Last week, we talked about antibiotics.
Specifically, how to prevent damage to your gut & health if you find yourself in a situation where you have to take them.
In other words, flood your body with probiotics and fermented foods during and after your course of antibiotics in order to prevent bad bacteria from proliferating and causing an imbalance.
But what about if you’ve already taken many rounds of antibiotics in your life, and never took these preventative measures?
I’m willing to bet this is most of us. And it used to be me as well.
The thing is, not having the proper bacterial balance in your gut can lead to all sorts of issues… including digestive problems, yeast infections, full body inflammation, allergies, and it all can trickle down into a lot of skin problems… including acne, as well as eczema and rashes.
So is all lost if you’ve taken lots of antibiotics?
Will your gut, digestion, and subsequently skin be doomed to forever sub-parness?
No, there are definitely things you can do to heal your gut and get your bacterial balance back in line, which is one big factor in leading to skin that is vibrant and acne free.
However, the more antibiotics you’ve been on, and the longer you’ve been on them, the more you may need to work on this.
So here’s my list of things to do to heal that gut:
- Take Probiotics & Eat Fermented Foods
- Take a Short Course of Antifungals Along with Your Probiotics
- Keep Sugar Intake Low
- Take L-Glutamine & other Gut Soothing Foods
- Avoid Foods You’re Sensitive To
- Put It All Together with A Candida Cleanse
1. Take Probiotics & Eat Fermented Foods
Probiotics are good bacteria. In order to be in good overall health, you need to have more good bacteria in your gut than bad bacteria.
This is what antibiotics do: they kill all bacteria, including the good guys, then leaving an opportunity for the bad guys to overgrow.
So you need to add the good guys back in.
This is the cornerstone of any gut healing program. If your gut isn’t too damaged, taking probiotics may be the only step you need to take.
Probiotics can be taken in supplement form (click here for recommendations & what to look for), or they can be found in certain foods that have been cultured with beneficial bacteria, called ‘fermented foods’.
Yogurt is an example everyone knows. Others include live sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir, and pickles.
The thing is though, is that the food has to be “live”, meaning it wasn’t heated afterwards to kill the bacteria. So the average sauerkraut or pickles that you get at the grocery story isn’t going to cut it.
Make your own, unless you have a health food store nearby that sells live fermented foods.
2. Take a Short Course of Antifungals Along with Your Probiotics
Okay so antifungals are natural foods and supplements that kill bad bacteria and bad yeast (often referred to as candida).
So it’s not a bad idea to take a round of antifungals along with your probiotics, in order to kill some of the baddies and make a little room for the good guys you’re adding in.
You don’t want to take antifungals forever though. Take them for three or four weeks and then continue with your probiotics for many months after you’re done them. Also, don’t take them at the same time of day as your probiotics or fermented foods.
Examples of antifungals are caprylic acid (found in virgin coconut oil), raw garlic, pau d’arco, black walnut, oil of oregano, or grapefruit seed extract.
It’s not a bad idea to take several of these at once, in order to hit the bad guys from every angle.
To make it easy on yourself, you can also just buy a formulated anti-fungal product such as Candigone, which contains many different antifungals.
3. Keep Sugar Intake Low
Next thing you want to do is keep sugar intake low. Bad bacteria and yeast love to eat sugar, so if you lower or eliminate their food source, they will die more easily.
In most cases, it’s only the refined or added sugar that is hugely problematic to your health and skin – like, for example, the sugar that’s added to cookies.
But in the case of trying to re-balance your gut, you may also want to reduce natural sugars as well, such as those that are in fruit. Just for a short while.
4. Take L-Glutamine & Other Gut Soothing Foods
Okay, so one thing that happens when bad bacteria gets out of control in your gut is that it irritates your gut lining.
Then, due to this irritation the gut lining starts opening up and creating little holes, in which certain undigested foods can then sneak into your blood stream. This is called leaky gut.
You body sees these food particles as foreign invaders, creates an immune response, and you end up with all sorts of weird symptoms and inflammation throughout your body.
This is essentially what leads to acne, rashes, headaches, and all the other things that don’t seem connected to your gut, but actually are.
So anyway, you want to close up those holes and sooth your gut lining. One thing you can do is take a supplement called L-Glutamine. This is an amino acid which is super powerful at healing leaky gut.
Other things that are soothing to the gut lining and help it to repair itself are aloe vera juice, slippery elm, grassfed gelatin, or homemade bone broth.
5. Avoid Foods You’re Sensitive To
Foods you’re sensitive to are the foods that get into your blood stream via your leaky gut and cause your body to give you an unpleasant reaction.
Your body doesn’t necessarily react to all foods. It’s more likely to react to ones that are hard to digest, although you can be sensitive to any food.
For example, you might find that when you eat dairy, you get acne or feel really lethargic. But, you know, eating an apple is no biggie.
In order to help your gut heal, it is beneficial to avoid foods you’re sensitive to for at least 6 weeks.
This reduces the irritation in your gut, and it also takes your immune system off high alert, meaning your body has more energy to heal. Once your gut is healed, you should be able to eat many of the foods you were sensitive to without much issue.
But how do you know what foods you’re sensitive to? I am not going to lie. It’s not easy, because the connection between symptoms and what foods you ate is not always immediate or obvious.
A good place to start is simply avoiding the foods that are the most common sensitivities. This includes dairy, foods containing gluten, and soy.
If after a couple months, you’re not seeing much progress, you can embark on an elimination diet, or by visiting a naturopath and getting a food sensitivity test.
6. Put It All Together With A Candida Cleanse
One thing that I HIGHLY recommend for getting your health and skin back on track if you’ve ever taken antibiotics is to do a three week candida cleanse.
Not only is it highly effective for re-balancing your gut and setting you up for lifelong good health, it’s extremely effective for getting rid of acne quickly. It’s one of the most beloved acne-fighting tools by the members of my Naturally Clear Skin Academy.
Basically, a candida cleanse puts all of the above steps together into one concentrated program.
You take probiotics, you take antifungals, you soothe your gut, you eliminate all sugar, and you avoid all the common food sensitivities.
I have found it to be such an effective strategy that I put together a whole candida cleanse program to make it all really simple for you.
I lay out super comprehensive step by step details, created a one week sugar free meal plan for you as well a whole book of additional recipes, tell you how to take all the supplements at the right time, and give you 10 motivational videos to keep you going.
It’s the easiest way to make sure you are getting the most benefit from your efforts!
Check out my candida cleanse program here, only available as part of the Naturally Clear Skin Academy.
Peace!
11 Responses
Hi Tracey, I’ve been taking candigone supplements now for 1 week and have eaten no processed and natural sugars in the week too. I have noticed the thick white coating on my tongue begin to be thinner. I also take probiotics with the candigone supplements too. I was wondering if eating quinoa, short grain brown rice, chick peas, green speckled lentils, red kidney beans, aduki beans and raw nuts until the oral thrush has gone is okay, as I understand they are high in carbohydrates? Is tofu okay to eat too, as well as avocado? I’ve not eaten sweet veg ie carrots, beets, tomatoes and all potatoes either-due to the sugar.
Also, do you know if there is a link between oral thrush and dry skin around the mouth and nose? If so, then when my oral thrush will go, then my dry skin should go too!
I drink about 10 cups of bottled filtered water a day, along with green organic veg.
My final question is how long after my oral thrush has gone, can I begin to eat the take away currys, pizzas, cod and chips, mixed berries, potatoes again, or should I stop for good incase my oral thrush comes back again?
Many thanks if you reply 🙂
Hi Shane, it is best to lower carbohydrates on an anti-candida diet (I generally recommend no beans, no grains except quinoa & buckwheat, and nuts are ok but soak them first to remove mould), but the foods you’ve mentioned are also very healthy foods that are generally low in sugar and may be fine… there is definitely a grey area when it comes to anti-candida foods. Either way, sounds like the thrush is reducing, so sounds like what you’re doing is working. So you can keep eating them if you want.
I don’t know about the dry skin link. If it’s rashy, then yes, if it’s just dry flakey, then not necessarily. And as for when to eat the foods mentioned again, well it is always best to stay away from these things for the most part for your health and skin as they are not the healthiest and can definitely encourage candida to come back, although after you’ve balanced things, your body should have a bit of a resistance… ie. you may be able to eat these things every so often with no trouble! When perhaps prior to your candida diet protocol, these things may have had more of a negative effect on your body and skin
Hi Tracy, I am seriously considering a Candida cleanse, since I have been getting a few more pimples that I would be comfortable with. I don’t have any Candida symptoms, but I would do the cleanse to detox and reset my hormones. Anyhow, do you have any tips how to do the cleanse on a budget? I can’t afford organic meats, also I avoid eating animal products because of ethical reasons. Could you give me some advice on this? Maybe how to do it as a vegetarian? Is that even possible without losing a ton of weight? I am pretty small as it is and don’t want to lose weight and feel tired all the time because I have a pretty stressful job. So to tie it all together, do you have any suggestions for people on a budget and what would be the staple foods besides veggies on a vegetarian version? Also no dairy for me, because I am allergic. Thanks so much, I love you with all my heart, whenever I have a bad skin week I always come to your page to get some motivation. Also, you inspire me to try and love myself instead of constantly putting myself down. Thank you again.
Hi Nalika – people do the cleanse as a vegetarian but it does make it a lot harder. You could do it, with a lot of eggs (dairy isn’t allowed anyway). A lot of veggies. Some quinoa, some buckwheat. Certain nuts if you soak them. You could bend the rules a bit and add in some brown rice too. If you were willing to eat a little meat, a bit of non-organic meat would be ok too, just to give you some extra protein. It’s pretty limiting. And you just have to make sure you are really eating a lot all the time in order to not lose weight. Even if you did lose a little weight though, you’d gain it back after. Anyway, sending my best if you would like to attempt it! So happy to hear that I’ve influenced you to have a healthier relationship with yourself 🙂
Hi Stacy,
I recently went to see a doctor and explained that I thought I had severe Candida, but when the tests came back there were “no traces of yeast” and instead I was found to have bacterial vaginosis. That said, I was put on antibiotics and, surprise surprise, I got a crazy yeast infection that I am battling now. I also feel like I have IBS, though I might just be triggered by the constant stress from university studies and a home climate full of negative energy.
I want to kill the Candida and repopulate my gut (and get rid of my cystic back acne) and I have been reading a lot (as I have for the past YEARS… I am near desperation) about natural aids for this.
What do you think or know of the following for killing Candida?
– Diatomaceous Earth taken with Activated Charcoal
– Lactoferrin Supplement
I am planning on:
– Restricting my diet (yet again) to gluten-free, sugar-free, lactose-free although this leaves me incredibly depressed
– Taking a multi-strain probiotic
– Drinking apple cider vinegar with water morning and night
– Drinking diatomaceous earth with activated charcoal in water everyday
– Taking lactoferrin
– Taking a multivitamin
– Taking Omega-3
Anything else you can suggest?
Thanks a million!
Ekaterina
Hi Ekaterina, there are different protocols for candida cleansing, here’s what mine involves:
– Taking a variety of natural antifungals (pau d’arco is an example, you can google lists of them)
– Probiotics
– Psyllium husk to ‘sweep out’ the bowel
– Completely sugar free diet, including natural sugars.. this is also allergen free (so no dairy, gluten, etc)
All of the ingredients you describe could be very helpful additions to the candida cleanse, but they aren’t central to it in my opinion, except for probiotics. It seems like you are missing the antifungals!
It’s been 5 years after derms destroyed my gut and body. They stuffed me with so many antibiotics for acne that’s it’s crazy. I regret every day, every minute that I was so stupid and believed them. I tried everything to help me, but with no avail. I mean probiotics are like stopping fire with cups of water. There are thousands of strain of bacteria in our gut, most probiotics have only few. Maybe only fecal transplant could help me, but my life is already destroyed by those “doctors”. I’ve lost everything. Somebody should stop this, because I’m not the only one. Every year they destroying thousands of young people lives. My only dream in life is that one day derms will stop overprescribing antibiotics like crazy for acne.
Me too.. I’m very sorry what happened to you Umas, sending love your way x
Thanks. Sometimes I don’t have energy to try to repair myself, but – that’s maybe silly – I have a cat, and she can put smile on my face. No one will care for her if not me, so I’m trying to fix what derms destroyed. Recently I started to make my own kefir. I don’t know if it’s helping but it’s really tasty.
So in September 2017 I started getting mild acne after I used an ACV mask and it burned my skin. And it only got worse and worse cause I stressed a lot and used the wrong kind of skincare . So i was pressured to use Doxycycline. 50mg a day which a take at night and in the morning I take a probiotic and a 1000mg vitamin C supplement. I have been on them for six months and have two months Left. What can I do to resolve this mess . I don’t want acne to come back and want to restore my gut. I just don’t know what to do. I am fairly frustrated at this point cause it feels like doctors dont help. What can I do in terms of diet . I am using a natural acne face wash that has Vegetable glycerine, calcium montomorillonite clay , rooibos tea, magnesium, geranium and lavender oil. Plus I use a colloidal silver bar soap with glycerine. I also use Benzac 5 which Is BP( I am from south africa). Is there anything I can do that will help this situation
Hi Jenna-leigh! Get on a really good probiotic and eat lots of fermented foods to reverse any damage to the gut from the antibiotics. Go to a super simple skin care routine. Just incredibly minimal. And work on calming your anxiety — things will get better <-- your post shared it's own answer. Anxiety is what created a mountain out of a mole hill. That is the answer.