All About Eczema

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.

Social media has the unique ability to take life, which we know to be messy with lots of ups and downs/ failures and victories, and put a fake shiny gloss on it. Like putting lipstick on a pig! I think when people look at my Instagram posts or YouTube Channel, they probably miss the fact that my family struggled with our health for years. All 3 of my children experienced classic chronic inflammatory conditions such as eczema, allergies, and asthma, while my husband suffered from multiple inflammatory conditions in addition to anxiety. Heck, even my dog had severe allergies!

If you google, “what causes eczema?” The typical answers describe an inflammatory skin condition, genetic in origin, primarily related to an abnormality in the skin. The answers seem to suggest that since it is genetic we are unable to change the root cause of the problem.

I think we need to start this with a fascinating story about misconceptions in modern medicine.

In 1981, at a small hospital in Perth, Australia, a young medical resident in training named Barry Marshall was looking for a research project. He was completing his gastroenterology rotation which largely consisted of seeing patients with painful peptic ulcers. It was commonly accepted at the time that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid in the stomach.

About a year ago, Jake and Amy, a new young beautiful couple, walked into my clinic with their newborn baby, Henry, in tow. As I pulled back the blanket of Henry’s car carrier, I immediately saw why they were there – their precious baby boy was covered in eczema. I gently pulled the little guy out of the carrier and peeled off his onesie. Most of Henry’s cheeks, belly and back were filled with red patchy lesions of eczema, and he was not happy about me touching them.