Symptoms of Candidiasis

Candida overgrowth puts an enormous strain on the body's defences. Many of us are naturally prone to candida overgrowth, or you may be taking medications (such as antibiotics or the contraceptive pill) that break down your body's fungal defense systems and predispose you to candida overgrowth. However, you may not even know that you have it! Today we look at some of the symptoms of candidiasis, to help you know when to start a fungal defense course.

White patches in your mouth

These may appear on your tongue, inside your cheeks or in your throat. They are nothing more than little colonies of yeast cells, setting up camp in your pristine mouth. Ugh!

Frequent vaginal or penile thrush

Most of us have experienced the horrible itchiness that comes along with vaginal or penile thrush. If you have a general candida overgrowth in your body, you will be very prone to thrush outbreaks, the OTC medications that you get will take up to their maximum time to work and you'll usually have fast recurrence of symptoms.

Skin rashes in warm, damp areas

You might get a rash under your arms, under your breasts, around your groin or in other skin folds (which you'll notice more, the more skin folds you have). Yeast likes to live and breed in warm, moist places, and if you have serious overgrowth, even being occasionally exposed to the air like your armpits and the area underneath your breast are, won’t bother it. These rashes will usually be itchy, just like genital thrush is … a horrible, unsatisfiable itch that doesn’t stop until you've scratched it to the point of pain.

Skin blisters

In extreme cases, skin blisters may develop due to the irritation of little colonies of yeast living on it!

If you find that you are prone to yeast infections, or even if you are on the contraceptive pill or antibiotics, it is a good idea to take a fungal defense as a preventive action. It is much easier to stop colonies becoming established than fight them once they are.