torstai 19. tammikuuta 2017

Recovery is not a linear line - reminder to my self - Candida and Anxiety


I have had some stress in school this week. Actually I always get quite stressed when the new semester starts at the university. This is nothing new to me, and I am sure that this is quite normal for the most students. But still i feel the stress very intensely, more intensely than others. I have had constant headaches, not sharp but dull. They are just back there in my head for the whole time. They don't go away, but their volume goes up and down depending on my stress levels.

Recovery is not a linear line. That's always good to remember because always you wish that it would be and you always believe it to be.

Now, as the weekend is coming, I had to take some time to myself. I was getting hopeless. I had to go to youtube and google to find some peer support. And luckily I found. These two videos helped me tremendously.
Especially this last video was a good reminder for me. If you are doing everything right, meditating, staying positive, exercising, eating healthy and all that and you still are f*cking anxious for no reason. You know that there is basically nothing wrong with your head. You know that this anxiety does not come from your "wrong behaviour" or "self-sabotaging thinking". It comes from your gut. The problem lies down there where all almost all the neurotransmitters are made. 

lauantai 14. tammikuuta 2017

Omega-3 and omega-6 for anxiety

I have always been curious about supplements and how they can play a big role when treating an anxiety disorder. Last fall I made a big breakthrough in my recovery. I started taking a great dose of fatty acids regularly.

Some people could say that you really should take your fatty acids from real food, like salmon or other fish sources. In my opinion, that might be quite hard and expensive. It is lot easier to order some omega 3 capsules from iHerb or just buy them from your local grocery store. You can get them from a local store in my country, and I think that most decent stores in the US also sell these important fatty acids.


As I started taking these supplements, it took maybe 2 weeks before I noticed some difference in my mood. But I definitely felt when they kicked in, and I have taken those ever since. Normal dose of omega 3 capsules would be 2-3 capsules per day, but if you are treating an anxiety disorder, you should take 4-6 capsules at least couple of months. Also, it would be good to add some oils which also contain omega 6, such as hemp oil or flaxseed oil.

Here is what I did/still do:
- 5 capsules of omega 3 /day
- 4 teaspoons of hemp oil (cold pressed) / day
I took a questionnaire on this site http://www.ocd-free.org/ and they suggested me these doses of fatty acids.




keskiviikko 11. tammikuuta 2017

How I got diagnosed with Candida Albicans and imbalance in my gut flora

In this blogpost, I'm going to share with you guys how I got tested and diagnosed.

So, at the functional/holistic doctor's office, i was asked about my diet, possible mold exposure, stress levels and so on. I told that I always had had problems with my gut. I am also a lactose-intolerant. I have always drank lot of milk (lactose free for past 4 years). I have had pretty high stress levels also in my teen years. The doctor was sure that I had Candida in my gut, and she was right.

She said that we should test me for my candida, and she said that I should take this test: Genova GI effects. It is a stool profile test, and because they don't analyze those in my country, I had to send my sh*t to Germany where they analyzed it. I think that if you take the same test for example in USA, you don't have to send anything to another country :). There are also easier and cheaper ways to test yourself with candida, but I think that stool profile was a safe bet.  https://www.thecandidadiet.com/testingforcandida.htm



After I had sent my sh*t to germany, it took about 4 weeks for the results to come. I did not understand the results by myself, and I had to wait for my next session with the doc where she explained that I had Candida albicans in my gut. I also had "imbalanced gut flora". These findings matched perfectly with me. I had always had problems with my stomach and a lot of gas. I felt some relief already. This might just have been the answer that I had been looking for the past 3-4 years.

tiistai 10. tammikuuta 2017

Pilot Post - Anxiety - OCD - Candida Albicans - Yeast - Diet - Nutrition

Hi everyone! Hope you are all ok :)

I am 22 year-old man diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Now, after a 4.5 year struggle, I finally feel that I am really getting better. I wouldn't say that I am fully cured, but definitely 50% cured already. I don't use any SSRI's, but instead I have a new diet. I also got tested for yeast called candida, thank god, because I had it in my gut.

Maybe I have always had those conditions, but they did not affect my life that much until 4 years ago, when my first bad experiences with ocd and anxiety started. I remember the day as it would be yesterday. I was sure that I would become crazy. I won't go into details about my thoughts, at least not yet, because not everyone knows enough about ocd and how it works. I can say that my ocd was pure o type. I managed to live with it, although it did affect me a lot. If you know or have ocd, you really know what I mean. Somehow I managed to continue my life with ocd, and after 2 years of struggling I got diagnosed with it and GAD. At the same time, I started to learn about anxiety and ocd and how you could treat those horrible conditions. I found ERP, meditation and accepting. All of those methods were helpful to some extent, but I knew that I was not feeling how I should if I would be ok. It was an interesting but anxious time in my life. I was anxious, but not so ocd anymore.

Now it was more or less GAD, with some ocd left. 2 more years went on, and I learned how to take control of my life little bit better. No one (except those who knew the situation) really saw that i suffered with anxiety, and I was functioning quite good. I had hobbies, I worked and studied as usual, althought I really had some tough and desperate periods when I tried to find answers but found absolutely nothing. I had constant (dull, not sharp) headaches and chest pains. My shoulder muscles were also pretty tight and painful at times. I could not tolerate stress or loud voices. I looked for answers, and I tried everything from meditation to supplements, but I could not find the real answer to my problems. It was so frustrating. At the time me and my mom were sure that it had something to do with nutrition and food. But we did not know about a yeast called candida albicans.

Things did not get better until my mom took me to a functional/holistic doctor who got me to take a stool test for candida after interviewing me. She was thinking that it could be the problem behind my symptomps. I was skeptical, because I had researched so much by myself, but secretly I was very hopeful..

#OCD #GAD #Candida #Yeast #Nutrition and anxiety #Anxiety Diet