I was around 34 and had given birth to our son, our second child, only eight months earlier. My daughter was just over 3 and extremely energetic. We had moved house when I was eight months pregnant to a property just outside of our city. We only had one car which my husband drove to work most days. So here I was with two little children on a large property in the middle of no-where and at that time had not been able to meet many new friends in the area.

I thought I was becoming depressed. I felt very irritable, something which was not like my normal self. Each morning I would get myself out of bed feeling like I was an old woman. My joints ached all over my body. My fingers were swollen and it hurt when I brushed my hair.

My body seemed to feel very sensitive. I cried easily and felt exhausted all the time. All I wanted to do was sleep and not get out of bed. And when I did drag myself out I would start crying.

Eventually I decided that I needed some help. I never liked visiting the doctor but could not think of what else to do. At that time I wanted a quick fix. I made an appointment and dropped my daughter at kindy and took my little son and went to visit the local, so called, doctor. I left his office in tears. He told me I was a neurotic housewife and that I would get over it.

I knew I wasn't the person the doctor accused me of, and that there must have been a reason why I was feeling so bad. In desperation I looked in the yellow pages and decided to go and see a naturopath. I chose one close to home but had to wait two weeks before I could get into see her. I had never consulted an alternative practitioner before although I was certainly not against the idea, just that I had never been sick to have that need.

How relieved I was when I sat in front of this new person and virtually without any prompting from me she told me what my symptoms were and that there was a name for how I was feeling. I had a severe case of "Candida". From memory I think I was on a scale of 9/10 - far too high. I left my new practitioner again in tears. But this time they were tears of relief.

I was determined to do everything she said. It was the start of a six week strict diet plan. No bread, milk, cheese, yogurt, alcohol, coffee, sweets of any kind, certain fruits and also some vegetables. Wow, so what would I eat?

I also had to cook for my husband and children. My family actually went on the recommended diet with me, not that my children knew. I steamed veggies, had lots of raw food and drank water and herbal tea. I baked with buckwheat and made pancakes and cakes using all sorts of interesting gluten-free ingredients.

For a person who does not like cooking I actually had to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. You see I wanted desperately to get better.

After four weeks I went back to see my new naturopath and she said the moment I walked in the door that my skin was glowing with health. I had also lost quite a bit of weight. That worried me a little as I did not need to lose any weight. But I felt fantastic.

My energy increased and the aching joints and other irritations throughout my body started to disappear. I continued the diet and after six weeks I gradually introduced certain foods. 17 years later and I still watch my diet.

So what triggered my Candida? They say stress can be a cause. Well I suppose I had had my fair share of stress before the birth of my son. With my first child I had a wonderful healthy pregnancy. But with my second I was diagnosed with an itchy disease called POLYMORPHIC ERUPTION. Unfortunately it does not go away until after the baby is born and you are unable to take any medication for it.

This itchiness developed in my seventh month and by the eighth month (the same time that we had to move house) I was scratching so much that I would make my hands and feet bleed. A week before my son was due the medical staff decided to take me into hospital as I was becoming distressed and not sleeping. They were worried about the baby.

After my son's birth, the itchiness went away. However, I did not recuperate as quickly as I had hoped, and developed a bad infection from the cesarean birth and remained in hospital longer than I wanted to. I wanted to go home to my daughter and husband.

So I suppose I would have had a great deal of stress going through my body and this could well have led to my Candida. Dr Robert Young (The PhMiracle) says that stress contributes to an acidifying condition. A diet of acidic foods and beverages combined with stress are the exact conditions that allow Candida to get out of control.

In August of 2006 my partner and I attended a Health Retreat for a general 10 day juice detox. My partner had been here many times before and this was my second visit.

I was feeling great and well into the detox but on the fifth day the retreat introduced some fruit into our diet. Within a matter of hours I could feel the sensation of Candida going through my body.

I was extremely annoyed because I had been feeling so well and was ready for a Mountain climb the next day (a challenging ritual that occurred on every program). That night I felt the pain and tiredness and could not surface for the challenging climb.

Instead I went to the resident naturopath explained to him that I thought I had Candida. He did a quick blood test which showed a positive diagnosis.

We narrowed it down to the fact that I had eaten strawberries for lunch and the sugar content did not agree with my detoxing body. My partner asked if he could be tested as well and he was also diagnosed with a high level of Candida in his body.

His symptoms were a constant and irritating cough, nail fungus, insomnia and depression. We asked why they did not test all guests when they first arrived at the retreat, only to be told that it would be an additional price of $35. It seemed a ridiculous comment given that the average fee was over $3,000 per 10 day program.

The result of our experience was that we led an avalanche of guests asking for Candida tests with most of them testing positive. In a subsequent newsletter the founder of the retreat published an article on Candida. Hopefully the retreat staff are now more aware of the issue and Candida is treated with suspicion for all guests.

One young woman I observed was doing a double or 20 day program and she over-heard me speaking to someone else about my own experience. She asked about what was Candida and said that she also now felt absolutely terrible. I felt quite sad for the young woman because she had spent thousands of dollars on her double program and now was only a few days from going home.

We now realize that my partner has suffered from Candida for quite some time. His toe nails were quite dark with fungus. As a result of changing diet to be virtually sugar free and very low carbohydrate, detoxifying and drinking lots of good alkalized/ionized water, they have now cleared.

I know that most bodies carry Candida in a morph state, but I believe if more of us were aware of it, we would be better able to take care of it.

So here's what do I do?

1. I drink at least three litres of alkaline water per day.

2. I hardly ever have bread, biscuits, cakes or chocolate. A few weeks ago my body craved for some chocolate. I paid for it the next day.

3. I eat a lot of different raw alkaline vegetables which my partner makes up as a salad.

4. I generally eat fish.

5. When we have cooked food we use Virgin Coconut Oil. (VCO is anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-bacterial, antiprotozoan). It is approximately 50% lauric acid, a similar quality to human breast milk.

6. Regular exercise

7. I also take 1tsp of Zeolite powder in water - great detoxing agent.