Our Eczema Journey

  I have 3 older children with sensitive, but otherwise, normal skin.  One is lactose sensitive, but no major allergies.  My 4th little blessing couldn't wait to meet his older siblings and decided to join us 6 weeks early.  Daxton had a very rough start the  first few days of life.  His lungs proved to be very weak, and when the body is putting so much energy into breathing, the body concentrates less on lesser important things like digestion.  He was tube fed alone for over a week.  No, that does not sound too bad as far as preemies go, but as a nursing mother it was agony.   The tiny little doll finally cam home from the hospital and was the dreamiest baby!  So happy, so content, loved everyone, snuggled and slept all day! His first year went on without anything drastic.  He was such a snuggle bug that he was rarely put down.  He was curled in mamma's arms or in big sister's arms the vast majority of his first year.  He did not show much interest in "real" food so I didn't force it.  I knew his body knew what was best, so he nursed when he wanted, and he snacked off my plate or drank water from a sippy cup when he wanted...but the majority of his nutrition was mommy milk.   At 13 months old he started showing more and more interest in table food.  I introduced foods to him in the same manner that you would any other child, I just did it more slowly and on his cues.   By 13 months old stage he had been introduced to pretty much any type of food.   At this time, October 2013, he developed a very red chin.

Friends and family questioned us, but I assumed that his skin was irritated from drooling alllllll the time.  By November of 2013 he developed a rash on his neck and dry patches on his cheeks.  His patches on his cheeks and chin started to have what I call the "Eczema Shine" and I knew then what I was dealing with.

I became obsessed with figuring out what i was exposing him to that had brought his body to such a state of inflammation.  I read and read and read (read books and journals, not google!) everything I could concerning nutrition and eczema.   Infancy to adulthood you can find article after article on how people cured eczema with nutrition.  The problem is, every human body is different.  Therefore every "treatment" nutrition plan is different person to person. I already knew I had one child sensitive to dairy, so I cut all ties to dairy from my diet and his.  Neither of us consumed much dairy and his eczema was worsening with each day, so I wanted to pick one other extreme dietary change to try, so we also cut out the dietary evil  of the 21st century: gluten.   More than 2 months passed with ZERO improvements.

 

Through out those two months I turned to my obsessive love for herbology, and researched medical journals for the best herbs to help skin inflammation.  My research guided the trial and error stage of formulating my, now raved about, Eczema Butter, Eczema Itch Stick, and Herbal Oat Bath. (Eczema butter is in such a high demand it is out of stock regularly on the store, so if you are in immediate need, PLEASE email me and I will try to meet your needs as quickly as I can!)     [caption id="attachment_19" align="aligncenter" width="622"] 7 day comparison of using the Eczema Butter 4-5 times a day[/caption]

...but The Eczema Butter only treated the skin inflammation.  If I discontinued use, the skin flared up within a day or two.

[caption id="attachment_18" align="aligncenter" width="479"] This flair up reappeared just two days after not using Eczema Butter.[/caption] February 2014:  I was emotionally exhausted and feeling very defeated so I took Daxton to the pediatrician begging for allergy testing and a pediatric GI specialist.  His skin was in a constant state of inflammation, and the poor dear had terrible runny stools.  My other children were breastfed over a year, but they all had normal poop by now!  This just did not seem right to me, and I was 100% confident that if the doctors could help me figure out what was going on with his digestion, then his skin problems would be solved.    The doctor told me that Eczema suffers gave false negatives and false positives all the time and that the blood test would be a waste of our time.  I put my foot down and demanded we give it a try anyway.  He doctor also told me that my child had loose stools because he was still nursing.  He did not council me on dietary triggers, not on environmental triggers, nothing.  (Yes, his credentials with me plummeted at that moment)  Even when I asked him if he was going to suggest I stop using perfumed laundry softeners (which I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, but he didn't know that!), he got very defensive and responded, "Well some people just have Eczema, and there's nothing you can do about it." Wrong answer. I was infuriated, and now had more emotional fuel than ever to figure this puzzle out, no matter what lengths it took!    Two weeks later Daxton's blood test came back.  The results stated that he had no no allergies, food nor environmental.  The pediatrician offered to write me a prescription for a strong cortisone cream, but I told him there was no need, that I could make a far more safe and more effective treatment myself.    {...and I did!!!} I was truly confident in my ability to treat his skin, and yes, I could clear his skin up with my Eczema Butter and Itch Stick, but it only treated the symptoms of the inflammation.  I still had no idea what was causing such a disturbance in his little body. Through the month of February and March, his stools became more watery and even mucus tinged.  I was eliminating every popular allergen, with no avail.  He started wanting to nurse more and more, day and night.  When I suspected that he was loosing weight, his skin no longer concerned me.  There was absolutely something that he was eating that his body could not handle.  A beautiful friend of mine, who's family has unusual digestive problems and whom I am eternally in debt to, told me that when she needs to "re-set" her son, she feeds him fresh meat and fresh produce only and with in a few days his stools return to normal.   Sounds easy enough for a few days, so I gave it a try.  48 hours later, I had never been so excited to change a poopy diaper!  It had worked!  Better yet, his skin was already looking less red and irritated.  We stuck with this struck diet for 7 days, and magically the eczema vanished and his skin healed up perfectly. April 2014: Daxtons skin looked perfect.  ZERO eczema.  I had been right!!!  His eczema was nutrition related!!!

Very slowly I tried to re-introduce different grains, beans, and nuts.  Every time it was the same bad outcome.  I even noticed that root vegetables upset stomach.  The one new thing I introduced to his diet that his body accepted beautifully was raw goats milk.  Again, I am forever in debt to a dear friend for helping heal my babies gut with her goats' milk!    The trend that I noticed was that Daxton could not digest starchy, carbohydrate loaded foods.   I figured it out.  His own mother, not some doctor who didn't even have the time to council me on proper nutrition for my child with chronic diarrhea and severe eczema.   I went to the doctor for help, and he tried to send me home with a harmful prescription.  PLEASE do not think that I am bashing all pediatricians.  I'm only bashing the ones who do not listen to a mother when she pleads for a GI referral and tries to tell them that something was wrong with her baby.

 Daxton's body can not digest grains of any sort, beans or legumes, nuts, nor root vegetables.  Dairy does not upset his stomach, but does cause his eczema to flair.   Eggs only upset his stomach mildly, but he develops and terrible rash around his neck.   Once we cleaned up his gut and fed his fresh produce, fresh meat, and raw goats milk, his skin was perfect.  Yes, I cured his eczema.

More and more research lead me to suspect that Daxton was amylase (the enzyme responsible for starch and card digestion) deficient, but now we were into the month of May, and Uncle Sam had called us to move to Beaufort, SC the first week in June, so there was no bother with me begging a doctor, who didn't listen to me, to test my child for enzyme deficiencies!   We stuck to the meat, produce, and goat milk diet, and prayed that the Lord would provide the perfect doctor who would help us find answers.   I can not express to you how deeply that prayer was heard and answered, but that is another post for another time.   <3   *Please keep in mind that, just as I stated in the beginning of this post, every human body is created differently, and Daxton's digestive problems and diet restrictions are unique to him.  They are a very strange and rare groupings of digestive problems. [caption id="attachment_11" align="aligncenter" width="600"] With a controlled diet, Daxton's skin is perfect[/caption] I share our story to inspire families to educate themselves, and if you are not happy with the answers you are given, find a new answer!  If you had time today to browse your Facebook news feed, you had time to browse through a few medical studies.  Published medical journals are not kept under lock and key.  You can search and read and LEARN on your own!   Visit pubmed.com  or thebmj.com and start searching away.  Let's that a research revolution.  Raise your right hand and repeat after me, "I (insert your name here), promise not to google medical advice.  I will instead to proper research and only trust credited sites."  =) ~Ashley