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Can Birth Control Be The Cause Of My Candida Yeast Infection?

2,457 views · Published 22 October 2017 · 6:41 · Indexed 31 October 2026

Channel: CanXida · 2017 · Education

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Are you taking the oral contraceptive pill (birth control) and are worried that it could be a contributing factor when it comes to getting a Candida yeast infection? This video will explain the risks and what to do about it.

The question today is "Can birth control contribute to a vaginal yeast infection or a Candida infection?" I just did a video previously on intrauterine devices, so I thought it might be quite prudent to me to do another video talking about the birth control pill and its link with Candida. 

Many women today take the birth control pill. I may have done a video on this previously, but I'm going to expand a little bit on this one and maybe give a bit more information, which I previously haven't completed. 

If we go back a long time ago when I was a little kid back in the 60s, the Pill when it came out was nothing like the pill that it is today. One of the first pills that they produced was called DES or diethylstilbestrol, which is probably about 50,000 times stronger than the current combination pills that they make today. It was very, very strong. Some experts that I've spoken to, people that have done an incredible amount of research, believe that the breast cancer rates today are still linked to the women back then giving birth to daughters and they giving birth to subsequent children and there could be some link there between women taking that kind of estrogen levels back then in the pill. Even pushing that breast cancer through to today. It's incredible. 

Estrogen is certainly linked with breast cancer and other types of female cancers, particularly when it's very high in the body and difficult for the body to break down. Estrogen is definitely linked with Candida. I've seen this many, many times with women, particularly estrogen dominant women. And we have a lot of women today estrogen dominant between say mid to late 30s up to mid to late 50s. Estrogen is everywhere today. Even plastics. 

Certain types of plastics can mimic estrogen. We call them xenoestrogens. There are various chemicals that we have today that can mimic estrogen. For this reasons, many people like me prefer to talk to patients to say, "Look, try to get away from plastics and toxic personal care products and things like Styrofoam, those little styrene cups you drink out of. BPA plastics, plastic containers." All these things can contribute to what we call Xeno or foreign estrogens. Just be careful not to load the body up too much with excess estrogen that you don't really want.

Estrogen is a perforated hormone, so it grows. It pushes growth up. It comes in several days before the period, so it will come in and slowly goes down as progesterone goes up. These two hormones really control the menstrual cycle, but there are two other hormones in the background also called luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. I'm not going to go into this whole pathway. You can look it up on line and study this yourself. 

Many women tell me that they get vaginal irritation or itching or discharge. Anything from two to four or five days before the period. This is very common as estrogen starts to kick in. It starts to prepare the lining inside the womb and the uterus for possible implementation. If the egg becomes fertilized and it implants, estrogen goes up. It makes that area nice and plump and soft and it allows also the cells to stimulate glycogen, which is a kind of a sugar that Candida loves to feed on. Many women can get this vaginal irritation or cervical irritation from the excess sugar being produced in an area that Candida can feed on. 

Candida Albicans is the common one found probably in about 65/70 percent of the vaginal cultures, but there are other types of Candida that are associated as well. If you are on a pill and you get problems, my suggestion is to talk to the doctor and get off the combination pill and look at a progesterone only pill. Usually, you will have a lesser chance of this kind of vaginal irritation if you go progesterone only. There's pills like Yazmin, for example, or various other pills you can get into. Or you may want to look at other kind of methods of birth control. Be careful about intrauterine devices, IUDs, because they've got up to four to five times great risk of making that Candida will hang around than non-users of IUDs. Check out my previous video I did on intrauterine devices and Candida. 

Some women don't get problems with the pill with Candida. Other women get a heck of a problem. If you notice that you get a cyclical irritation in that area and you are on the pill, go and talk to your doctor and do something about it.

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