Low Life

15 August 2009

Acid trip

The answer to all my problems, I read last week in a fascinating little booklet on fungal infections, is a substance called caprylic acid. Left to run riot, it predicted, the fungus growing in my throat and digestive tract will cause flatulence and itching (which I already have in spades), and eventually psychosis. Caprylic acid, a substance found in coconuts and breast milk, was the best natural substance to combat it, it said. That, combined with as much raw garlic as I can stomach. Of course I can always visit a doctor and get a prescription for some virulent chemical that will have a scattergun effect and kill off the good fungus as well as the bad, leaving me nauseous and debilitated for a week, it said. But the booklet’s author warned sternly against this. Caprylic acid, he said — that was the best thing.

The health-food shop, when I went there to try to find some, was doing a roaring trade. It’s a small high street shop, yet three tills were going flat out. If you stopped to moralise, you might conclude how obscene it is that the most well-fed people in the world supplement their diet with expensive vitamins, minerals and herb extracts, while a billion children in the world go to bed hungry. And the people in the health-food shop looked exactly like the kind of people who might feel a little uncomfortable about precisely this sort of injustice. But to be fair, none of them looked very well — perhaps it was the weight of the guilt they were carrying about — and there’s no getting round the fact that affluence and valetudinarianism go hand in hand.

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Shirley Crabtree (Mrs.)

August 15th, 2009 7:52am Report this comment

I too have been a giver for the past 40 years and only gave up when I met Mr. Crabtree 3 years ago,and then went onto Canesten extra.

Bankruptbriton

September 26th, 2010 10:40am Report this comment

It's the beer, Jeremy!

Good glugs of extra virgin olive oil 3 times/day as well as your grapefruit stuff.

Apparently the acid in your stomach converts the olive oil into an acid which the yeast hates and makes it revert to spores (not active). So there is science behind it. Don't forget your yoghourt!

Then, when all that fails, Canesten. It's the only thing that works, really.

David Chorley

September 28th, 2010 2:39am Report this comment

Fluconazole... it just makes sense... oh and check to see that you are not a diabetic

Stuart

November 11th, 2011 9:21pm Report this comment

Ungular micosis ?
I've been on SPORANOX...and I see gradual progress. Strong antibiotic...have a good meal first. A capsule a day for 8 days every month for up to six months or more !!!You get rid of it eventually.

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