Eczema and Food Allergy

Hi Karen. Your story is unfortunately very familiar to me. My daughter who is 5 has been suffering from eczema since she was 5 mo. She spends most evenings in my bed scratching her hands and behind her knees. We're currently on the no wheat, dairy, eggs, sugar, nightshade vegetable diet and it's so hard. We're also doing NAET which I'm starting to lose hope with. The struggle is that although there has been some improvement, she still suffers. I'm also looking into alkalizing vs acidifying foods however all proteins are acidyfying which means she could basically eat rice and fruit, not much of a diet for a 5 yr old. I don't know about you but I'm soo tired of this!!!

So what exactly are you guys going to be eating?

I eczema when I was a child it disappeared when I was in my twenties. Now that I am 53 for the past 2 years I have been dealing with eczema all over again. Your article is very helpful. I never thought that food could be a culprit however I do remember that at the age of 14 the dermatologist told me not to eat eggs, chocolate, peanuts, limit my intake of milk, and to stay away from citrus. Thanks for the reminding me.

My daughter had a flare up with a teeny bit of milk chocolate two weeks ago. Since she was clean for about two weeks, even a little bit of the allergen - milk, in this case although sugar could have done it too - made her symptoms appear almost immediately. So if you've been clean - detoxed from all the allergens - even a mild assault to the system will make it obvious. Hope that helps.

Thanks Karen! I suppose the best thing for me to do is go on a milk fast for a week or more to see if my eczema clears up then incorporate goat's milk back into my diet and see what happens. Thanks again!

Me again. Just wanted to chime in regarding goat milk. Is it true that if you have an allergy to cow's milk you won't have the same issues from goat milk? Please say yes because I LOVE goat milk and would have less difficulty making the transition away from cow's milk. It was my understanding that in addition to allergy issues milk or anything that causes mucus buildup in the body/organs can cause a host of health issues.

Hi Patty, I never checked to see what breed of goat milk we had. I guess I should have checked. Unfortunately, my kids are not really into milk of any kind. It would have been nice to be near Pricilla to taste her milk though! But they use her soap. :) It's time to order soon so it's a good thing you stopped by to remind me. I posted one of your soaps on theEcoDiva's post today. Thanks for the tip about the breed.

Karen, what breed of goat provided the goat's milk you gave your son? Different breeds' milk tastes different AND it will taste different dependent upon what the goats are eating. The milk from a Nigerian Dwarf is very rich ( can be up to 8 - 10% milkfat) but Pricilla's milk tastes just like cow's milk. My biggest adjustment was to the richness not the taste. I was coming off of skim milk and drinking the goat's milk was like drinking cream. But the goat's milk doesn't give me heartburn like full fat cow's milk will. You might try another breed of goat or find a place with more free ranging goats and see how their milk tastes. I wish you were closer so as to taste Pricilla's milk....

Elizabeth B: Thank you for the link. I hope my readers will benefit from reading the article. I knew about it's dangers but not those specific studies. Besides the GMO and herbicide issues of the Roundup Resistant Soybeans by Monsanto (and monopoly is a whole other debate), there are the hormone mimicking properties of soy to deal with. Ironically, other than when they drank soy formula for six months, my kids really don't like to drink soy milk. But soy is in a lot of foods and when they have to avoid dairy and wheat, which are in everything, it's hard to eliminate soy too. But what helps is that we are eating whole foods and not processed foods. I try not to use pre-mix spices too. We eat miso - fermented soy beans - and when we really need soy sauce flavor, we use Tamari - soy sauce without wheat. It is tough but I know we can do it. We have to. Dolli: Flaxseed oil is great for so many things and although we never used it directly on the skin, we eat flaxseed and we use Omega -3 oils in our diets and supplements. I have tried olive oils on their skins though but when their skin flares up, I will try it directly on their skin. Thanks! Jo: we love your Eczema butter. We still have some and we use it right after the shower. Jaszy: it's so easy to fall off the wagon - I know. Being that my kids play sports and go to school, it's hard for them to be very strict. But I'm hoping that having this awareness now, when they are young, will teach them how to manage even if I'm not around. It's surprising though, that they are willing to sacrifice and try it. Of course, it helps that there are less temptations since I don't allow the "contraband" in the house. Hang in there. If my 14 y.o. sweet tooth and 17 y.o carnivore can do it, you can too! Doreen: allergies come and go. And if you had allergies in the past, you have to be diligent about recognizing new symptoms and investigate whether allergy might have caused the new symptoms. And since we are not in control of what we eat anymore, unless we grow our own foods, we have to be even more careful of what we buy and where we buy from. The only safe solution is to buy locally, from farmers market, and if the food is not pulled from the ground, we shouldn't eat it. I'm more and more leaning towards becoming a vegetarian. Thank you all for sharing your stories. I think through encouragements like these and tips about managing Eczema, we can help each other a great deal.

My young has eczema since she was born. It's a very tricky condition. Thank you for this post.

Great Post. Thought I'd let you know my story. I was born with Eczema 77 years ago (1932) from the top of my head to just below my shoulders. The District Nurse came in every day and washed me with olive oil (water never touched my body). The eczema disappeared when I was 2 years old only to come back when I was 28, but only on my scalp. Since then, I have tried all sorts of preparations and have finally settled on "cholesterol for the hair" or "hair mayonnaise" - you can get both products in the shampoo section of Wal-Mart. I wash my hair, put this stuff on my scalp, cover it with a plastic bonnet and leave it on until the following morning when I run a comb through my hair to take off the "crust" and then wash the remainder off. So far, this seems to have worked well for me. On occasion I do also give myself an olive oil scalp treatment and this also works well. I am Celiac (allergic to gluten) so I don't eat anything with wheat, barley, oats or rye in it, nor do I eat any prepared, packaged or canned food. I'm also allergic to the casein in milk but I do use goats milk - as you can imagine my diet is a little limited. I also had an allergy test done a couple of years ago and found out that I was allergic to pinto beans and garlic! My basic philosophy is "if God or my mother wouldn't recognize it, I don't eat it!" I can't say I have eliminated the eczema completely but it's certainly better than, say, 5 years ago. Good luck to all of you out there who are battling skin diseases - perhaps these darn medical doctors will wake up one of these days to natural medicine and stop throwing junk at folks. Doreen

Like so many of the comments already posted, I too suffer from eczema and like you found that once I eliminated certain foods from my diet my skin, overall health, and mood improved. In addition to eczema I suffered from painful joints and stomach pains. On a whim, without initially doing much research I opted to eliminate dairy, wheat, chocolate, red meat, and caffeine from my diet. I found that I LOVE goat milk and cheese and rice pasta. I did this for NINE whole months and felt great! Unfortunately after a bout with traditional pizza I fell off the wagon and right back into eczema, joint pain, and stomach issues. Obviously I know what I need to do, it just seems more difficult now. Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks so much for including my eczema salve in your fabulous article. I know how heartbreaking this can be. My son suffered from eczema as a child but as an adult his flare ups are rare, maybe once every year or two and he says stress seems to bring it on. My daughter who also had it as a child, has never had it again as an adult and stopped having flareups in her teens.

Great post! My daughter also had horrible eczema. Her pediatrician advised that we put a little flaxseed oil in her bottle each day and then apply some evening primrose oil to her skin after her bath and now her skin is amazing. Thank you for sharing and good luck!

Hi, Karen. This is really inspiring--thank you for sharing your family's story. I've thought idly about elimination diets, but I've been too lazy to try them. (How pathetic is that?) Please don't think I'm horribly nosy, but soy milk is not a good food to be eating in large quantities. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jul/25/food.foodanddrink It freaked me out to read that a bottle full of soy formula is equivalent to as many as *five* birth control pills. Also, much of the soy sauce available in the American market is made by drying soybeans, flaking them, and then using toxic chemicals on the flakes in order to extract the oil. !!! (However, if you look for organic soy sauce made using whole soybeans, which is the traditional method, you can avoid the yummy hexane solvent.) Anyway, I hope this is helpful and not upsetting. :/

Catherine - "my doctors have always told me it is inherited and the best you can hope for is to ease the symptoms" This is exactly what happened to my kids. I got tired of hearing that from dermatologists and pediatrician. They only gave us symptomatic relief answers. If by doing this particular elimination diet does not improve their condition completely, I'd get another allergy testing done to see exactly what they are allergic to. I am not cutting out corn or soy at this point but may be they are allergic to those too. But for now, I'm sticking with the ones that my son was initially allergic to. So far, it's working beautifully on Emily and Andrew is improving dramatically. After all, he's been on it since Jan 2nd and Emily has been on it since December 22nd. You should really be disciplined and try the elimination diet to see what your body is not happy with. Once you set your mind to it, it is possible. If my 14 year old and 17 year old can do it, YOU CAN TOO!!!

Karen- Thank you for posting this. I have had eczema for years- it came on during a very stressful period before my mother died and has never really gone away. It is much worse in the dry winters. I use a humidifier at night, Eucerin bodywash and lotion, take fast cool showers (ugh!) and prescriptions when it gets too bad (maybe once a year or so). I have always suspected I could ease alot of the symptoms with dietary changes, but it seemed that they needed to be drastic changes because cutting back on the typical culprits has not had any noticeable effect and I have eaten well for years. Allergies and asthma are in my family (as well as eczema) and my doctors have always told me it is inherited and the best you can hope for is to ease the symptoms- I have always thought the best idea was preventing flare-ups in the first place. You have given me new encouragement to be more aggressive with eliminating these things.

Hi Karen, Your story is amazing and reminds me of what we have gone through this past year. My son & I are both sensitive to wheat, and probably eggs & dairy. I'd grown so accustomed to eczema that when I went off of wheat to do the elimination diet with my son, I was shocked to see that after 2 months of no wheat, dairy, most meat & white sugar my skin was smooth for the first time in my life. Now after a year of eating that way, and now mostly raw (which is alkaline), I am feeling better then ever. This is the hidden secret in our standard recommended diet...btwn gluten, dairy, and animal products, we are making ourselves ill. Thanks for sharing your story. XO Elena

Rosina, Let me tell you; it is so hard to do this. Personally, I am OK with the diet because I'm not really a bread nor dairy or red meat person. But my husband LOVES meat and starch. He loves fruits and vegetables too but he just can't live without the 'bad' stuff. I have a theory that if you are allergic to something, you either HATE it or CAN'T live without it. So when he eats ice cream or drinks soda in the house, it drives me and the kids crazy. You and your daughter might be allergic or sensitive to completely different foods than my kids but try the diet for two weeks and see if it makes a difference. If you feel great, then, you'll want to eliminate the bad foods forever because you'll like how you feel. Good Luck and let us know how you are doing with the diet.

Hi Karen :) I just saw your message on the team ecoetsy email and had to pop over to see what you had done to cure your daughter's eczema. I have eczema and unfortunately I have passed it on to my daughter as well. I have been eliminating foods in our diet but it was very inspiring to read your post and hear that you have completely cleared it!! I haven't been vigilant enough with our diet and this has really renewed my quest to purge foods that are triggering our outbreaks. Thanks so much for sharing it.

Hi Karen- Saw your post about this on the team boards and I had to come check it out. I don't know if you have heard of it or not, but it sounds like you are doing something similar to the Candida cleanse/diet. My doctor "prescribed" this diet to me last winter because I have had increasingly worsening stomach issues for about 5 years (the type with shooting pains that make you have to sit down on the grocery store floor). It basically calls for the elimination of sugar or any product that could be converted to sugar in the body (i.e. wheat, dairy, any grains (rice included), fruit, corn, alcohol, etc.). Well, I was freaking out about it a first because it thought it was going to be impossible, but now I'll never go back to the American way of eating (except on rare celebratory occasions of course). And, its really not that hard to stick with a diet that consists mainly of veggies, beans, and occasional (locally raised) meat. My stomach is 100% cured, and I only relapse when I start eating all the sugary stuff again. The more people, I've talked to about this, the more people I find that feel the same way I do and eat a diet similar to this all the time. Some have used it to clear up allergies, some have used it to control high blood sugar/diabetes, and some just do it because it makes them feel great. Anyways, you are certainly onto something here and it sounds like its something similar to the Candida diet. There aren't too many great internet resources but there are several books that are worth checking out on the subject. This is a "cure" that many alternative/integrative/natural medicine practitioners use!

I have eczema and used to use steroid creams. They worked so so..Then a friend got me this; Banana Cream banana peel extract (BPx) made by NuTopicals It says it is for wounds, Burns, and Dermatitis I use it now as soon as the eczema shows up I put it on and it goes away within 24 hours. At first it took longer to go away, but the more I used it the less severe the flare up is. I am not sure if you can get it online, I think she got it from the co-op.

Rachel, Food Inc. mention the corn industry too - it goes after Monsanto, big time. It also mentions Pollan's book. When my kids were in elementary school, I was the Health and Safety Committee Chair and I tried to educate the kids and parents about obesity. I was surprised to learn that some parents didn't want to be told "how to raise" their kids and tell them what to feed them. So, although the food conglomerates are "responsible" for making us sick, it's also the American public that need to be educated about the hazards of what we eat. If we ignore what the companies are feeding us, and stay silent, they will continue to feed us this way. Did you know that some HFCS containing foods also have high mercury content? like Coca Cola? Not only are they making us fat with HFCS, they are also contaminating us with mercury. It's really sickening to learn all these hidden lies. Wild caught salmons are the best, I suppose, but I also heard that farm raised salmons from responsible farmers are better in some cases because there are less toxins in them than the ocean. I'm mixed on that issue. I could go on forever with this too. It's day six for my son and so far, we've seen a little bit of improvement but he's starving. Poor kid.

Hi again, I want to see that movie Food, Inc soon. Did you read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan? He talks in length about the corn industry and how it's infiltrated everything-it's frightening. They even feed fish corn... I went back to being a vegetarian after reading that book (except I eat wild salmon). I haven't bought anything with HFCS in years (getting my husband to closely read labels if finally kicking in too). I am in a research lab that studies obesity and the studies I hear about on fructose and it's direct connection with obesity are an eye opener (too bad the general public isn't getting that same education). I'll stop there-I could go on!!

Hi Mary, I totally agree with you about the "American" food being the culprit. When I eat whole, meaning not processed or packaged, foods and sauces that I make at home, I know what go into making my meals. Even soy sauce has wheat in it!! And it's hard to find juices without corn syrup. Food Inc, the movie, was an eye opener but reading labels and ingredients are really depressing too. I would love the pudding recipe as my daughter is dying for some decadence. I am planning to add some recipes here while I'm on this journey so if you have them, please e-mail them to me. And if you have any other tips on food sensitivities, share them with us. Of course, I'll always link back to you. Thanks for stopping by Mary. :)

Great post, Karen. It is amazing how many foods that are such integral parts of an American diet, even a very healthy one like your family's and mine, can trigger allergic reactions. Everyone in my family has sensitivities, so I have become pretty good at making low-allergenic foods (I definitely let this slip during the holidays, though!). Let me know if you want any recipes (I literally just finished making some non-dairy, non-wheat, sugar-free pudding that tastes amazing). My family and I have found that we don't get the same level of reactions to typical allergens when we are in Europe, so it is my guess that it is the GMO corn and soy, as well as the single type of wheat strain used in most American foods that are the true culprits.

Oh my gosh...I'm so glad you know what I'm going through, I mean, not "glad" but you know what I mean..... Rachel: you are right; CORN is in EVERYTHING!!! Even in things like BBQ charcoal - not kidding. My family saw FOOD Inc. over Thanksgiving and it made me realize what the big food industry is doing to our health through manipulating what we eat. Corn is a huge business controlled by a few big food companies and they put corn in everything....High Fructose Corn Syrup is inevitable if you eat processed foods. My kids didn't test for corn but if this elimination diet doesn't work, I'll test them for that too. Thanks for writing in. Heidi: Milk and eggs are two of the worst. And again, very hard to avoid if you are eating processed foods or restaurant foods. I think your son will end up like my kids - he'll "grow out" of it but not really. I think their system will always be sensitive to them. The problem is milk, soy, eggs, corn, and wheat are in EVERY processed or packaged foods. So when we eat three things for dinner, the chances are, we are actually eating twelve things that we are sensitive to, which taxes our system so we can't tolerate them, making our body to react. Amy: Oh I hope they are not allergic to soy. Soy milk and tofu will be their staple foods from now on. When Andrew tested positive for cow's milk, I tried giving him goat's milk and he did not like it. So we gave him soy which he liked. But goats milk soap we use all the time. Sara: soy is in chocolate??? Yikes! Unfortunately, since you have allergies, the chances are, you probably passed your food allergies to your daughter. You are going to have to watch her for symptoms too. The funny thing is I have no food allergies so I thought we are in the clear. But it turns out, both my parents and my husbands parents have allergies that we didn't know about. :(

very good post. I also suffer with excema, and did the cambridge food test to see whatI may be sensitive to. I found out I was sensitive to dairy, soya and eggs, so went about cutting them out. Its hard!! soya in particular is in almost everything (including most chocolate which was very painful for me ;-)) I actually did this to help conceive, but the by product of it was that my excema totally disappeared, and has only returned recently, and in smaller patches. I only gave them all up for about 2 months, then gave in gradually to everything. I also now have a beautiful 7week old daughter :-D

Hey Karen, My youngest had terrible rashes/excema too when she was small. The doctor said no cows milk or soy. But he did say we could try goats milk. We (I was nursing at the time) were able to do well with goats milk. It may be something to try when your kids are "going through withdrawl" for dairy. hugs, Amy

Thank you so much for this post! My youngest is 2 and has had horrific eczema since he was 6wks old. First on his face (and his face would be wet and seeping and swollen and he would scratch it until it bled). I knew that he had a food allergy but no doctor would listen. Finally I took him to an allergist who still didn't think it was an allergy but tested him anyway. He was surprised that he came back allergic to milk and eggs! He was tested again when he turned 2 and supposedly had grown out of it but now he has it from his neck down to his ankles and on his arms. I am starting to cut out dairy and eggs again. He is incredibly itchy still but I am hoping the diet change will help again. Thanks for your post! I know that no cream or Rx has worked for my little guy.

Very helpful post Karen. I'll forward this on to family who have skin issues. Sorry to hear your daughter has been so sick but good she is on the mend. I did the elimination diet a while ago suspecting I have a food allergy to corn (not skin related). Corn is in SO many things in so many forms, like wheat. Turns out I am allergic to corn but not severely, so I can handle something with a form of corn low on the ingredients list. Good luck with your family's elimination diet.

Excellent post! I tweeted it and am passing link to it onto a couple of friends whose children have Psoriasis. Thanks for sharing!