ECZEMA - My Journey To Health

I suffered from eczema for over 30 years! In May 2010 I had enough of this awful condition and eczema creams that kept on ruining and thinning out my skin! I decided to find a natural solution! I searched online and found some amazing information from people who have cured themselves from the same disease! Their success inspired me and in May 2010 I embarked on a journey of a total diet change...
.... and 4 months later my eczema was gone!

I am not a doctor. This blog is not intended to cure or diagnose. I am simply a very enthusiastic person who would like to share with everyone what worked for me, how I came to discover my health and normal looking skin!

Dyshidrosis Eczema. The images are borrowed from the Internet. They are a pretty close to what my hands used to look like!

BEFORE: When I started this healing journey my hands did not look good. The eczema was all over 8 of my fingers, 1/4 of the right palm and 2 small patches on top of each hand. A tip of my index finger was so damaged, cracked and hard that I could not feel anything with it! I did not take pictures, because I was embarrassed.

AFTER: good 4 months later, MY HANDS LOOK NORMAL! No signs at all! My index finger looks completely normal, the skin is soft and smooth, the feeling has returned! Looking at my hands you would not be able to tell that they once had eczema and were ruined! Again, too bad I did not take pictures!

Now (over a year later): I continue to be eczema free!

QUICK  FACTS:

1)  Eczema and all types of dermatitis and autoimmune diseases have all the same cause - high toxicity and low nutrient count in the body!

2)  Skin is the last organ where disease will be visible! Skin is a mirror of the immune system! 80% of the immune system is in digestive tract! Eczema is a result of dysfunctional digestive system - the body is eliminating toxins through the skin!

3)  Eczema acts as a food allergy.

Most common food allergies are to: dairy, eggs, citrus, peanuts, soy, meats, yeast, nuts, gluten, corn, nightshades (tomato, pepper, bell pepper, potato (sweet potato is not in this group), cocoa, vinegars, exotic fruit, etc

Food allergy means that we cannot digest food properly - those undigested proteins leak from the colon into the blood stream. Any protein in the blood stream will result in high histamine reaction - the body will try to get rid of the "invader" by eliminating it through the skin - eczema. 

My recommendation is in order to determine what we are allergic to, to eliminate all allergenic and unhealthy foods. Then give it some time and watch eczema go away (unless there is still an allergenic food on our menu). It took me a few months to see that I was highly allergic to dairy, meats, citrus, tomatoes, all vinegars, cocoa. They would give me eczema. Soy, curry, melons would give me different reactions (acne, abnormal body odor etc). The allergic reaction would happen sometimes within an hour and sometimes a few hours later.
Sometimes the allergic reaction was accumulative - for example, I would get eczema only if I had meat more than once.
You can have a lot of fruit for breakfast (bananas, apples, pears, grapes, watermelon,  are the safest choices to start with) and gluten free oatmeal with banana, cinnamon and honey. You can have a green smoothie instead (banana+ apple+spinach +water). Lunch can be cooked vegetables with brown rice or lentils or baked potatoes, etc with small salad. For dinner we can have a large salad with avocado,

a) We can remove the offending foods and eczema will go away. Example of eczema as food allergy in several patients of Dr Morrow Brown MD here.
b) Eczema can have many causes (see upper page Eczema Cause) and another one can be an overly toxic body, where the liver is over burdened and any unhealthy food or chemical will cause a great stress on that organ (and others). That food will not be digested properly and the toxins from that food will be eliminated through the skin.
I had food allergies AND was too toxic. I removed my allergenic foods (took me 4 months to have them all marked down) and later when I increased the amount of raw food, my body began to detoxify and eczema came back until a few months later when the body was done clearing its tissues and organs of accumulated toxins.

This is where we need to give our body a chance to heal and crate an alkaline ph in the body:
- by consuming a lot of organic raw foods (as they are, as pressed juices and/or smoothies)

- removal of unhealthy, processed foods. 

By doing this our immune system will get stronger, digestion and assimilation of nutrients will improve and some allergies will go away or become less frequent. 

Some of my allergies became a lot less severe after I changed my diet to a high alkaline diet and not only did eczema go away, but my over all health got greatly improved and I have more energy than ever before! For example, I can now enjoy a tomato, despite the allergy. I must only be aware of the quantity. Too many tomatoes will result in eczema. But before I changed my diet to high alkaline, just 1 tomato would almost immediately give me eczema!

4) Our mental attitude will have a great impact on the severity of eczema (if we are under a great deal of stress, the eczema will get worse), but it is not a cause!

5) Eczema is not inherited! We can inherit a predisposition to a certain disease, but the trigger for it will be a chemical reaction in the body - all food we consume is a material and energy for that chemical reaction to take place! We can, if we choose so, have a great control over our health!

6) We would all like to hear that there is a magic pill or a magic cream which would remove all our troubles and health issues without us ever knowing the cause or ever changing our lifestyle! Unfortunately there is no such thing. All creams and pills for eczema do not cure, but suppress the symptoms and thus the immune system. What that means is that they contain steroids which are very toxic to the liver and the whole body! Suppressing the symptom means that the liver will pull the toxins into itself. In a long run this will result in other health issues!

8) There is another way, a Natural and tasty way of curing eczema by knowing and eliminating the cause! We can learn that the symptom is NOT the enemy, but the body's attempt to deal with the wrong we have done to it! So instead of keeping the toxins inside with dangerous pills and creams, we can remove the cause of the problem and give it solution - healthy food = healthy body! 

"Let food be thy medicine, let medicine be thy food" - Hippocrates, father of the modern medicine (that's ironic, right?)

See My Story and Success Stories, (a page with people's stories of how they cured themselves of "incurable" diseases) and be inspired! :-)

Dr Joel Robbins in his audio lecture I own said that in 1920s the percentage of people who were 40 years old or older and who had a degenerative disease (cancer, diabetes, arthritis, etc) was 20%!

60 years later, in 1980 that number would have to be lower, right? We have the best doctors, millions pouring into the research fund every year, we have the best technology etc. So it would be logical to presume that the number would be a lot lower. Reality: the percentage of people who are 40 or older with a degenerative disease in 1980 was 77%!!!

Dr Michael Klaper in his lecture (above, page Holistic doctors) shows a diagram which demonstrates what happened between 1920 and cca now: decrease in consumption fruits and vegetables and increase in meats, dairy, canned goods, artificial items, sodas, etc.

I am wishing you eczema free life!  kb

My Story

INFANT ECZEMA
I have always had eczema, even as an infant. In those days they did not know of the connection between health and cow's milk. I was given cow's milk at age 4 months which was far too soon for my young and under developed digestive system! I developed eczema soon afterwards, cows milk being my only food. I am so glad that modern medicine now knows the harmful effects of cows milk on such a young digestive system and the importance of breastfeeding!

From ASK DR SEARS: The longer you breastfeed, the less chance your child has of developing allergic diseases, such as eczema and asthma. Breast milk is rich in an immuno-globulin called secretory IGA, which acts as a protective paint, coating the intestines and keeping food allergens out of the bloodstream. Breast milk keeps the intestinal lining healthy and better able to break down proteins into individual amino acids. The amino acids themselves are not likely to cause allergies when they get into the bloodstream. Intestines that are damaged due to infection or inflamed by foreign milk or formula may allow whole protein molecules to seep through, setting up an allergic reaction in the bloodstream. To further decrease the risk of developing food allergies, it would be wise for a breastfeeding mother to keep the most allergenic foods out of her diet until her baby is at least one year of age.  Source

In Get Healthy Now, Professor Null explains a milk allergy's changing symptoms "Even if the symptoms are not the same, the underlying allergy may be. A child who has suffered milk-associated asthma, for instance, may have severe acne as a teenager. The milk allergy is still there, but its symptoms have moved to a different organ system, often misleading the patient and physician into thinking that the original allergy has been outgrown." According to Alternative Medicine, up to half of all infants may be sensitive to cow's milk. As a result, symptoms of an underlying milk allergy may start as early as infancy, only manifested as eczema, a symptom that may remain later on in childhood and adulthood. Furthermore, in addition to asthma and eczema, an underlying milk allergy may manifest as bronchitis, sinusitis, autoimmune disorders, frequent colds and ear infections and even behavioral problems. Source

TRIGGERS
Throughout my life eczema would come and go in intervals, but it was always there, waiting to creep up whenever my immune system was down (stress, illness, you name it) and sometimes it would just creep up for no apparent reason, or trigger that I could recognize. I never even looked for it.
As a child I used to have it on the corners of my mouth and inside of elbows and on my hands. As an adult it remained on my hands. During winter it used to be a lot worse than summer - I now know that during winter months my diet contained almost 0 fresh fruits and vegetables, it was all dairy, breads, wheat, grain and some frozen vegetables. And sweets of course, all those processed foods.

WORSE DIET AND MORE STRESS
I was in a tough life situation and was under a lot of stress. My hands got so bad, that I was unable to put them under water, let alone use shampoo or do dishes! I had to start wearing gloves. Of course I had a prescription cream I could use. It was one of those, good old "suppress the symptom" kind of a cream which would remove the symptoms pretty quickly. Yes, that cream was packed with steroids which are poison to the body and I do not want to go into what they do to the liver!  
All eczema creams and pills contain steroids and that is why they work! They suppress the symptoms, body's attempt to eliminate toxins which go back into the liver. That is why they are so toxic to the body! I did not know that then. Even the best dermatologist told me to use it as little as possible as it thins out the skin in the long run. And that is the ONLY thing that this best dermatologists had to say about it! He was unable to give me any explanation of why I got it, and of course, no cure.

Dyshidrosis (I borrowed this image because this is pretty close to what my hands used to look like)

THE END OF THE LINE
In the last 5 years before I changed my diet, my health declined rapidly. I got acne, I got sinus allergies, I felt fatigued nearly all the time, terribly constipated, eczema got worse than ever.
When eczema got so bad that no cream could stop it and I could no longer do my work nor hobbies, I knew I need a change, I knew I needed to find a permanent solution! I "Googled" natural cures for eczema and found a great website by Donia Alawi who has cured herself from eczema 10 years ago and she is still healthy! She has changed her diet and it has paid off! She went on 99% all plant based diet with a high (75%) raw intake!
This was the 1st time in my life that I have heard of eczema being curable, being a skin symptom of a digestive dysfunction rather than a mysterious skin disease! I am profoundly grateful to her for creating a great and informative website which has helped me with information and inspiration and I too can now write about eczema in past tense!

In May 2010 I embarked on a journey of health, just to see if that could be true for me as well! It was and it still is!

What I did was this:

1) I went to have a colon hydrotherapy and got rid of a lot of old old toxins! My constipation was gone as well!
2) I started taking probiotics to maintain good intestinal flora and plant based natural digestive enzymes to help me digest cooked food
3) My diet was 100% plant based high raw 75% alkaline.
 I ate all raw fruits and vegetables except for one cooked vegan meal a day. I avoided all dairy, meats, soy, all processed, fried, oily, etc foods and drinks. I ate whole foods and drank clean water (no chlorine, no fluoride).
During morning I ate all fruits (I would add 1 green smoothie using fresh dandelion or fresh spinach or kale etc) .... I had lots of peaches, bananas, dates, watermelon, whatever is in season. If I was not allergic I would have had oranges and grapefruit.
Lunch (1-2 pm) was a cooked vegan meal
and dinner (4-7) large green salad with some baked potatoes or green smoothie before that.... or more fruits before salad.... it all depended on the day.

I learned that I was allergic to dairy products, meat, soy, yeast, citrus, tomatoes, eggplant and all vinegars. I learned that by observation, seeing cause and effect. I was unsure of gluten,so I kept away from all possible allergens just in case, until I saw that I was ok with it. I kept monitoring my body's reactions - that is the most important thing one can do!

I am glad that I got eczema, because it was my body's alarm saying that it was out of balance! I am glad that my body reacted outwardly, that it did not deposit toxins inside some organ, only to burst out later in life with cancer! Too many people get a lot sicker due to the same underlying causes!

It took me 34 years to "hear" my body and to do something about it!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. This is anecdotal evidence based on my own experience and observations. Following or using my personal treatment as illustrated in this blog is at your own risk.