Visit the Microscopic Colitis Foundation Website
Sorry this took so long - I had to work on another project for a while.
Most authors who dis caffeine, just use a blanket condemnation for everything that is "bad" in the world, such as "alcohol and caffeine are strong gut irritants", or something to that effect, and they never even attempt to explain why they feel that way. I suspect that they are generally referring to caffeine's tendency to stimulate the body, while simultaneously raising the levels of dopamine, so that the body finds pleasure in the experience, and thus ignores the taxing effects of the increased adrenaline level. IOW, it tends to drain energy unnecessarily, by inciting a fight or flight response in the body, (a state of "heightened alertness"), while encouraging the brain to ignore the additional need for rest, that has been created.
The main issue that I can see, after thinking about this for a while, is that when the adrenal glands are stimulated, (IOW, when adrenaline is produced), this has the effect of raising the glucose level in the bloodstream, (as part of the fight or flight response - IOW it makes sure the body has extra glucose available as fuel, in case the need for it actually becomes a reality). That also makes it available for candida, of course. This would especially be a problem for diabetics, and this is presumably why most candida sites list diabetes as an increased risk factor for a candida overgrowth.
Sooooooo, it appears that in this situation, caffeine would indeed be detrimental. How much so, I have no idea, since the statistics on that are probably not available, due to the fact that there is probably a great degree of variability in how individuals respond in a situation such as that. For virtually everyone, after a long history of regular caffeine use, the more caffeine you ingest, the more of it you require to achieve the same uplifting effect.
All these disclaimers, by medical experts, disregard that simple fact. IMO, if you have a long history of drinking coffee, (caffeine), in significant amounts, then your body has long been somewhat desensitized to it, and if you simply can't face avoiding it altogether, then reducing the "dose" significantly, would probably significantly reduce your adrenaline response to it. IOW, if a reduced "dose" of coffee were your only concession in an otherwise rigorous treatment program, it probably wouldn't be the end of the world, if you continued to drink it, as long as you significantly reduced the amount, (or used a brand with a lower caffeine content).
The medical establishment tends to have a rather simplistic approach to almost everything. They pretend that there is no gray area between the right way to do something, and the wrong way. An example of this is allergy tests. All authorities insist that either you are intolerant to an item, or you are not, and there is no leeway for any allowances in between. The reality of the situation is, though, that there is indeed a gray area, because we all have varying degrees of sensitivity, which means that we have statistically different thresholds for the amount of allergen that it takes to cause us to react. True, these thresholds are very low for most of us, but the fact remains that there is a spectrum of sensitivities - we are all different.
I'm convinced that you would never be able to get most doctors to admit that these spectrums exist , but our collective experience follows that type of pattern, and in addition, any other conclusion would be contrary to logic, anyway. Sooooooo, I doubt that your doctor would ever be willing to "approve" any caffeine consumption during your treatment, and if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't try to argue the point, (nor would I drink any while I was in the doctor's office. LOL).
A few years ago, when an extra-strong gust of wind caused me to lose my balance, as I was climbing into the back of a semi-trailer, and in the resulting fall, I broke my left arm, the doctor in the ER, who set the arm, and splinted it, noticed the cigars in my shirt pocket, and candidly advised me, in his most professional tone, that I would have to stop smoking them, because "they would slow down the healing process". Now if he had told me that they were a bad habit, and they were hazardous to my health, I would have totally agreed with him. But "slow down the healing process"?
It's certainly possible that they did, but they couldn't have slowed it down by more than about 10 minutes in six weeks, because the splint came off two weeks earlier than scheduled. I guess that since I looked like an ignorant old country boy, he just assumed that I was a gullible old country boy, as well. If you decide to make your own decisions about whether or not to use caffeine during a candida treatment, please use good judgment, and be honest with yourself, and most of all, remember - I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on tv, either.
Love,
Tex
This whole forum, when I read about what so many others are going through. What a nightmare.