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From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Pau D'arco or Taheebo query
Message-ID: <445@spdcc.COM>
Date: Tue, 8-Dec-87 21:18:24 EST
Article-I.D.: spdcc.445
Posted: Tue Dec  8 21:18:24 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 16:00:50 EST
References: <1987Nov25.163709.2911@mntgfx.mentor.com> <1330@saturn.ucsc.edu> <35869@sun.uucp>
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 57
Keywords: Pau D'arco taheebo herbs healing candida
Xref: mnetor sci.med:3876 sci.misc:686

In article <35869@sun.uucp>, toma@sun.uucp (Tom Athanasiou) writes:
> Some of these candida-related postings seem to be talking about candida
> in the intestine and on the skin and so on.  Could someone explain the
> relationship between these types of full-body infections and plain old
> long-term vaginal candida.  Is vaginal candida perhaps a symptom of a 
> more widespread infection?  What are the differences in the therapy 
> appropriate to the two types of infections.  Etc.

It helps if you remember a couple of things.  First, most of the recent
postings on candida in sci.med have been positioned well outside the
traditional medical understanding of infection.  In those articles, candida has
been responsible for all sorts of poorly defined, diffuse ills.  You can
believe them or not, but you'd be hard pressed to find any support from the
medical mainstream.

Candida is one of the normal fauna in people, and most candida infections
are "topical", proliferating in areas where they might usually reside,
but for some reason are no longer being kept in check by the body's defenses.
This would include oral, vaginal and esophageal "thrush", as well as some
cases of intestinal overgrowth.  Another localized infection is candidiasis
of the bladder, usually due to an indwelling catheter.  Now, these types of
candida infection, while of varying degrees of seriousness and deserving of
treatment, are localized and usually stay that way in an otherwise healthy
person.  In fact, the primary treatments (nystatin and perhaps amphotericin B,
clotrimazole and miconazole) are used as non-absorbed topical antifungal agents.
That is, you have to bathe the area (mouth, throat, esophagus, vagina, etc.)
with the drugs, which work locally and not systemically.  Nystatin, the most
popular drug, is not absorbed at all when administered orally or topically,
which is a good thing, because this almost benign drug is fiercely toxic
when administered parenterally.

Recurrent topical infections generally suggest that there's something strange
going on, although your doctor would really want to do a history and a workup
to begin to discover why.  Occasionally it's due to a degree of immune system
impairment, such as in uncontrolled diabetes or AIDS (however, I wouldn't
worry about something like AIDS when we're discussing a woman who is prone
to vaginal candidiasis but is otherwise healthy.)  At other times, it's due
to the administration of drugs which influence the environment where candida is
found; I'm referring to the effects of birth control pills in some women
and (more rarely) the effects of antibiotic administration.  This last item
has been overemphasized in the popular literature; the overwhelming majority
of people given antibacterial antibiotics do not have any problem with
candida overgrowth.  Also, it can be an issue of hygiene; pantyhose
trap heat and moisture which can facilitate the overgrowth of candida
in the vagina.

True disseminated candidiasis is a particularly nasty state of affairs,
and is usually seen only in severely immune-compromised patients, such
as those with AIDS, leukemia, or bone-marrow transplants.  It requires
the administration of systemic antifungal agents, most of which are very
toxic, such as amphotericin B, flucytosine, and ketoconazole.  I wouldn't
worry about having it; that is, if you can be sitting up and wondering
about it, you probably don't.
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.harvard.edu
dyer@spdcc.COM aka {ihnp4,harvard,husc6,linus,ima,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!dyer