For those suffering from candida I think I may have found some help.

I've been doing Atkins for over 6 weeks now and kept thinking *why is my energy so low these past few weeks when everyone talks about feeling ENERGIZED?*

I have muscle soreness in certain areas of my body (the thumb *meat* in my left hand, my left shoulder and/or neck area, my left hip and buttock and lastly my left calf--yup, a left side issue going there).

Here is what I found out after doing much research with several books and online help.

COPPER TOXICITY:
When you are ill with something like candida, the body tries to use the copper to fight infection (not releasing copper from the body) and you become copper toxic over time.

When in excess in the body, Copper does the following: Suppresses potassium storage in the cells (sore muscles anyone?). Potassium also helps the thyroid gland produce energy in the body (low energy anyone?). Copper suppresses adrenal gland function. The adrenals act as a *fuel pump* in the body. The adrenals also help control BLOOD SUGAR (this explains why I sometimes have cravings but no reason to explain it) and allergy response (I have a few food allergies that mysteriously come and go, even when I know I don't have leaky gut). Copper blocks the function of zinc. Zinc is involved in thousands of energey and immune-related cycles. High copper and low Zinc have been found to cause depression and mental disorders (I feel depressed and low energy quite often). Copper suppresses iron storage. Low iron causes anemia. Copper causes abnormal depositing of calcium in the soft tissues and this has been show to depress thyroid function (causes low energy also) and causes increased viral activity.

I was LOW ENERGY yesterday and my left side body muscles were killing me. I took an Aleve which usually works but it was barely touching it.
Around midnight, I started doing some research because sometimes when I take potassium and magnesium with some food, it takes the pain away and I thought there has to be more to the equation than this. The above was the rest of the equation.

What did I take? I grabbed 2 potassium pills, 1 magnesium (33% of RDA), 1 zinc (50 mg or 333% of RDA), and 1 500 mg Ester Vitamin C.
After taking the above items with a few teaspoons of flaxseed (always take vitamin supplements with food in your stomach for improved absorption) I felt MUCH better within an hour. In fact, I felt so energetic that initially it was hard to fall asleep but I finally did. When I woke this morning, it was the first time in WEEKS that I didn't have a sore shoulder and calves that acted like they were going to *charley horse* if I stretched them. I got up, did some weight resistance training (I haven't had the energy to do this until today) and then did jumping jacks and jogging for about 20 minutes. I have TONS of energy today and I'm shocked it reacted this quickly. Of course, I did make sure that before I went to bed last night that I drank a lot of water in order to help the copper get out of my system

WHAT TO TAKE TO GET RID OF EXTRA COPPER IN YOUR SYSTEM:

50 mg of Zinc daily (do NOT exceed 80 mg in a day)
500 mg of ESTER vitamin C
Sulphur which you can get in your diet from eggs, onions and garlic.

All of the above help your body get rid of extra Copper.
When you are feeling better, you can likely cut your Zinc back to 25 mg or even as low as 5mg, gauging how you feel over time (if you lose energy, it may likely be that the copper is building up in your system and you need to up your zinc).

I have been very aggressively fighting my candida with medication (DIflucan) and herbs in the last few weeks and know i had a lot of die-off (which likely makes the body store a lot of copper in order to fight all the toxic substances floating around).

I hope this information will help others of you who aren't feeling very energetic from your candida and also finding you stall on Atkins or other LC programs.