Slaying the Dragon Inside Me

To slay the dragon....

It is the age old hero's journey that has been told in every epic adventure tale of all time. Sometimes the dragon comes in the form of an external adversary, sometimes it is an internal struggle and other times still, it is an actual fire-breathing, flying giant that has come to terrorize humanity. Either way, the battle is real. 

Modern day dragon mythology often looks similar to what one might see in stories like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where Harry and other fellow students battle an array of dragons in the Triwizard tournament. The actual origin of dragon mythology dates back much further than Hogwarts and Harry Potter though, and it is not limited to any single culture or group of indigenous peoples.

In ancient Egyptian mythology from over 4000 years ago, the giant serpentine creature named Apophis, who was born from the Sun God Ra's umbilical cord, resides in the realm of the dead and is said to be the adversary of the light. Aztecs worshipped Quetzalcoatl, whose name translates to "Precious Serpent" and was said to be the God of Fire. Perhaps some of the most famous Dragon Mythology comes from China, where ancient draconic zoomorphic depictions date back as far as 6200 BC. Even the Chinese character for the word dragon is theorized to have been introduced as early a 4700 BC. Suffice it to say, dragons have been lurking in the lair within every culture, waiting to terrorize us intellectually, emotionally and physically since the dawn of man. 

As I mentioned in my post last week about the Lady in Black on the Bridge, you may have noticed that my weekly posts have been a bit more sporadic since the Thanksgiving holiday. That in no way is a product of lack of things that I have wanted to write about. I am seldom if ever lacking in ideas for topics. The truth is, the real reason I have been posting a bit less frequently is because I have been in the process of slaying a dragon in my own world over the last few weeks. The name the dragon inside me is not Apophis, Quetzacoatl or Yinglong; The name of the dragon inside me is Candida Albicans. 

A few months back, I finally paid a visit to a functional medicine practitioner. The main difference between a functional medicine practitioner and a traditional western medicine doctor is that the functional medicine practitioner looks at how all the body's systems integrate with each other to determine why the patient is feeling out of balance. Chronic diseases are examined from the root to determine why the patient's systems are out of alignment instead of just treating to alleviate the symptoms. Proper nutrition and hormonal balances are paramount in any functional medicine treatment plan, so in addition to checking things like cholesterol and blood sugar, a functional medicine practitioner will draw enough blood and run enough tests to keep even the hungriest of vampires well sated. 

I am a generally healthy person overall. I exercise regularly. I eat fairly well most of the time. One of my biggest frustrations over the past few years has been that no matter how much I cut back on treats or add to my workout regimen, I just could not drop below 200 pounds. The real shocker for me was that when I stopped drinking two years ago that I still didn't shed any pounds. Little by little I started to wonder whether my issues with weight along with just generally feeling less energetic had to do with my thyroid or a hormone imbalance. 

A few days after Thanksgiving I got my test results and met with my practitioner. I was pleased to learn that my thyroid was not only normal, but it was optimal. My hormone levels were all in range with what would be normal for a man in his fifties. In fact one of my hormones, the one my doctor called the "old age hormone" which can be a marker for things like Parkinson's, Dementia and Alzheimer's, was so optimal that she said I had numbers more in line with a man in his early thirties. Go me! My cholesterol was a little high, but nothing to be overly concerned about. My blood sugar and A1C levels were fine. The one and only red flag that came up from the processing of my 15 vials of blood was a little something called Systemic Candidiasis, or in layman's terms, a yeast infection (candida albicans) that had found its way around my entire body. 

"So how does something like this happen and what does it all mean" you might be asking?

I can't really pinpoint the how part of why this all happened. Doctors and clinicians point to the standard things like diet, stress, or the repeated use of antibiotics as possible inception point of a candida overgrowth in the digestive system. While I have only used antibiotics a few times in the last ten years, I am certainly no stranger to stress so that is a definite possibility. Additionally, yeast feeds on sugar so anything in the diet that is actual sugar or can be converted to sugar by our amazing human body is a possible culprit. Even though I eat mostly healthy, I have tended to eat a carbohydrate heavy diet through the years which could very well explain why this thing has gotten a bit out of control.

A certain amount of candida albicans occurs naturally in everyone's digestive system, but an overgrowth if left unchecked can begin to wreak significant havoc on all the body's systems. When candida begins to implant itself into the lining of the stomach and the walls of the intestines, toxins start to leach out (leaky gut syndrome) which can then get into the blood, organs and every cell in the body leading to significant auto-immune issues over time. I will leave it at that for now, because if I fear if go any further nobody will read this week's piece all the way to the end due to my oversharing about my intestinal tract. 

As a part of my follow up appointment with my doctor after Thanksgiving, we outlined the treatment protocol options that were available to me with the caveat that the situation while significant, was not immediately life threatening. If I never did anything then I would almost certainly have additional complications down the road, but how far away that might be and how severe was anybody's guess. My care team did point out that my particular numbers for systemic candidiasis were exceptionally high and that if I did not address it soon with a rigorous protocol that there was a high likelihood that I would have significant complications sooner rather than later, far beyond just weight gain and lethargy. 

The first phase of my treatment protocol can be summed up with these words which my doctor shared with me in discussing our options: 

"Basically we need to starve it to death." 

Yikes! I never thought of anything inside me needing to be starved to death, but it actually makes total sense. Yeast is activated (fed) by sugar. When it comes to baking bread, if you have a sourdough starter that has gone inactive, it will come back to life with a little water and flour. In reality, I have had an unbaked pile of bread dough in my belly for years and every time I eat, no matter how healthy it is, I am feeding that dough with actual sugar or something that can be converted into sugar like rice, bread, pasta, beans or any of the other multitudes of delicious carbohydrates that exist in the world. No wonder why my belly was always twice as big at the end of the day than it was in the morning even if I had eaten sparingly throughout the day. 

You probably know by now what the first step in my treatment plan was going to be, don't you << Test First Name >>? I was going to have to eliminate every thing that is sugar or could be converted into sugar in the body. No bread. No rice, No potatoes. No sweet treats for the holidays. Not even fruit!! I am no stranger to doing occasional nutritional cleanses through the years, but the candida diet is the most specific eating regimen I had ever seen. I choose the word specific instead of the word restrictive because I in no way want to view my current situation as punitive, nor am I a victim. My care team told me that it would be fine for me to wait to begin the cleanse until after the New Year to avoid having to miss out on a few holiday treats along the way; that I could cut back a bit for now and then go all in when January came around. I thought about it for a day, but then something inside me just clicked. 

I had NO desire to wait any longer to feel better. I had been moving through life for years, intuitively knowing that something was out of balance inside me, but I could not figure out what it was. Now that I knew what it was, I wanted to act swiftly and immediately. I wanted to slay the dragon inside me and move onto my next hero's journey revitalized, empowered and ready to conquer the next adversary in my path! 

I am now on day 20 of the cleanse. The first week was brutal as I adjusted to the specific eating plan. I also had to experience what is called a Herx reaction as the candida infection started to die off inside my body, which included side effects such as massive fatigue, headaches from sugar withdrawal at the deepest level, brain fog, digestive issues and general irritability. For the last week or so though, I have started to feel better overall than I have in years. My energy levels are up. My mental clarity is higher than it has been in over a decade. The scale has been kind to me as well in that I have lost a whopping 18 pounds in less than three weeks. 

About ten days into my new adventure, I was discussing what the "candida die off" felt like to me with my wife Christiana. After she heard the words I used to describe my feelings, she responded by saying:

"Not only is the candida a living thing inside your body, it actually has a consciousness..." 

My immediate response was, "Ew! I don't even want to think about that!" I was instantly taken back to scenes from the movie Alien with Sigourney Weaver from my early teen years. That movie horrified me back then, it still horrifies me now and I had no desire to think about a sentient life form living inside my digestive system. 

After further reflection though, Christiana is entirely right. Please don't tell her I wrote that line. I'll deny it to the end of days, but she was indeed spot on. That thing that has been living inside me for who knows how long is now on the ropes. It is trying to fight for its life by breathing fire not only throughout my physical body, but also through my mental and emotional bodies, As with all adversaries we face in life though, there is an intelligence and wisdom to be gained by getting to know them better.

Come to think of it, I am grateful for the opportunity to get to know this dragon inside me and I honor its right to have a consciousness that can live with me and be a part of me without necessarily harming me. In a world where there can be a tendency to try to destroy those that we see as adversarial, isn't it a different energy to try to come to terms with the dragons of life, tame them and use their fire within as a tool to develop a deeper understanding of the other things we are all working on inside ourselves each and every day. 

I'm sure I'll have much more to say about this journey that I am to optimal health and well being. The idea of writing more about Candida Consciousness is already dancing in my mind. I just need to get a little further down the path to ruminate it all. From what I have been told, this protocol will last somewhere between 3 moths and a year. Along the way I look forward to engaging with a few of the other dragons in my life. As always, you my faithful readers will be the first to read the stories as they unfold. 

Peace and blessings to you all. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, my wish for you is that the magical child within gets the sword, the shield, the wand or whatever else it is that your heart desires. 

Much love, 

Jim