Eczema

It’s Not Just Skin Deep

Conventional medicine will certainly recognize the symptoms of eczema and offer you protective creams, antibiotics, steroids, antihistamines, and/or immune modulating topical treatments. These treatments are all targeted at the surface.  But the causes of eczema are much more than skin deep. To tackle these causes, you need a different approach.

Deeper Mechanisms at Play…

Eczema is a state of inflammation of the skin, and inflammation can be boiled down to a process that is happening in your body in response to some form of threat: psychological, infection based, and/or food-related threats, to name a few.  When this process is ongoing it will result in symptoms, like skin disorders. So first, we need to find the root cause of the response.  

Chronic inflammation dys-regulates the immune system.  And guess where the immune system primarily lives? In your gut!  So we also need to look to your gut for help!

…Suggest a Different Approach

Instead of just considering the suppression of symptoms (which, if it worked perfectly, you wouldn’t be reading this!) you should pursue a holistic and multi-prong approach. 

Treating from the Inside-Out

1. Lifestyle: Prioritize full and restful sleep.  Identify ways to modulate stress on a daily basis.  Engage in regular exercise. Remove active triggers of deeper psychological distress to create the right basic building blocks to keep inflammation at bay.  Because stress, alas, causes inflammation.
   
2. Nutrients: Food is medicine.  It’s all over my website for a reason!  Start with eating from an anti-inflammatory food template, such templates consist of the foods that have been shown to support mechanisms in the body that decrease inflammation. One simple way to approach this is to follow a simple rule: eat foods that are not in a package!  But, specific foods that have high anti-inflammatory power include green leafy vegetables, nuts, fish, and fruit.  Should you have significant trouble with itching, consider eliminating high histamine foods. At DCIM, for example, we devise an elimination diet for patients, phasing out foods like alcohol, fermented foods, and avocados.  Elimination diets will help you identify food triggers of inflammation. Lastly, develop a plan with a physician to utilize nutrients that are known to quell the immune system like Vitamins A, D, and Fish Oil, especially if these are borderline low deficient based on your bloodwork.  This is a tough roadmap to create, follow, and stick to on your own. We can help!
   
3. Gut: The gut is the home of your immune system.  Infections in the gut are a source of inflammation. Identifying infections like yeast overgrowth or other forms of dysbiosis through advanced diagnostic testing can be incredibly helpful in tailoring your treatment plan.  You must remove these infections to turn the dial down on inflammation. Also, look to repair a leaky gut that co-exists with gastrointestinal infections.  Such repairs will protect you from further flares.  Finally, rebuild your microbiome with targeted probiotics and prebiotics to set your course correctly. 

If you have been frustrated with the current approach to your eczema, please know that there are other ways to find relief.  These approaches are comprehensive and might require more effort, but have longer staying power and allow you to heal yourself fully rather than just superficially.  Find a physician that’s an ally, and get to the bottom of your discomfort.

We can help you diagnose the cause and develop the cure!