticulitis. In this condition, pouches in the colon known as diverticula become inflamed and sometimes infected. This leads to abdominal pain, nausea, fever, and changes in bowel habits.  

He’d also had his gallbladder removed. The gallbladder produces bile, which kills bacteria and fungus.

So it wasn’t surprising that his tests revealed some problems.

 

Testing Carla’s Partner for Intestinal Pathogens

It turns out Neal and Carla had a lot in common. Neal’s test results were similar to Carla’s. He had Giardia. He also had a moderate amount of yeast. In addition, he had a protozoan parasite known as Endolimax nana. 

Like Carla, he also had H. pylori. And like Carla he had low levels of beneficial bacteria in his GI tract. At the same time, he had high levels of opportunistic bacteria that can lead to an imbalance between the good guys in the gut and the bad—in other words intestinal dysbiosis. We see this a lot in people who have had their gallbladder removed because they lose the protective effect of bile against infections.

 

Treating for H. Pylori and Parasites

Based on their test results, I treated Carla and Neal in much the same way. Their H. pylori wasn’t particularly pathogenic, meaning they had less harmful strains. Their symptoms also didn’t match what I might see in someone who has a bad H. pylori infection. 

So instead of treating it like an H. pylori overgrowth, I took a more proactive stance. I had them take PyloGuard probiotic to stop H. pylori from going out of control and causing more problems. When H. pylori is left unchecked it can cause gastrointestinal inflammation and symptoms like reflux, gastritis, ulcers, and more. 

PyloGuard is a specific probiotic called  Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17648 known to inhibit H. pylori. It’s an easy-to-take H. pylori treatment—just open one capsule per day in water and sip it. This approach will help you reduce  H. pylori naturally.   

I also treated both of them for parasites, giardia, and yeast. 

 

Looking to the Future

We’re not done with treatment yet, but we’re seeing a lot of improvement. Carla says her energy is much better and her brain fog has decreased. She had more improvements in her pain after she started taking progesterone. She is a different person.

Prior to beginning the parasite program, Neal complained that his respiratory tract seemed congested. He noticed less congestion after beginning the program.

When Carla first arrived in my office, she was a mess and was at the end of her rope. Now, she’s feeling so much better, which gives her hope and motivates her to take further steps. When you feel even a little bit better you want to keep going. 

As treatment progresses with Carla and Neal, stay tuned for more updates on their progress. 

 

We’ll Help You and Your Loved Ones

If you’re feeling sick and not getting any better, it’s a good idea to have your household members and sexual partner tested and treated, too. You don’t want to keep getting re-infected.  Book a free 15-minute troubleshooting call with me to find out the best course of action. 

If after the call you come on board as a patient, I’ll order the right tests for you and your loved ones, check for common parasites, Candida, and H. pylori if warranted, and get rid of the root cause of your health problems. That way, we’ll restore your energy and make you feel like yourself again. Your loved ones will also reap the rewards of this approach.

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by Kyle Leahy