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Could stress and anxiety be what caused oral thrush?

I have been under severe stress for the past five years starting with my son being diagnosed with schizophrenia. This has consumed my every waking moment. I cry a LOT and worry about him and what he's going through. I've never been diagnosed with anxiety or depression, just normal situational things, but with my son's diagnosis, I'm not even the same person. Anyway, my question is: After five years with all this heartbreak, friends and family keep telling me how my health will begin to fail ..... I've basically always been super healthy but now I have no desire to eat much, let alone shop for and prepare healthy meals!  Could all of this caused oral thrush or candida overgrowth? Anybody heard of this?
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973741 tn?1342342773
I just want to say that I am really sorry to hear about your son's diagnosis!  Mom to mom, I'm can only imagine how hard that is.  The worry for them now and their future over all.  I hope that he is compliant and takes his medication and has the condition under control.

I've noticed, since you mention food, depression and anxiety, that all of this affects my hormones.  (not to mention my age).  My thyroid is impacted if I have low grade depression.  Thyroid affects hormones.  Hormones affect discharge and all of that good stuff.  If you are itching with the hall mark signs of yeast overgrowth, and this is recurring --  please talk to your doctor.  

I try to cut back on sugar when I'm having these types of issues.  Try to air yourself out like sleeping without underwear for a while.  Wear only cotton underwear.  Never douche!!  Try probiotics (either the pill or I like the probiotic yogurts and drinks).  

But it does sound like it is time to take care of you and visit your doctor to discuss the fungal issue as well as your stress and anxiety and depression.  Therapy may be a great out let for you as well.  hugs
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3 Comments
Thank you so much! I have started eating yogurt with live cultures? I think it's called. I plan to go with soy milk and I've cut way back on sugar--at least those foods that are obviously sugar. I'm touched by your mother comments. I rarely find people who can understand how I must feel, except for my FB groups and Sz forums, where almost everyone is a mother who has an adult child with Sz. It is a sad and lonely disease, not only for the afflicted loved one, but for all family members who witness this.
Be careful to read the label on the soy milk -- most milk substitutes add a lot of sugar.  Edensoy Original is a good one to try, as it has some sweetener but not sugar and some seaweed in it which helps to counteract some of the downsides of phytic acid.  There are also unsweetened soy milks, but taste can be a problem there -- remember, one reason people like milk is it's loaded with sugar (lactose).  As for yoghurt, if you have a yeast infection, I'd still recommend you stay away from dairy, and yoghurt is dairy.  The cultures in dairy are killed off when they pasteurize it.  if you buy very high quality organic yoghurt, they usually add some back in, but not a lot.  Yoghurt is more of a prebiotic, meaning food for probiotics, than a probiotic.  But you can buy probiotic supplements in the refrigerated section of the best health food store in your area that contains billions of organisms as opposed to the very few that survive in yoghurt unless you're making you're own out of raw milk, which is unlikely.  What's much better than yoghurt for that is actually fermented and cultured vegetables, such as sauerkraut and Kim chi.  Great prebiotics.  And also remember, white bread can turn to sugar in your system faster than actual sugar.  But you do need a diagnosis -- you can't diagnose a yeast infection or thrush by yourself.  A lot of people have white tongues without having thrush, and problems that seem like candida but aren't.  If you do have candida, just starving it probably won't kill it -- you do need to do something to kill it, though there are natural ways to do that if you don't like medication.  The diet will keep it from coming back again and becoming a chronic problem.  I wish I could help more with the problem of your son, but I can't even solve my own problems.  What I can tell you is, love is better than mutual suffering for both of you.  Your son doesn't want you to feel bad.  Neither does Mom and neither do I.  Peace.  
Oh, and make sure the probiotic you buy has Reuteri cultures featured in it -- it's good for preventing yeast.  Yoghurt doesn't contain any of them generally.
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Sure.  Fungal infections are parasites, and can only infect you if the parts of your immune system that protect your from them aren't working properly.  Of course, that's how all illnesses occur, so the immune system is never perfect or we'd never get sick with anything.  You might also be eating things that are making this happen -- dairy and wheat are often the culprits with people who are prone to yeast infections.  In many people they affect the digestive system so adversely they cause die-offs of the probiotics that protect us from them.  Antibiotics can cause this as well.  But really, it doesn't help your son any for you to fall apart, too.  If it's gone on this long, you've talked yourself into depression.  Your attitude of not caring about yourself is far more serious than a fungal infection.  I'd advise seeing a psychologist to help you get over this -- a healthy you will be far better able to provide whatever you can for your son than the you you're describing.
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2 Comments
Thank you for responding. I've always eaten lots of dairy and I love cereal. And you're right about taking care of me.
Most cereals don't actually contain wheat.  While some people have gluten problems with other grains as well as wheat, for most people it's just wheat.  So you can eat a lot of cereals and you can find lots of beverages besides milk to eat them with, such as soy milk, nut milks, etc.  And Mom was right to mention sugar -- big culprit with yeast, as the little devils love sugar.  But so do all bacteria and fungi -- everything lives on sugar one way or another.  It's just how fast your body converts what you eat into sugar that makes it more attractive to the bad folks that want to invade us and how you balance that out with enough good food to keep everything in balance.  Diet is especially important for those of us who suffer with depression and anxiety, though we can't know if you do or not, just have to go by what you're saying.  My advice is still the same -- your son't schizophrenia, as much as it sounds harsh to say, shouldn't make you sick, too.  It's bad enough one person is suffering.  You need to keep your balance both for you and for him -- and all the rest of us for the good things you probably give the world here and there.  You don't have to suffer with him to care for him.
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Thank you again. Very good advice. I do appreciate all of the answers.
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