My doctor told me I have anxiety/ Depression that causes my constipation. I know I only get this constipation when I suffer die-off from candida. In the Uk our health services does not recognise or treat candida and so the only treatment they offer me for this constipation is anti-depressants which apparently has good success rate for digestive motility problems.

Rather than dismiss the doctor's comments simply because he does not treat candida I suspected that there is some element of truth in what he says. My movements shut down completely under stress in a way that is completely different to normal constipation.

I began to look Depression up on the internet and the effects it has on the nervous system and I found that many of the symptoms of anxiety etc are very similar to candida die-off. I suspect that even though the cause of chemical changes in the brain may be different between a depressive and a candida sufferer the outcome is most likely either very similar or the same. When the body is under great stress it will react in a certain way.

Having read much about anti-depressants I mostly found that they are accused of masking the underlying symptom not fixing it. Your mother may not notice symtpoms because seratonin levels have been artificially increased (I can't get too technical unfortunately because my memory is poor) but the underlying candida problem has not gone away.

I wouldn't advise her to come off them if they help - more to be strict with diet and continue anti-fungals and be determined to beat the candida.

Any body reading this and considering anti-depressants should research them thoroughly before taking. Even though I know they may help I have personally decided to avoid.

My guess is that it is possible that antianxeity drugs affect the amount of adreniline released from the pancreas or counbter act its affect be releaseing serotonin or causing the serotonin to be re absorbed.

Michelle