How Long Does it Take to Kill Candida?

What is Candida?

Candida is a genus of yeasts, many species of which can be found living in most humans and animals. In most cases, Candida (usually Candida albicans in mammals) is commensal, meaning it lives with the other flora in the gut without causing any particular harm. Certain changes in environment, like a sudden lack of balance between yeast and bacteria in the body will sometimes trigger the harmless single-celled Candida to become a multicellular invader. Overgrowth of the yeast is referred to as candidiasis 1.

Medical Treatment

There are multiple home remedies for treating the various manifestations of candidiasis. For yeast infections, there are several over-the-counter drugs such as:

• Butoconazole (Femstat)
  
• Miconazole (Monistat)
  
• Tioconazole (Vagistat),
  
• Clotrimazole (Femizole-7
  
• Gyne-Lotrimin)

Treatment with these products should clear up symptoms in about a week.

Systemic Candidiasis

There is a large contingency of alternative medical practitioners that believes many diseases are caused by excess Candida in the system. Many of these claims are unproven and have few studies but many articles on the subject and products for sale on alternative health product websites. To fully deal with this full-system problem, they say that treatment requires 6 to 12 months to use natural therapy to restore balance to the body. They recommend products that restore the body's bacteria such as acidophilus and bifido bacteria to prevent the growth of candida. Additional recommendations include oil of oregano capsules, glutamine capsules, grapefruit seed extract and wormwood. They also believe that a diet low in sugars of all forms will help to deprive the candida of its food source. When the candida begin to respond to treatment, they will start to die off, which will cause multiple symptoms in the body for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.