Candida and Depression: Our story so far

Our now 16 year old son was suffering from extreme fatigue. after having had several rounds of antibiotics, followed by mono, then he started having food sensitivities, so I knew he must have candida and after trying several other things for candida we tried the plan about 8 months ago, and we didn't see any difference in his tiredness, so we thought the plan wasn't working. Since then we have discovered that his fatigue was caused by a lack of the proper form of folate, since we now know that he has the mthfr 677 gene mutation and taking methylfolate has solved the fatigue problem.

Now we have come to the realization that the symptom he gets from candida is depression that was formerly masked by his fatigue and the symptoms are so hard to take that I put him back on the plan, since it has less die off symptoms but the depression from the die off is still hard to take even with the plan and doing saunas but now we have discovered that St. John's Wort takes away his symptoms and makes him feel good even while the candida is dying.

My theory about this is that candida produces many toxins, and the symptoms that an individual gets from the toxins depends on the genetic makeup of the person. This is why different people have different symptoms from candida and there are probably a lot of people with candida who don't really have noticeable symptoms because they are not sensitive to the toxins. The people who get depression from candida are susceptible to one or more certain toxins that candida makes. Now there are probably many depressed people on medications who actually could get well if they could get rid of their candida, but their doctors don't know anything about it and it doesn't get done.

It is proven that St. John's Wort increases the activity of a couple of liver enzymes so much that people who take certain drugs can't take St. John's Wort because the drugs get eliminated from their body too fast for the drugs to have time to work. This includes chemotherapy drugs that are about as toxic as anything that candida produces.

My hypothesis is that these enzymes that detoxify the drugs also neutralize the candida toxin that produces depression. We have observed that our son can go from being depressed to feeling good or from feeling good to being depressed in a matter of a few hours, which is what helped us to figure out that the St. John's Wort was the thing that was helping him. I think there is a threshold point below which there are no symptoms and now that he has less candida his toxin levels are hovering around this threshold so that the St. John's Wort can quickly push the toxin level below the threshold leading to a rapid response. This would explain why studies have shown that St. John's Wort is not generally effective for severe depression - the level of toxins is just too high and the increase in the action of the enzymes has a limit that is too low to neutralize the toxin below the threshold point. But in people with less candida, and less depression, the St. John's Wort does help - taking much longer, even weeks, to lower the toxin level below the threshold in people who have a higher level (but not too high) of the toxin.

Anyway, this is all my own private theory and I am sharing it here because taking St. John's Wort might help some people while they are working to get rid of the candida, if they have candida induced depression. We are using Nature's Way certified 350 mg which is not the same as the standardized but it works just fine for my son. I am sure there are plenty of other good brands, too. Tweet