sure seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there on this subject...

Question Brian : What is your thought on this :

it makes sense to me that a year and a half long battle of thrush could be a contributing factor when squamous cell carcinoma is found in the surface cells and all cells sluff off and grow back - and it is a mutation in this process that causes the problem of cancer...

They said even an ongoing problem of a misfitted denture can cause cancer because of constant irritation it causes ,... so if the skin is constantly irritated because of thrush - makes sense to me that this could have the same effect.

Thrush is commonly looked at as a side effect of the treatments for cancer, not as a cause of it ... so this is where the studies focus... but to my doctor it seemed obvious that there could be a connection, and a very strong one at that, because of the long process of irritation to the affected area.

contrary information while it is out there for every topic under the sun, it causes so much confusion in people wanting simple explanations... when one source says one thing and another says another ,... but I guess the case in point is - there is no simple answer and no one knows it all - and old thoughts on it are proven wrong just about every day when something new is learned so we are all students of this disease and have to balance the info we receive from any and all sources.

as far as resistance to the drug - this is becoming more and more of a problem, just as resistance to antibiotics is becoming more and more of a real problem. i am sure it will be more and more visible as more and more cases are reported. my doctor said it is most common in hiv patients who have long term treatments, but also happens more and more in cancer patients, the thrush becomes resistant to it and continues to grow.

Rita, I might be able to shed some light on this. Years ago OC was thought to be caused by irritation (sharp tooth, poorly fitting dentures etc.) This has fairly much been eliminated as a cause through more recent studies. Also years ago, it was thought to be caused by poor dental health care. This too has been discounted as a cause by more recent studies. I wonder if your doctor is still thinking about the earlier information.

Of course we can interject the idea that studies do not cover EVERY case of OC just the ones that were studied. That is not how statistics gathering works though. Further we could imagine that if alcohol is considered a cause and that it works possibly by thinning cell walls then abrasions too are affecting cell walls well.....we'll maybe never know.

Either way Thrush should not be put up with because it hurts!

Opinions are just that. Everyone, informed or not has one. If it has not be verified in a peer reviewed published study, it can be said to be anecdotal, (is see it occasionally and my experience tells me this MIGHT be happening) but that is far from being a fact. Squamous cell carcinoma occasionally occurs in beds of lichen planus, which is not a pre cancer. It never ceases to amaze me how many people then think that LP is a precursor OSCC condition. Two different and unique, non symbiotic, pathologies can occur in the same tissues, that does not mean one caused the other. Candida falls into the same line of thought. Think how many women develop chronic Candida infections (this is what a vaginal yeast infection really is) , many of which are very persistent and hard to eradicate. You do not see cancers developing in that population of women in those areas.

For your assumption about chronic irritation to be true, you would have to prove that chronic irritation causes a DNA mutation, that causes a malignancy. It would have to be consistently repeatable in a similar group of people. It is not. While chronic irritation causes cellular changes, it is not commonly known to cause mutanogenic ones. It certainly cause hyperplasia, and other defensive conditions in cells.

As far as yeast being hard to eradicate it is because it is just that Yeast a small single celled Fungi and they are so resistant to so many things. They are a parasitic organism and tend to affect skin by more so muccous membrane areas and arent known to have any relation to cancer

They are actually not parasitic in humans, they are symbiotic saprophytes. They actually perform a vital function while living with us. But like everything else in life, balance is essential. Out of balance they are dangerous, or at the very least, painful and harmful.

thanks i have no idea where doc got the info, on some of it I got the same opinion/info even from one of the docs at the UW when I mentioned what local doc said ... (when my prosthesis was needing refitted and causing bad irritation) so as I said - it makes it so confusing LOL ... anyways thanks for your explanations, your explanations sound much less scary i am just so glad we don't have to understand it to fight this nasty stuff...

happy new year!!

Hey,
Knowing that I posted something like 60,000 words very quickly here, I am sure much of it is unread; however I need to give you a serious account of this issue. (see: Gimme a kiss big boy!)

The thrush I had became unmanageable, tabs and rinses and drugs had become more on my daily intake than anything else. My wife had taken leave from her regular day job and taken a night job in a nursing home as a CNA. She has been in nursing for years, however was required to take yet MORE training by the nursing home mega corp.

She finds herself reading a section about treating thrush in nursing home patients. The recommendation was to stop all foods dairy, foods containing yeast and sugar. I was living on all of them, in one form or another.

She went out and got flavored soy milk and that was substituted for the whole milk I had been making �Vern Food� with. Continuing with the meds of course, the thrush vanished very quickly with the milk products absent.

The idea of yogurt seems to be replacing bad yeast with good? I am hoping to produce some valid documentation on the subject. However it did work for me. I remained clear of thrush during treatment even though I resumed the dairy products, I haven�t had any thrush in the year following.

As always, I am not a doctor and I do not play one on TV. However discussing this with your doctor might make the life a little easier.

UncleVern

I had a terrible case of thrush during and after treatment that was not responding to meds. I was finally told by one prosthodontist to avoid anything WHITE. Between milk, Ensure Plus, cream sauces over pasta, my entire diet was white. Once I stopped that, the meds worked and the thrush went away. White carbohydrates turn to sugar so they need to be avoided also.

Take care,
Eileen

Thrush...
Brian is absolutely accurate in his statements. The fungus that causes "Thrush" is part of our normal flora. It only becomes problamatic when the normal is disturbed and there is an opportunity for thrush to take over. It is easily cured when recognized.
Oral thrush or "candida albicans" is eliminated by daily Nystatin oral suspension rinses or for an immediate solution Diflucan can be prescribed. Thrush should not, if recognized, be a problem in any patient.
Cheers,
Mike