Eczema

Stress-induced eczema is probably the most under-appreciated cause of eczema in the world. More and more studies are showing the relationship between stress in individuals or families, and the health effects stress wreaks.

I think pediatricians these days are overworked, tired, frustrated and drowning in a system of government-mandated computer clicks – and many times it’s easier to write a prescription than to counsel a family for an hour. That was certainly true for me when I was given 10-20min per patient by the governing bodies. I also think that some physicians are so closed-minded to the possibility of natural options that they refuse to acknowledge that there is another way. Below I enumerate the 7 biggest mistakes I see western medicine continue to make with eczema treatment and their patients and continue to suffer.

My 2 older children have struggled with eczema for most of their lives. My middle child, Jake, had his most severe symptoms during middle school and high school. He never had any type of severe reaction to food, like a peanut allergy, for instance, so we assumed his skin problems were NOT food-related. Despite topical steroids (this is before I realized the error in my ways), his symptoms continued to worsen particularly on his chest, back, and face.

Our family traditionally drank an absurd amount of milk. We typically would drink a gallon and half of milk per day, and sometimes more. When the kids came in from playing outside, we would quench their thirst with a big glass of cold milk rather than water. Each night my husband would eat several bowls of cereal before bed. We were drinking skim milk because the food industry had tricked us into thinking all fat was bad. Then we shifted to organic whole milk as the first step toward cleaning up our diets. But our inflammatory conditions remained despite the cleaner dairy products. It wasn’t until we were forced to remove dairy as part of my daughter’s eczema treatment program that we noticed the biggest changes. Her skin rapidly improved, my belly felt better, and my husband noticed his joint pain was better! Now I am not sure we can chalk all that up to dairy removal, but I definitely think there was a link.