Candida Albicans and elevated blood alcohol levels

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Specializes in Occ health, Med/surg, ER.

I am an OHN for a large beef processing plant. Drug/alcohol testing is required for all work related injuries. We had and interesting case where a employee who tested positive for alcohol claimed it was from a severe Candida albicans infection. After some investigation, this person has also been diagnosed as an alcoholic. Obviously, this was a very complicated case and it went to arbitration (sp?). Our corporate medical experts decided that this person was in fact intoxicated from drinking alcohol and not from the yeast infection.

I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this before. I found it quite interesting.

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Judging from your title, this was a blood test? And do you happen to know if the person is a diabetic or has any liver problems?

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Never heard of that and frankly, I seriously doubt it. Methinks he was tippling for medicinal purposes.

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If you search around for info on false positive alcohol screenings, there are a ton of causes.

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Specializes in Occ health, Med/surg, ER.

Nope, not a diabetic. I dont know about any liver problems. We first check saliva, and then check breath alcohol.

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Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.

Interesting excuse for turning up positive for ETOH, but it just doesn't make sense. The infection would have to be systemic in order for that to happen, and I imagine the person being tested would have a lot more to worry about in that scenario than keeping his/her job.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.

I don't now how true this is but there was a girl that I went to school with that had a simialr situation. Her reasoning for it was Candida albicans is a type of yeast and there is yeast in alcohol for fermenting. Although in her case she had a yeast infection that went untreated for three months before this happened.

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There is a condition where the patient does not metabolize Carbohydrates correctly and they end up showing up as alcohol in the blood. I read about it servral years ago in a Genetics journal. As I recall it is a genetic condition and seemed to affect Japanese and Asian males. My understanding from the article is that it is very very rare. My understanding is these men usually suffer from being labeled as alcoholics and may often have developmental delays. As I recall they are often not correctly diagnosed until they end up with a yeast sepsis.

I'll try to find the article.

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I just found out I have a yeast infection in my blood. I’ve had chronic sinus infections, people frequently imply that I smell like I’ve had a drink or two. I’m not diabetic. I’ve been tested, but I consumed a lot of sugary soft drinks, and ate a lot of high-in-starch foods. After haven taken another antibiotic to try to cure the sinusitis, I started getting dizzy a while after I ate anything starchy or sugary. Just recently to taste and smell of alcohol got very strong and I began to literally feel drunk, numb, dizzy, and loose. I could taste the fermenting between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, pallet. Needless to say, the antibiotics had no effect on the smelly green snot problem.

I have had to switch to a very low starch/sugar diet, and eat a lot of vegetables with some meat, with massive quantities of oregano, peppers and garlic. I’ll have to see over time if this works to kill off all the excess yeast in me blood. I’m a truck driver, so . . . I can’t afford this problem!t

p.s. : I have seen both a doctor, internalist, and a ENT specialist, they both chose to treat my symptoms and never even bring up the yeast/Candida issue! $4000 later, I’m still searching for a solutions. Wow!:clown:

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a dui without a drink! :cry: i'm not kidding.

i'm writing this mostly for the 'truck driver'(spiral9mind). i hope this helps.

hello. i'm reluctant to reply here, but have just signed up to do so. i have received a lot of negative words to what i'm about to share, from co-workers and distant family. my children and immediate family know me well enough to know that i'm telling the only truth i have. i've been so hurt by comments made, but have grown a thicker skin for it. blogging is something i've only done once... so if i do something wrong... i apologize now. (oh yeah.... i'm long winded... sorry... i'll try my best to shorten the story) :yawn:

overgrowth of yeast has cost me dearly. my mother, grandmother and greatgrand mother all have fought the battle. when my daughter was 6 mo old she too developed a yeast infection... the first of many. my battle has lasted until last year!!!!!

first (i was raised on an indian reservation so conventional medicine was provided by one local doctor on a mission to convert us indians... but had very limited experience in medicine) so we tried every wives tale and home remedy we heard of, when his treatments didn't keep the yeast at bay.

i adopted two boys (one w/downs syndrome) that lived on my reservation. i say this because i immediately starting trying to find a way to get the boy w/downs healthier. the local doc said he wouldn't live to be 4. he was 3 when i adopted him and couldn't bare this thought.

i took a job in tulsa, ok and met a nurse who became my close friend. her son had severe yeast infections if he had any bread. she had switched to alternative medicine and i talked at length about helping my son ...keep living. she was a wealth of knowledge. no help with yeast, though... she kept her son off bread... nothing else worked. :banghead:

we changed our diet (indian diet is full of fried foods and very unhealthy... at least my tribe's diet) added raw veggies and fruit and cut out processed foods and fried foods. drastically increased our water consumption... cut out carbonation. in doing so my son improved greatly.

skip ahead several years.... :rolleyes:

turns out the local doc was (forgive me) an idiot and scared the crap out us for no reason. my son is now 25 and very healthy!!!! thank god!

i tried to address my daughter and my yeast problems alternatively too! but to no avail! i personally tried over 20 supplement programs, diet plans (wow restrictive!) and cleanses. they worked briefly but always came back. :crying2:

i travel for work and found an alternative clinic in barbados ran by an english doctor. he was known for treating the hardest medical cases and making progress.

by now i had developed ovarian cancer and he treated me to cure for that! but, couldn't stop the yeast. yeast/cancer, yeast/cancer... i can beat cancer but not yeast???? :no:

i moved to vegas for work and again sought out an alternative doctor. i filled out the forms as usual asking for help to maintain my health to avoid more cancer and to fight the ringing in my ears and the yeast.

she too suffered from yeast (like my tulsa friend's son) when she ate bread. she said the treatments for yeast are very hard and usually not effective especially if the patient doesn't have a strong will power to follow it properly but even if they do... it's a constant fight.

she gave me a product ( i don't know if i'm allowed to mention it here... so i'll not untill i read from one of you that i can) that breaks down the outer wall of the yeast and it dies without kill off side effects. :bow:

-- i"m in no way affiliated with this company... god i wish i was.... but i just want to let anyone know that it works.--

i'm yeast free, as is my mother, grandmother and daughter.

no restrictive diet other than (no beer or bread for the first couple of weeks while on the enzyme) oh, yeah, it's a huge does of enzymes. all natural. and you continue a capsule every other day or so to maintain. ($26/bottle... so very affordable... i've spent as much as $400 for a month treatment)

here's the part that gets me a lot of ridicule.

i got a dui in florida (lived there for work for two yrs ago) and i don't drink.

when i returned to barbados with this dui and texas size confusion!!!!!!! my dr. did more tests. he discovered two more things....

1- 80% of native american's don't possess a certain enzyme (used for breaking down chicken- european animal that was brought over...) ... and this causes bloating and weight gain to compensate.. eventually the protiens that hang out in your blood cause some reaction that turns them into a gas that goes to the brain some how....

(i'm not a doctor and can't explain this the way he did... but can provide his name and the documents to back up what he told me)

i know that i had moments when i felt suddenly drunk and dizzy! a really great feeling for about a split second. :clown: i thought everyone had them... guess not! :no:

2- my body was a still. if i ate potatoes (my happy food, comfort food.... a food i ate almost daily! and craved when i didn't eat them) it could produce some of the effects of alcohol consumption. of course other factors had to be in play for this to culminate in a problem... stress being cheif among them.... (i can't remember the others)

well... to address the stress... i up till then maintained a potato free diet for 4 years... also no wheat, grains... and followed the blood type diet overall with these additions... but, while in fl i was interviewing a manager that wasn't going to get the job... but he apparently decided he wanted another job.... to be my husband! :devil:

he became obsessed with me and stalked me and my four children until i moved to vegas. i couldn't get a restraining order due to the fact that he lived in the same ocean front bldg that 9 county judges lived in and he was a local celebrity that was very well liked. no one believed me. he had his friends drive by my home and he threatened me and my kids... he even sent child services to my home... (that lady later testified for me! so, i guess i passed! :wink2: )

i couldn't stand the pressure and fear anymore... he had one friend walking around our house and looking thru our windows to scare us! and much more typical stalker behavior... we all are aware of this stuff now., right? :coollook:

this went on for 5 months. finally, one evening i was so distraught and was on the verger of loosing my job because of his interference at my work place and scared for my kids, i was contemplating how far i could move to get away from him. the cops wouldn't help me, the court house wouldn't help me and i had to find peace from him.

in deep thought, i comforted myself by eating a huge baked potato and a huge bowl of rice! i'm 5/1 & 120lbs. but, i can eat! and i had been restricting for so long... and totally broke down... gave in and ate with much joy!

this was at 9pm. my kids went to bed... i did more thinking and then went to bed myself. then i woke with a panic at 2am remembering that i needed to get my son a water proof camera and cash for his field trip the next day. i threw on my clothes and hauled ass to the nearest store open at that time. 6 miles away. i was pulled over. he said i was driving too slow and inconsistent. i told him i was looking for a store that was open and was aware that i had slowed down and sped up a few times as i tried to look for 'open' signs. but was likewise aware that no one else was on the road but he and i. (i knew he was behind me... i wasn't concerned, i didn't think i needed to be)

he asked if i had been drinking...

'no'

he said he could smell alcohol on my breath...

'i assured him that my diet restricted alcohol due to health concerns'

i volunteered a sobriety test, (a few people had gathered to watch, in a convenience store parking lot).

he said i failed because i used the 'first segment of my index finger and not the 'tip' of my index finger' hmmm. :banghead:

and yet i stood on one foot and turned around and recited what he asked. but, this one minor difference btwn 'tip' and 'first segment' apparently was the deal breaker... and he could smell alcohol.

i was arrested. i got out after 24hrs. (i won't go in to the horror of not being able to call my kids, for 13 hours, and let them know where i was or their horror!) i hired an attorney for $5000 (minimum for fl) . she later viewed the video from the sobriety test and could see i passed it with flying colors and was even polite and kind to the officer. (i didn't know he was going to arrest me... i thought i was allowing him to do his job and i was proving my state of being).

she then told me that when they tested my breath at the police station, that it varied greatly. she said this alone would get me off. it didn't.

the officer stated at the hearing, that i didn't appear or act impaired at all. that i was very polite and spoke well (no slurring). he arrested me based on smelling alcohol and for touching my nose with the 'first segment' instead of the 'tip' of my index finger.

i immediately scheduled a trip for my kids and i to fly to barbados so i could go see my doctor. no matter what the breathalyzer read... it still had me at .14% on the highest reading and much much lower on the other.

this is when he did the two additional tests... as mentioned above and then gave me a copy of the book: the yeast syndrome by john parks trowbridge, md and morton walker drm.

in this book on pages 19-27 it talks of a man that was, for 30 years, a public info officer for general douglas macarthur in occupied japan 1945. he now resides in phoenix. he was 'drunk' on a regular basis and was not a drinker. the behavior was often severe. he sought out specialists and even psychiatrists to find the reason, but all were stumped and assumed he was lying about drinking. at one point he was hospitalized for viral hepatitis and while under the care of staff ...wound up 'drunk' shortly after a meal. his doctor told him no alcohol for at least two years.

he did this and yet still got 'drunk'. in the 1060's he went on a strict high protein low carb diet to reduce his weight from 240 to 170. his attacks reduced dramatically... but he hadn't made the connection yet. he didn't find out until 1983.

an acquaintance at a convention in ny said he had heard of another such case... and later called him with the info to look up.

time mag 1959, ...'for 25 yrs a japanese man had tried to prove he was a teetotaler despite his continuous display of intoxication symptoms. okkaido university hospital in sapporo, japan agreed to run him through a series of test diets... discovered his digestive juices reveal a flourishing growth of c. albicans.

while fighting the yeast...the american man read a paper written by rosalinde hurley, md of queen charlotte's maternity hospital in london .... "untreated systemic candidiasis has a mortality rate approaching 100% [from candida septicemia]...."

this scared the man and his wife and they tried harder to reduce the yeast...but were not finding any effective meds. they called the japan hosp.

the medicine to fight this as recommended to him by the japanese hospital was not avail in the us. the american was loosing the battle to stop the yeast. the va hospital tested him for a year, in and out of the hospital. long periods of supervised bed confinement and finally... deemed him legally drunk. but, no cure.

he and his wife flew to japan to recieve treatment and meds as last resort. it worked.

i've tried to include the names of the hospitals and articles and can provide the names of the men and doctors if anyone wants to do their own research. this says it's a site for nurses... so maybe the info will help someone you know.

at the very least... please warn your friends that have high yeast about driving while....well fed :D

i never showed signs of being 'drunk' i just felt happier and content after potatoes! but, i still registered a high bac.

my doctors all offered to fly in to testify for me (i was a new case study for them...) but my attorney declined. did i mention that the stalker had a live in girl friend of 20 years?

(no, i don't know what he planned to do with her if he convinced me to marry him... keep in in a closet maybe?) :eek:

well, the girlfriend was a nail technician... and guess where my attorney got her nails done? she happened to discuss my case, apparently like she did often and the details sounded familiar to her. guess she told her i was trying to 'take' her man... (so not true)

next thing i know my attorney was rude and stopped fighting for me. the judge noticed this as well and allowed me to get an attorney thru legal aid and let my attorney go.

(the judge for my dui case was new to the area and without reason, the da let the stalker talk to her, trying to convince her to jail me for breaking my word to hire him. (i never gave him that) she at that time, asked me if i knew that he had mailed her a letter personally and it included two pages of what a liar i was and pictures of me at my house and other places. she made him leave the court room and sent me to file a restraining order... that was not even accepted or even looked at by the other judge. the receptionist told me that judge just looked at the names on the petition and handed it back to her as rejected. nothing could be done.)

i got permission to move out of state from the 1st judge. we moved the next week.

i mention that mess to imply the level of stress that was present. i think it must have been enough to cause the necessary environment for the intoxication from food.

moving to vegas brought us safety and brought my daughter and i a remedy for our yeast issue.

but don't try this as a defense for dui! they won't believe you... trust me on that.

i'm sorry this is so long. i hope it helps someone.

health at last! :typing

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Wow! I just hit submit and man.....! That is one long post I wrote. I'm real sorry guys. I hope you find some usable info from it.

regards,

Health At Last

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