Eczema is a digestive disorder not a skin problem

[Jolie McShane]

My son was covered with eczema at 3 months of age. Let me say from the bottom of my heart to all the sufferers, there is an answer. To help my son went back to school, studied integrative nutrition and kept researching for the answer. It is not a skin problem, is a digestive issue. Check out leaky gut syndrome, the food is not properly digested and the toxins from the undigested food leaks into the blood stream and then out through the skin. Address the digestion and the skin will clear. I now specialize in allergies, eczema, and asthma. All very closely related. Research essential fatty acid deficiency, probiotics and digestive enzymes. Food is medicine.

[leanneava]

im really interested in what uve said about it being a gut disorder. my daughter suffers extensively from eczema and many allergies and asthma. shes on an incredibly strict diet but her ezcema still isnt sorting itself out. ive been doing research on some other things apart from just what the doctors can give her. today ive just started giving her evening primrose oil, a reccomendation i found on here. is there any advice you could give me on where to start researching this? please thanks

[Marcie Mom]

Hi!

I'm interviewing a pediatrician who specialised in allergy and asked this question - the answer is eczema is a skin problem, and not a food problem. It's wise not to go to extreme measures when addressing food allergies. His answer will be published on my blog in May, at http://eczemablues.com

Meanwhile, feel free to drop by my blog as there's lots of information specifically for kids' eczema.

Take care,
MarcieMom

[michael h]

Hi,

I just saw this thread and felt the need to reply.

Jolie, you are definitely spot on with your writings regarding the leaky gut syndrome and I have attached a link to a blog of a lady who detailed her journey going "cold turkey" from steroid creams. She used steroid creams for around 16 years but she still had serious eczema, but the terrifying thing for her was the reversal process of getting the steroids out of her system and the effects that had on her body.

http://www.eczema-natural-healing.com/index.html

Her diet was changed to make sure her body received all the vitamins and minerals that so many people are deficient in to allow her body to heal it's self.

p.s. Marciemom, your blog is very confusing, on one hand you talk about the skin being the problem but you have articles about eating fish to get epa and dha (fatty acids).

If the skin was the problem surely a cream would be all you need?

[Marcie Mom]

Oh dear, let me correct myself - eczema is caused by many factors and when I said it's a skin issue, it's to highlight that eczema shouldn't be viewed as a condition that can be solved just by food. Let me quote the doctor's reply on the upcoming Q&A (not yet posted on my blog), so that I don't misquote his reply:
I would remind your readers that eczema is a skin disease, and not an allergic disease. Removing triggers can reduce the eczema, but will not cure it.

The full Q&A will be posted on my blog on 18 May, at following url
http://eczemablues.com/2012/05/friday-d ... ergy-test/

And thanks Michael for visiting my blog! I visited your site too and saw that you promote natural healing.

My blog does have a range of topics, and I try to do so and work with doctors and experts to provide a valuable resource for parents. I don't profit, in fact, all monies go to an eczema fund that I initiated with my donation - it's the first in Singapore, subsidizing treatment for low income eczema patients.

Take care,
MarcieMom

[michael h]

I don't understand how you can say that eczema cannot be solved by food alone. This would make eczema incurable as the creams given by the doctors do not work to solve the problem but only to mask it.

My sister has had eczema for over forty years and has been given every cream under the sun but to this day still has it and only a change in her diet seems to be having an effect. Go onto any eczema website including this one and the you'll find people who have had eczema for decades still desperately looking for help.

My son now has eczema and I am being given bags of creams including steroids which we have stopped using due to my sisters ongoing condition.

It's strange that the doctor said it's a skin problem but the dermatologist at my hospital specifically said it was a gut problem which affects the immune system, but when asked how we can boost the immune system we were told there was nothing we can do.

Please read the website I posted properly as you will see a lady who documented her recovery from eczema so it is possible.

[Meimuna]

I also helped my son reverse much of his eczema through diet. I wish doctors would talk more about the corrolation between the gut and the skin.

But Marcie, I think the doctor you interviewed on your blog is right. Food allergies are not the cause of eczema. In my research I found that both allergies and eczema are caused by the same underlying issue: a gut disorder. Food is the most powerful medicine I have seen thus far for healing the digestive and immune systems. Sometimes I think it can be detrimental to downplay that point.

There is a reason that there has been a huge outbreak in eczema and allergies in the last 30 years. Our diets and environment have drastically changed. We are eating more and more genetically modified foods. We are eating less real whole foods. And everything that we have been doing to this earth is affecting our health and that of our children. We are definately reaching our threshold.

My son is still in the process of healing so I can't say that there is a definitive cure to eczema, but people with eczema don't have to suffer to the point that they do. We have done a combination of supplements and diet changes. We took it slow and steady. In the end of the day, I think if you ignore the underlying causes of eczema, it will only run your body into bigger issues.

I actually just started a blog about treating eczema naturally. I will be doing a free webinar (in the next couple of weeks) on the connection between the gut and skin if anyone is interested.

Meimuna

[michael h]

Excellent post Meimuna, my son also has eczema and I am changing his diet to include less sugar (which is piled into most foods), having oatmeal baths, taking probiotics and including fruit smoothies which we are gradually changing to green smoothies by adding more veggies in compared to fruits. It has been difficult as my son has refused to go in the bath and have his smoothies, but now he is settling down so we should start seeing results.

There are a lot of people just on this site alone who could do with your help so anything you can tell people about how you dealt with your sons eczema would be fantastic.

I know you're website is work in progress, but from your post It is obvious you know what you are talking about and I think it can be a great resource for anybody willing to do their own research and basically do it for themselves.

Michael

[Viv Naturopath]

Hi all. Eczema is definitely a skin problem not just a digestive disorder. Yes the gut is involved and many of my patients have measurable gut toxicity. Try using lactobacillus rhamnosus. This has proven to decrease atopy disoders in infants by up to 2 years. Gut toxicity will increase levels of leaky gut whereby particles of food travel through the damaged wall of the small intestine, entering the blood stream and thus trigger a delayed allergy (or food intolerance) that produced IgG antibodies.
Research tells us that there are multiple other issues going on however including loss of ceramide and proteins within the skin, problems with water loss, damage to the skin barrier and above all involvement of staphlycoccus aureus. Inside the body there is also an imbalance of antibodies known as Th1 and Th2 (possible Th17 also). Zinc is nearly always deficient. And of course we can't forget stress. So yes, the gut can be involved, but treatment of the gut alone, is unlikely to correct each of these contributing factors.

[michael h]

Hi Viv, the point is that there may well be other things going on but until you can get the gut into a position where it is seen as healthy how do we quantify how much of effect the other problems have? Also, if we are able to heal the gut how many of the other problems would still exist?

Would it not be sensible to sort the gut out first as it is known to be the cause of so many ills?

I think the main problem is that internal health is not even considered in so called conventional medicine as everything is focussed on the skin so this thread was hopefully going to shine some light on eczema that there is something else going on inside that you can deal with YOURSELF with some reading, tenacity and planning.

Michael