Learn some fast facts on Candida & your microbiome w. April Tout of Flowers and Fungi.

What exactly is your gut?

The gut is really fascinating (understatement!). It is connected to your brain by what is called the gut-brain axis. In other words, your gut directly communicates with your brain. In fact, there are more neurons in your gut than in your spinal cord. By the body's standards, the two are intricately connected. On an emotional level, we also can feel their interconnection. Gut feelings, butterflies, and even stress-induced IBS are just a few of the ways we can connect to our emotional center: The Gut! For me, the gut is really a benchmark and a way for me to find my center and connect with my body.

What is candida?

Candida is a fungus, or more specifically, a strain of yeast. Candida is one strain of fungus that lives in your microbiome – the community of microorganisms on and inside your body.

What is the microbiome?

The microbiome is generally thought to be the entirety of the gut, but this is not the case. The microbiome is an all-encompassing term for the microbial community of bacteria, fungus, and pathogens of your body.

What happens when candida is imbalanced?

When imbalanced, candida poses many health problems such as bloat, fatigue, chronic infections, dandruff, and more. It commonly manifests from high sugar and cab intake, a history of antibiotic or contraceptive use, or from an autoimmune disease. An imbalance of candida is common, especially in women, and is increased by modern food and medicine. However, it is possible to find balance and harmony with candida and your microbiome as a whole. This is why gut health and microbial health is so important. Simply becoming aware that you are an ecosystem, along with properly tending to your microbial health, can largely impact your overall wellness.

How can we take care of our gut health?

1. Tend to your inner ecosystem by eating diverse amounts of plant-based foods - especially prebiotics like leeks, Jerusalem artichokes, and bananas.
2. Use strain-specific probiotics and eat fermented foods.
3. Don't fear herbal antifungals/antivirals, but be sure to consult an herbalist when embarking on protocols of any kind.

About April Tout

April is the digestive health educator, herbalist, and healing arts practitioner behind Flowers and Fungi. Her call to nurture through the ways of the flora is rooted in bio-individuality. She aims to support those on their chronic illness journey by means of connection to nature's realms of the unseen: microscopic and energetic.

Through April's healing arts practices, research, and personal experience, she created The Microbiome Method, a protocol that works to balance the microbiome and create everyday lifestyle changes to support long-lasting health and support those with autoimmune disease and chronic illness.

Wana does not directly support any claims made within this content. These are the views of the individual/organization represented.

Looking to connect with your gut and heal your microbiome in the process? Learn about candida from April Tout, founder of Flowers and Fungi.

How did you get interested in gut health?

The gut is really fascinating (understatement!). It is connected to your brain by what is called the gut-brain axis. In other words, your gut directly communicates with your brain. In fact, there are more neurons in your gut than in your spinal cord. By the body's standards, the two are intricately connected. On an emotional level, we also can feel their interconnection. Gut feelings, butterflies, and even stress-induced IBS are just a few of the ways we can connect to our emotional center: The Gut! For me, the gut is really a benchmark and a way for me to find my center and connect with my body.

What exactly is candida? And how does candida relate to your microbiome?

Let's get started on gut health education 101. Candida is a fungus, or more specifically, a strain of yeast. Candida is one strain of fungus that lives in your microbiome – the community of microorganisms on and inside your body. The microbiome is generally thought to be the entirety of the gut, but this is not the case.

The microbiome is an all-encompassing term for the microbial community of bacteria, fungus, and pathogens of your body.

What happens when candida is imbalanced?

When imbalanced, candida poses many health problems such as bloat, fatigue, chronic infections, dandruff, and more. It commonly manifests from high sugar and cab intake, a history of antibiotic or contraceptive use, or from an autoimmune disease. An imbalance of candida is common, especially in women, and is increased by modern food and medicine. However, it is possible to find balance and harmony with candida and your microbiome as a whole. This is why gut health and microbial health is so important. Simply becoming aware that you are an ecosystem, along with properly tending to your microbial health, can largely impact your overall wellness.

Some misconceptions are that you need to eradicate all pathogens to find true health, that a one time cleanse works as a quick fix, and that all probiotics are equally beneficial.

What can someone do to start taking care of their gut health?

1. Tend to your inner ecosystem by eating diverse amounts of plant-based foods - especially prebiotics like leeks, Jerusalem artichokes, and bananas.
2. Use strain-specific probiotics and eat fermented foods.
3. Don't fear herbal antifungals/antivirals, but be sure to consult an herbalist when embarking on protocols of any kind.

What do you thinks helps healing?

When it comes to true healing, and I can only speak for myself and my journey, I would say tha emotional numbing, which leads to a spiritual/emotional sickness, is what really stands in the way of it. As someone with chronic illness, this concept was often the hardest piece of advice for me to grasp, but it was also the one piece of medicine that got me closer to healing.

I was most connected to my body, mind, and spirit when I also felt connected to my healing journey - which always led to the best "results."

Of course, there is a flow while living with any illness - but the desire to nurture oneself comes best when we are connected with all facets of ourselves. For me, I call that mind, body, and ether. Whatever gives us this sense of purpose is a great compass, and when we find ourselves in that numbing place, we can look to our guts and find our center once again.

About April Tout

April is the digestive health educator, herbalist, and healing arts practitioner behind Flowers and Fungi. Her call to nurture through the ways of the flora is rooted in bio-individuality. She aims to support those on their chronic illness journey by means of connection to nature's realms of the unseen: microscopic and energetic.

Through April's healing arts practices, research, and personal experience, she created The Microbiome Method, a protocol that works to balance the microbiome and create everyday lifestyle changes to support long-lasting health and support those with autoimmune disease and chronic illness.

Wana does not directly support any claims made within this content. These are the views of the individual/organization represented.

Join Wana + Melody, the found of the “But You Don't Look Sick” community to learn about foundational issues with the US health system, and why healing through both mind x body is so impactful.

1. For years you've been building, “But You Don't Look Sick” as a community. But now you've got something new on the horizon! Why don't you tell us about it?

We were a community figure at first, and then we realized we can help people more by becoming a nonprofit. It’s all very new.

Our main focus is to help patients by paying their medical bills.
My master's is in healthcare solutions, and by studying that, and with my own patient perspective, I realized how messed up the healthcare system is and how healthcare as a whole needs to be reformed.

It's not just about paying patients bills tough. We need to raise awareness and erase stigmas. We also need to help patients by providing what they need such as providing resources and giving them access to other community opportunities like Wana so that they can connect with people who are like them.

2. What are specific aspects of our troubled healthcare system that you would like to raise awareness around?

Already as a patient, I thought things were messed up, but then learning it and studying it in school and having teachers actually tell me how corrupt things are…I just found myself multiple times with my mouth wide open thinking “how is this legal? How is this okay?” And the only response I'm left with is “It's been this way forever and no one's changing it” and “No one's reformed it because all the people in charge, aren't sick, and it's not directly affecting them.” That's when I realized there needs to be people like us that make a voice, make a stand and make a difference. Because this isn't okay anymore.

I have a rare neurological disease, and when I was diagnosed, they told me that there's no proof that treatment will help my disease. There were only experimental treatments with plasma and they were $10,000 per plasma infusion. I was told it would protect my myelin sheath from destroying itself more, but I would need it every two weeks to keep my body from destroying itself. “If you don't do this treatment, you're likely going to end up deteriorating in a wheelchair”…and that was my option: to pay $10,000 every two weeks or die.

I thought that was messed up and terrifying. I felt alone and embarrassed asking for help. I thought, what do I do? So, I created a Go Fund Me. No one in my personal life even knew what I was going through because I was battling all this privately and all of a sudden I needed to make a Go Fund Me and start telling the public my story.

I felt embarrassed and weak, But it's what I needed to do to be able to pay these bills. And then as I was getting treatment, I realized there's so many patients going through the same thing. I've met cancer patients who say they've already had hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and they haven't gotten better.

So, now they're choosing to stop their treatment and die because they don't want to bankrupt their family. I’ve met people who tell me that they can't even afford the treatment anyway, so they just know that they're going to die because they don't want to put that financial burden on their family. How many people are actually having to sit there and ask themselves, “Do I go bankrupt to possibly get better or do I just choose to give up and not become a burden on the people around me?” And unfortunately, that's the messed up reality a lot of us are faced with.

Any time I tell someone that has never had a medical experience like that, they, too, wonder how is that possible? How is that legal? They're just unaware of it. They don't even know that that's happening. And then when you talk to people with chronic illnesses and chronic conditions, they look at you like, yeah, I have to make the decision all the time between paying my grocery bills or picking up my medication.

That's just the reality that we're facing, and it's because we're embarrassed and we feel alone and we feel like we're the only ones struggling, but we're not alone.We're a third of the population in America struggling with some sort of chronic and invisible illness. In other countries, like Scotland, they’re saying 48% of their population has some sort of chronic or invisible condition. So that's a third to half of us that are struggling silently, just because we're embarrassed. And we think that we're alone. But in reality, there's so many more of us out there than we think.

3. When it came to your own mental and physical health, where did you see them become the most intertwined?

They are so interconnected. For me, tackling a lot of my physical health conditions and getting to a better place with them came from tackling my mental health problems and really addressing those head on. It was a light bulb moment for me in realizing that. It's funny when I think about it now – it’s so obvious! If you lose your leg, how is that not going to affect your mental health? How are you not going to end up depressed or anxious? You just lost a leg! When I first got diagnosed, I became depressed. I became anxious. I say a part of myself died.

When I became sick because I lost all my old hobbies. I lost all the foods I like to eat. I lost all the activities I like. I lost the friends I like to hang out with…and then I gained new hobbies, friends and the like. But with that comes grieving and depression, and that is all intertwined with mental, and physical health. To pretend like they're separated it really blows my mind because in the beginning doctors were always saying things like “Oh, you're just depressed” or “you're just anxious” when I was losing weight or throwing up or had blood clots… I was told that so many times. I want to look at them and be like, yeah, of course I'm depressed! Of course, I'm anxious! Don’t you see what's going on? I have blood clots in my chest or I have a port-catheter…this is stressful stuff! Who wouldn't be depressed or anxious??? Realizing that my mental and physical experience are so related to each other has been very important for me. It was the first step in my own healing journey.

4. If you could change one thing about our healthcare system that would positively impact our financial issues, what would that be?

In my master's program, I studied integrated health care. We have to study all other countries’ healthcare systems as well; which ones work, which ones don't work. We time and time again find that the main issue is that in comparison with other countries, we’re not focusing on the whole patient here - we're playing a chase-around game constantly.

So, let’s say I go to the doctor and I say, my head hurts. They're going to say, okay, you need to be referred to a neurologist. The neurologist will have a co-pay of $50, maybe $100, and then I have to go there and get testing done. Then he might say, “I think your headaches are coming from your diet. You need to go see a gastroenterologist.” There's another copay, there's another doctor's appointment, and then it can keep going in circles until maybe they see that it’s actually psychological, so you need to see a psychologist. And on and on. Whereas if you focus on whole patient care, you have the entire doctor's team there the entire time. So, if I go in and I say, “I'm having headaches”, there's already a neurologist, gastroenterologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, a blood testing team, a phlebotomist – everyone is there at that location. They collaborate together. They figure out what's going on with a patient, totally eliminating running in a circle. The co-pays, the spending months at a time to get diagnosed can very often be avoided this way. You look at countries in Europe like Spain, the UK in general, and they're getting patients diagnosed way faster than we are. That's cutting a lot of the financial costs altogether.

During my master’s we were told a story where America is like a big mountain where all the people are at the top of the mountain, but these people keep falling off this mountain. Other countries figured it out, and they put a fence at the top of the mountain to keep people from falling off. Instead, the US decided to put an ambulance on the bottom of the mountain and drive all those people to the hospital as they fall and bill them. And that's really what we have happening right now. We need to be addressing the entire patient. We need to be addressing the entire body and the entire healthcare system otherwise we will just keep running in circles, overcharging patients, and overburdening our medical professionals. So, it's an entire system change, not just covering the ability of patients to pay medical bills.

Some health care professionals and organizations in the US are starting to figure it out. I go to a hospital here called HonorHealth and they've recently transitioning into whole-patient care. It's more like an outpatient hospital system. They have psychologists, naturopaths, they're adding medical massages, chiropractors; you can get a neuropsychology evaluation done - really all of these things that need to be done from the beginning to really help patients, because otherwise we're wasting so much energy running in circles and paying all these bills all while not even getting answers.

5. How have you maintained and improved your physical health?

It sounds crazy, but for me, I do Pilates five days a week. Even thinking of that now, it sounds crazy because I was doing physical therapy for my heart due to my condition. If my heart rate gets too fast, I pass out. I have POTS, so my heart rate goes crazy all the time. It goes from 50 beats a minute up to 250 beats a minute. Sometimes doctors think the heart machine is broken thinking “this can't be right”. At times I couldn't walk very far without passing out, so I was having to do physical therapy for my heart to really regain some of that strength back. I actually ended up in a wheelchair for a while from meningitis from my treatment…twice. So, I had to relearn how to walk twice!

I was a very active person before getting sick. I used to be a boxer. I used to be a dancer. And for me, that was very frustrating that I couldn't work out, that I couldn't even walk without passing out or having a seizure. The more I worked in physical therapy, they suggested Pilates. I just imagined some crazy intense workout. And thought, yeah, that's funny. But they pushed because they figured it might work with my heart and POTS in particular. They were right!

The machines, they're all laying down, so you lay down on your back the entire time, and then you're working with springs. For me, with my heart, being vertical is what makes me pass out because all the blood starts pooling to my legs. If I'm laying down, my blood pressure stays regulated, and I don't pass out. I started doing Pilates one day a week, and then after doing that for a while, I felt strong enough to increase two days a week and now I've been doing it five days a week. I'm off all my heart medications, all my blood pressure medications, and I’m managing to regulate myself by strengthening all those veins and everything by laying down and working out.

I also do acupuncture. I do cryotherapy. I also go to the chiropractor once a week for my EDS. So for me, the full body wellness is really important and I'm always finding new ways to improve my health. My mom used to be a naturopath. I think that's also why I'm so fully obsessed everything needing to be combined. You need to focus on the psychological aspect of it and then Western medicine and Eastern medicine, because together I believe is really where you find benefit.

6. What are some words of wisdom you would share with someone who is newly diagnosed or experiencing new symptoms?

“You're not alone” (how appropriate)! I really wish someone would have told that to me because I felt so alone.

I know so many people who think they're the only one that's experiencing that feeling and they feel embarrassed and weak thinking that they should be stronger than whatever it is they're going through. But it's okay to feel weak. It's okay to feel scared. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to cry. It's a scary thing that we're going through. Finding the community and tools that can help you will ultimately make you feel better.

That's been important for me. I needed to find new outlets for when I was feeling stressed or overwhelmed. And for me, that was through art and finding new ways to workout. And I really suggest finding whatever that is for you. What makes you happy again? What brings you joy again?

Also, don’t forget to acknowledge how you're feeling. Don't push it away and say, “I just need to be stronger. I need to be tougher.” The strongest thing you can do is acknowledge how you're feeling and work through it because that's where real strength comes from.

Truth is, the more people that I've been honest with about how much my life sucks, the more honesty I get back from them relating to my story or them telling me “yeah, I've been through the same thing”. When I pretended that I had everything going well and that I was okay, those were the moments I felt the most alone. When I was honest about the "sucks" I found real moments of connecting with people and genuine help, because I was being honest and they felt like they could be honest back to me.

7. Tell us what you are doing now with your nonprofit. How does it work, and how will you be supporting people like us?

It’s exciting – we’re in all the beginning phases of that. Right now, we are building a patient application portal. So, say you're struggling with paying your medical bills, you can go on the portal and put in your name, what conditions you have, your doctor's office contact information, etc. I’ll make sure that it has HIPAA guidelines intact and that we're allowed to and able to reach out to your doctor to have a signature on there. Then we'll reach out and pay directly to those doctors. We also evaluate that the applicant is honest about what they're struggling with. Overall, it's going to be a long process of grant writing! We’re opening up a bank account, so all of the grants will start going through there. As we collect the funds, we'll be able to start paying patients bills.

Hopefully in the future, our efforts will be another way to raise awareness so that patients won't even have to stress or make that decision anymore. Maybe there won't even be a need for a nonprofit like us anymore, because insurance is finally working how it's supposed to, or the medical system is working how it's supposed to. But until then, I feel like there's a big gap between medical bills, patients and what we truly need. Right now, there needs to be a bridge for that gap. And that’s what we’re working on.

About Melody Olander

Melody Olander is the founder of the “But You Don't Look Sick” community and has had a rare disease since she was 17 years old. At 23 she was also diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS). After publishing her book, "But You Don't Look Sick." she decided to dedicate her time towards connecting the chronically ill community.

Learn how to manage and better understand your PCOS with Wana User, Karen.

PCOS can honestly be one of the more challenging “diagnoses” to navigate and it can really be difficult to find the positives when dealing with so many physical changes. However, it’s allowed me to always honor my body, nourish it and to be patient with it. My body is resilient but sometimes needs extra support and that’s okay. It’s shown me I can overcome anything. - Karen JM.

1. What does a typical day with PCOS look like?

PCOS is one thing that in the past that took full control of my days. Now, I take full control of my day with helpful tools I’ve learned along the way and especially creating the right lifestyle and shifting my mindset. Truthfully, I can go months without having to think about it now whereas years ago it used to consume me all day long!

2. What are primary symptoms of PCOS?

PCOS can vary drastically from person to person. My particular issues were only related to hair thinning / loss / hirsutism.

3. What treatments (medical or alternative) help most?

For me, addressing the root cause (which can be quite misunderstood) along with driving factors such as liver toxicity, insulin resistance and hormone imbalances were by far the most impactful.

Being someone who has dealt with years of Chronic Lyme and Mold Toxicity Mold Toxicity (amongst other things), I definitely noticed a significant connection to environmental toxins exasperating my symptoms, which I really believe to be the culprit of my PCOS issues in the first place. Addressing these and supporting my liver to ensure I can detox properly has been major! Things like berberine and fenugreek really helped manage my insulin levels and doing a DUTCH test once a year has been essential to understand where my hormones stand and what I can do to balance them.

4. What dietary changes help most with PCOS?

One thing I will tell you that did NOT work for me was Keto (which I did for Lyme reasons a few years ago). This is something that I often hear helps to fix PCOS and it was something that actually made mine worse. Incorporating healthy carbohydrates like sweet potatoes really helped to address my insulin issues which then helped ease my symptoms. Omitting sugar (along with unhealthy sugar substitutes) and dairy from my diet completely has also been key.

5.What are the greatest misconceptions about PCOS?

There are so many misconceptions with PCOS! The vision you often have of someone with PCOS is overweight, unhealthy and potentially even lazy / doesn’t exercise enough. This is absolutely not the case and instead of being overweight, I was underweight for a very long time and ate a very balanced and nutritious diet. You frequently hear that going keto or losing weight can be the answer to PCOS and this makes me incredibly frustrated to hear, as I was keto and very thin when I was first diagnosed. I think there is a lot that is very misunderstood with PCOS and a lot that still needs to be properly researched.

6.How does mental health influence PCOS? How does PCOS influence mental health?

Having dealt with something like Lyme vs. PCOS is actually very different. PCOS symptoms can be more visible, whereas symptoms with Lyme are more invisible. I had a really tough time initially learning I may have PCOS as I was always told there was no cure and honestly didn’t know many people with it at the time. Navigating it was an enormous challenge due to the lack of resources and especially having to deal with physical symptoms on top of it. The physical symptoms were devastating to me and I always did everything I could to conceal them. Whereas, with Lyme, I felt like I could push through and hide behind my symptoms since they weren’t visible to others. It’s actually kept me more in check than anything as now I’m very aware of the deep impact something like PCOS can have on you, so I’m constantly focused on managing stress levels and supporting myself with tons of self love.

7. Top 3 tips to managing PCOS?

1. Manage your stress levels. Stress is detrimental with PCOS and I learned that one the hard way!
2. Everyone is different so you really need to learn what works for you.
3. Lastly, test. Understand your body. Work with a practitioner who can monitor your hormones, insulin levels and other panels so that you always have an understanding of YOUR exact circumstances and needs. This way you also know what’s working and what’s not. And lastly, be patient and kind to support yourself. There is a root cause and a solution to everything. (I realize that’s four - but maybe the most important one!)

What is Wana?

Wana: We Are Not Alone is the community for chronic conditions – an app enabling people with chronic and invisible conditions to connect and share information. Our mission is to destigmatize chronic illness and provide you with the support you need on your healing journey. Download the app here.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal disorder that affects 1 in 10 individuals with ovaries who are of reproductive age.

If you have PCOS, remember that you’re not alone. Whatever your symptoms, there’s someone out there—and probably right here on Wana—who gets what you’re going through.

Our PCOS Community has spoken… these are the top treatments they use.

The Wana IBS Community has tried:

CBD

CBD, short for cannabidiol, is an active cannabinoid that people are using to manage pain and discomfort from PCOS in addition to anxiety, bipolar disorder, diabetes, depression, sleep problems, epilepsy, and the list goes on.

Yoga

Some see it as a form of exercise and a way to strengthen their body, while others hit the mat for the dual mind-body bennies.

Vitamin D3

Vitamin D isn’t just a vitamin but also a hormone, and not having sufficient amounts can affect most systems in the body.

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with infertility, disturbed carbohydrate metabolism, fatigue and insomnia – all symptoms that coincide with PCOS. (1-2)

Magnesium

Studies have found that nearly 70% of us don't get enough magnesium – which means our bodies can't operate at tip-top shape.

Birth Control

Birth control can help treat PCOS in 3 ways: protect the uterus by ensuring regular ovulation, reduce excessive male hormone (androgen) levels in the blood (particularly testosterone) and protect against unwanted pregnancy. (3)

Melatonin

Women with PCOS often struggle with a lack of or a poor quality of sleep, in addition to weight issues and mood regulation all of which can be helped with melatonin. (4)

Essential Oils

The aroma molecules in essential oils are potent plant chemicals with a variety of properties ranging from antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory, to glandular, emotional, and psychological.

References:

(1) Bennett, M. “Vitamin B12 Deficiency, Infertility and Recurrent Fetal Loss.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. J Reprod Med., Mar. 2001. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

(2) Shojania AM, Wylie B. The effect of oral contraceptives on vitamin B12 metabolism. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1979;135(1):129-34.

(3) Yildiz BO. Approach to the patient: contraception in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2015;100(3):794-802. doi:10.1210/jc.2014-3196

(4) Goyal A, Terry PD, Superak HM, et al. Melatonin supplementation to treat the metabolic syndrome: a randomized controlled trial. Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome. 2014;6:124. doi:10.1186/1758-5996-6-124.

What is Wana?

Wana: We Are Not Alone is the community for chronic conditions – an app enabling people with chronic and invisible conditions to connect and share information. Our mission is to destigmatize chronic illness and provide you with the support you need on your healing journey. Download the app here.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) - TLDR

1. Affects 1 in 10

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal disorder that affects 1 in 10 individuals with ovaries who are of reproductive age.