A couple of weeks ago, my parents stayed here on their way home from my brother's. I wasn't sure when they were coming and wasn't exactly prepared to cook, but I ended up making a yummy supper of lasagna, a half recipe of herbed oatmeal pan bread, peas and a half recipe of butterscotch bars. YUM. I'm a re-submitting this post for the latest installment of the spring cleaning carnival at Kitchen Stewardship. The first topic for which I submitted this was Get the Gluten Out, and Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free wrote about her (very interesting!) experiences here. The latest installment is Get the Refined Sugar Out (at Kitchen Stewardship) and the guest poster is Donielle from Naturally Knocked Up, and you can read her post Cutting Back on Sugar.
Back to me. A couple of years ago, I couldn't have eaten that supper. Goose and I struggled with yeast for several months after she was born. It started with her diaper rash, that would NOT go away. Since I nursed her exclusively, I had my own troubles, too. An excellent resource for breastfeeding and thrush is this page on KellyMom.com. (Actually, KellyMom.com is an excellent resource overall for breastfeeding.) There is a lot of info on La Leche League's yeast page as well, and here is what Dr. Jack Newman has to say about yeast.
Though it is not specific to breastfeeding and thrush, I read The Yeast Connection, its corresponding website, and the cookbook (which I borrowed via interlibrary loan), all excellent resources.
We tried a very, very long list of things to get rid of the yeast. Nystatin. Diflucan. Gentian Violet. All Purpose Nipple Ointment. A weak vinegar wash and left the flaps down on my nursing bra for fifteen minutes after nursing, and changed nursing pads after each nursing session. Grapefruit Seed Extract. Acidophilis powder. Yeast detox supplements through our chiropractor. The only thing that finally worked was a yeast elimination diet.
*****Please note that you should work closely with your health care provider if you suspect you are having difficulty with yeast, also known as candida. I am not a doctor, nor do I even play one on TV.*****
There are a number of yeast elimination diets on the interwebs. I happen to be a rather picky eater, so I struggled to find one that I could actually follow, and I still made a few compromises. I finally ended up mostly using the diet from QFAC. I was able to follow it for about two weeks and both Goose and I were able to clear up our problems. I also lost several pounds! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to sustain the diet (or weight loss, sigh), but I've been thinking it would be a good thing to do periodically for my health.
My friend Sarah wrote a very informative post on Why Grain Free? at her blog Sarah's Musings that gives a lot of great information. Unfortunately grains are not just a filler for me (remember, I'm a recovering vegetarian married to a cow farmer!) so I don't think I could go completely grain-free. But it certainly gives a lot of food for thought.
Check out a lot more posts on gluten-free here at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free and more on cutting out the sugar here at Naturally Knocked Up. The giveaways for the gluten part of the carnival are closed, but go check out the ones for the sugar part!
Also, go check out some great posts on nursin' babies over at the Breastfeeding Blog Carnival at Modern Alternative Mama!
Thanks for all the links! With battling yeast right now I'm low grain - and I think I need to get a bit more serious as I want to help baby out before she stops nursing {which hopefully won't be anytime soon as she's only a year old....but you never know when they might decide they're done!}
ReplyDeleteThanks for participating in the Breastfeeding Stories carnival! Make sure you link back so others can read all the stories, if you didn't (I didn't immediately see it but I am tired, lol). Come back next week for our kid-friendly real food recipes carnival!
ReplyDeleteI struggled with thrush for months with my son. It'd go away, but kept coming back, and eventually forced me to wean him at 14 months--sooner than both of us would have liked. Thanks for the good resources! I've got it all bookmarked in case I ever encounter the problem in the future.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the links! The QFAC link seems to be broken, but it looks like the same info is at this link on their site now: http://qfac.com/candida-cleanse-diet-food-choices
ReplyDeleteI think I've struggled with yeast off and on my entire life, but somehow managed to never get thrush with my daughter who didn't eat solid foods for the first 6 months (and nursed until she was almost 4 -- weaning was NOT fun at that age but I was not about to wait for child-led weaning by that point).
Thank you for this. My newborn and I have thrush and so far we've done nystatin, fluconozole, and probiotics. The other day I started garlic and echinacea supplements. I'm waiting for my midwife to prescribe the All Purpose Nipple Ointment and then I'll start gentian violet at the same time (I read it's drying). It pains me to give up dairy, but I want to kick this thing sooner rather than later (it's been about 2 weeks since the baby first had signs of thrush). My question is this: that QFAC link says no "chlorinated tap water". Yikes! Did you really not drink tap water? Seems like that might be necessary for *really* resistent cases (http://www.thecandidadiet.com/chlorine-immune-system.htm) but it seems like a stretch to me.
ReplyDeleteCarrie, we have our own well, so chlorine isn't a problem. I might do a little more googling and see if others have written about the connection between chlorine and the immune system. I tend to agree with you, though, and think it's kind of overkill. Congratulations on the new baby and good luck kicking thrush!
ReplyDelete