Tell me about your successes with the PB and eczema! page

[Anna Grace]

Have any of you found the PB to clear up your skin allergies?

i have had eczema for all my life, yet it disappeared when i was anorexic in my teens. i thought this was interesting, as i was only eating salad things at the time, and now that i am 100% recovered and an omnivore, it is back! Winter is especially bad. It runs in my family - eczema on my mother's side and psoriasis on my father's side - so my question(s) to you is:

what have you found to be successful with eczema and the PB? particular foods? Is it genetic for you as well?

Doctor's tell me all kinds of crap about soap and atopic allergies, and they prescribe me steroid cream. the eczema only returns! surprise surprise.

The only relief i've experienced was with elimination of grains and a tbsp of cod liver oil per day, but after a slip up with the grains it has come back (hands, stomach) and refuses to budge.

Any tips/ideas/suggestions/stories much appreciated!!

to clarify too, i do eat rice and sweet potatoes, and dairy quite a lot as well. I know i should tinker with dairy/ go full primal for at least 30days.... but i thought i'd ask you guys too!

You're all fabulous and full of good ideas! Thank you in advance for your help

[CandylandCanary]

Ya know.. I didn't connect this, but I had eczema as a child too. It's gone away almost entirely now. I think ditching sugar and grains may indeed have something to do with that. My own bout with anorexia never seemed to affect it, though. Even moving from a dry desert climate to a wet coastal one didn't really improve it.

I think the soap advice is legit. It really dries the hell out of anyone's skin, and eczema makes skin prone to dryness and irritation anyway.

You may have subclinical food allergies, or just mild food intolerances. You'd have to do trial and error with that, though. I also routinely eat things I test as very allergic to- eggs, nightshades- and it's never affected my eczema one way or another.

Given that winter is bad in particular... maybe it's the climate? Dry climates get drier in winter, and the temperature change is very hard on your skin. Could be stress too. But the fact that it flares so faithfully with the grains is a big clue.

If it flares and refuses to budge... do you use a topical corticosteroid cream? When eczema gets all flared-up and inflamed, it usually can't resolve on it's own. The inflammation just feeds on itself, and most people basically have to scratch, it's almost impossible to completely avoid it. Some people can get it to heal up with OTC hydrocortisone, but I sure needed more firepower than that.

First Nations people here used glacial mud to treat eczema. And in my experience, it really helps a LOT. Sometimes I use a bit of my seaweed mud facial masks on any mild flares I get- now very rarely. But the whole glacial mud thing has gotten really trendy, and cosmetics manufacturers are even more prone to super-jack up the price as soon as they've got a real buzz-ingredient. Even more so than the Whole Foods crowd and their ultra-overpriced acai and goji berries, their $40 'designer lifestyle' matcha tea, their $50/bottle magic-omega 3 olive oil. So it may be better to just go for the prescription. Save your money.

And moisturize! But I think most women have been well-versed in the need to moisturize.

I'd say that if you don't see immediate dramatic triggering with the sweet potatoes or rice- both of which are gluten-free- they likely aren't involved. But you could do the full-primal thing anyway. Just to see what happens.

[paleo_hailey]

For me, eczema was 100% dairy. Once I gave that up, I haven't had so much as an itch since... and mine was absolutely chronic from early childhood.

[jammies]

You could try a lectin elimination diet. In addition to complete elimination of all grains you do a super strict elimination of dairy, all nightshades, nuts, and eggs for 3-4 weeks. If your eczema improves then you test one group each week to see what the trigger is. I have mild psoriasis/seborrheic dermatitis which it turns out improves a ton if I eliminate nuts.

It is very annoying to do, but really worth it. I also found that my severe arthritis can be dramatically improved by eliminating nightshades - so it was worth it for me!

[CandylandCanary]

Man... life without nightshades isn't worth living! lol. (I'm actually serious... I can ditch the grains and the sugar, but paws off my tomatos and peppers!)

I can second the gluten-grains connection. I don't eat much dairy these days, just because I got out of the habit. I know my mom's arthritis has responded to kicking out dairy as well.

If you can get a referral to an allergist, give it a shot. They'll test you for any food allergy you want. It's a pretty black/white test, either you get a hive from the pin-prick or not. It was very revealing to me. The blood test showed me massively super-allergic to peanuts and eggs. But- no hive from the prick, no inflammation at all. I'm not sure that a food intolerance as opposed to an allergy can impact these things.

The medical tests are a lot less of a headache than the elimination diet, too. Never had the patience for that one, myself. But I can see it's utility if you don't want to bother with doctors.

[paleo_hailey]

Allergy testing is an option, just be warned that the tests aren't always complete. For example, when I did the (very expensive) skin tests, their "milk" sample was actually just "lactose." I'm not lactose intolerant, it's something else in milk that causes my reaction. So according to the allergy test, I have no problem with milk... and clearly, from real life, I do!

An elimination diet is a much more thorough way to figure out what's ailing you. It's a little less convenient, but worth it if you have chronic eczema/allergies.

[Juliemama]

I was covered in severe, acute, eczema since babyhood, my mother described my skin as "raw hamburger". No scented soap, detergents, eggs, or "acidic" foods..for most of my childhood, no one ever mentioned avoiding dairy or grains. I never had any digestive issues. I was formula fed.
This persisted into adulthood, and every few years the acute areas would shift...behind my knees and inside my elbows, to my elbow to the wrist, my hands and fingers were disgusting for years.
In my 30's, I was about to sacrifice my Gallbladder to surgery and was looking into alternatives, when I came across a high fat, grain and dairy free way of eating. What's to lose? So I gave it a go...maybe in 2008?
Well, lo and behold, EVERYTHING cleared up. No more eczema, no more gallbladder pain, no more sinus infections, no more allergies. WHAT had I stumbled upon?
I have never been allergy "tested" for anything as far as I know. (hypochondriac baby brother has) I am 38. My mother still doesn't get it. "Mom, I don't eat that shit(i.e. bread) anymore, look how good my skin is/ haven't had a sinus infection in 3 yrs". I am clearly not allergic to eggs, I eat them all the time. Gluten grains make me blow up and look pregnant, and make me itchy. I'm still working out the dairy. I had added a whey protein at the beginning of the summer, and I think it contributed to the first real flare up I have had in awhile, I also haven't been as strict in general...fried clams and a beer here and there, etc. So that is something I still work on, and nuts.. I do love nuts and cheese, but they may have to go if this flare up doesn't go away without the whey protein.
Always a work in progress. I do not want to be tested at this time, I will work it out on my own....I also do not want to have to eat wheat 2x a day for 3 weeks in order to be tested...ugh.
The more strict Paleo I am the better my skin, but I tend to add some fat. I can do no dairy for awhile, but it always seems to creep back in! (always full fat, I don't remember the last time I actually drank milk!)
In the beginning, definitely be as strict as possible, so you can see results! Tweak later!
Best of luck, and not scratching yourself raw really does feel so good!
Keep us posted!

[Juliemama]

Though I would just add, rice and sweet potatoes do not seem to bother me one bit...

[Glamorama]

It might be a bit of a young example, but one of my twins has had bad eczema since 3 months of age. The chiropractor cleared that after 1 treatment weekly over a month. The other twin couldn't be helped by chiro (it wasn't a spinal issue), but since feeding him primal since early August, he's eczema is going too. I'm near 100% certain his issue was grains.

[Anna Grace]

thanks for the thorough response -

i totally agree about the soap. the issue i had with the advice was that apparently it was the sole cause - stop with the soap, the eczema will disappear. actually they called it atopic dermatitis. either way, it was not the soap!

i do eat sweet potatoes and rice at the moment. I tried to eat soaked fermented oats to my own demise...and not just skin wise :s. i will not go there for a while.

i do indeed use a prescribed steroid - well i have one anyway. my issue with using it is that i would prefer not to mask the symptoms, but want to work out what it is. i will be curious to see if a genetic auto-immune issue can be treated/ controlled with dietary changes...

as for the weather, changes have ALWAYS affected my eczema. so i did put it down to that. but i never understood why it affected me but not, for example, a sister or brother who surely have much the same genes. my flare up also coincided with becoming primal....

dairy is definitely next. oh how i will miss my yoghurt though....