Until my first son was born, I had only heard of eczema, I hadn’t had any experience with it. But a few months into his little life, and some rough patches developed over the smooth baby skin on his abdomen, back, and thighs. A young mom, thinking that maybe it was just dry skin, I used baby lotion, and then coconut oil on the patches, only to watch them spread.
When lotions and oils didn’t work to clear up the dry patches, I started some research on eczema. And sure enough, some internet research confirmed that yes, this most likely was eczema on my baby.
What is Eczema?
Eczema is a skin condition that affects 10-20% of infants, and declines with age, affecting about 3% of adults (source). It is an itchy scaly rash on the skin that is correlated with allergies and asthma.
The rash is very itchy, and the itch is often so intense that infants, children, and adults all have trouble sleeping because of the eczema, and they may scratch the skin until it bleeds as an attempt to alleviate the itch.
What are the conventional treatments for eczema?
If you or your child has eczema, and you go to a conventional (regular) doctor or pediatrician, it’s likely that you will be advised to use:
- Topical steroid cream
- Bleach baths
- Bandages or dressings to cover open sores
- UV Light
- Antihistamines
- Cyclosporin (an immune suppressant)
(source)
None of these treatments are thought to cure eczema, but rather to just manage the discomfort.
What are holistic treatments for eczema?
Holistic medicine is medicine that treats the whole body as being out of balance, rather than just the symptoms that are presenting. You can read more about what holistic healthcare is all about here – it’s *not* just using a natural treatment instead of a man-made one. It’s more about getting to the underlying cause of symptoms rather than covering them up.
Holistically, eczema is treated in three parts.
First, we remove anything that can be aggravating the condition, this can include switching to natural laundry detergent, putting a shower filter on our shower to filter out chlorine, using gentle soap, creams and ointments (this tallow balm is the best that I’ve seen for temporary immediate relief), and other symptom-soothing methods.
Next, we try an elimination diet. It’s so common that food allergies present in ways that are not typical. Removing dairy and/or eggs and gluten will most often relieve symptoms. This is done in a breastfeeding mother if the infant has eczema as well.
And lastly, and most importantly, we clean up the gut. When the gut is functioning as it should, we’re able to detoxify, our body doesn’t have an immune response to food like eggs and dairy, and our immune system attacks offending germs, not our own tissue.
How could the gut be connected to the skin?
Our gut, where we digest food, keep most of our immune system, and even have brain tissue, is much more important than most people realize. The gut normally is populated with a hefty balance of good gut flora (microorganisms – yeasts, fungi, and bacteria). It normally is healthy tissue with intestinal villi that work with the gut flora to extract nutrients needed from food, and pass them through the gut wall into the blood stream.
These villi move food along the digestive tract, break it into smaller pieces so that nutrients can be extracted, and secrete enzymes needed to break down food (source).
The bacteria in our gut line the gut walls, and actually pre-digest our food for us. They line our guts to prevent food from being passed through the gut walls without first being broken down sufficiently. This gut flora is also a large part of our immune system.
When our gut is unhealthy, the flora in our gut is not protecting food from being passed through, vitamins and minerals are not able to be extracted properly from food, the body is unable to detoxify normally, and the immune system is not functioning as it should. All of this results in an immune response in the body.
An eczema rash is from the body attacking it’s own cells, in an immune response. (source, though I don’t agree with their recommended treatment, but rather believe in cleaning up the gut instead).
As children grow, their gut seals up naturally. This is why so many children outgrow eczema, food allergies, and other ‘leaky gut’ problems. But the rising rates suggest that waiting for them to be outgrown is not going to be enough. We need to take action.
Gut flora and gut health is connected to eczema in children. (source)
What can help heal the gut?
When we’re working to heal our gut we need a multi-step process:
- Remove inflammatory foods that are difficult to digest: Gluten, other grains, sugars, and chemicals in non-food items (food dyes, preservatives, etc)
- Provide foods that supply easy-to-digest nutrients to the gut to facilitate in repair and healing: Chicken stock, gelatin, fresh juice, healthy fats.
- Provide probiotics that re-populate the gut with healthy flora. (this is the commercial probiotic that we use)
- This whole process is in the Gut and Psychology Introduction Diet – see more about that here
- Depending on your symptoms, you may be able to modify this protocol and still see great results; possibly just removing gluten, any known allergens (often eggs or dairy), and increasing probiotics for a time.
- Get started making these changes with the help of this free checklist
How did this work for us?
My two youngest had eczema as infants, and both have ‘outgrown’ it with the help of an allergy elimination diet in me while breastfeeding, the addition of probiotics, and lots of gut-healing stock. I notice that my middle child’s skin is particularly sensitive to junk food sneaking into his diet, but the dairy-caused eczema never did return after we did the GAPS intro when he was 11 months.
You can see the progression from my youngest’s ‘trouble spot’ of eczema as I healed his gut. It started improving the first 3 days we eliminated allergens. (it turns out a 5-month old’s elbow is difficult to photograph, but look at his super clear skin in the last picture!).
In the second picture he is good, in the 3rd I tried eating off the gut-healing protocol (he was exclusively breastfed at the time), and in the last picture I went back on and it healed right up!
For myself, though I’ve never had eczema, I do notice that the better I eat, the more clear my skin looks. This mom at Keeper of the Home notices this as well, and I hear it over and over again from moms who are using my meal plans or intro e-book. Everyone’s skin becomes beautiful and healthy once health is resorted in the body.
In fact, skin is one of the biggest indicators that something is ‘off’ in the body. It’s our largest organ, and often one of the first places that can give us indication that we need healing.
Don’t feel that you are chained to ‘bad genetics’ if your family is plagued by skin conditions. It most likely is rooted in your gut.
And a post from Nourishing Minimalism about her son’s eczema and what she did to fix it.
Related posts:
What is a healing crisis? (why your skin might temporarily get worse)
Healing a dairy allergy with the GAPS diet
How to make gut-healing broth cubes
More help:
Check out The Eczema Cure by Emily Bartlett. She used this protocol to heal her daughter’s awful childhood eczema. You can learn more by clicking here.
More posts in this series:
Behavioral Problems? Skin Conditions? Low Immune System? It’s What We’re Feeding Them!
Want to treat my children? Here are 12 non-food treat ideas that won’t wreck their health
Does Picky Eating Start in the Gut? Yes! Gut Microbes Affect What Your Child Likes and Dislikes
Is there any probiotic powder you would recommend instead of the veggies? I would find it surprising if my son would eat them :( he has similar issues and I heard that adding a probiotic supplement could help…but I want a good one..
I use biokult – it’s really powerful, start with 1/10th of a capsule (really!)
My daughter use to suffer from food-triggered eczema too (dairy, gluten, eggs), and I thought I had it sorted with probiotics, stock, elimination diet, and various supplements (she also has ASD). She didn’t have eczema for over 2 years (although still symptoms of imbalanced immune system). Now this year I’m puzzled because she seems to have an allergic reaction to the pollens in the form of eczema all over her back. The last 2 years it was only an itchy nose and coughing, and this year it’s eczema instead. Very difficult to tackle as I can’t remove the pollens. Trying to improve her general immune system but unfortunately it might take ages…
Hi, Anne-Marie. Have you had any success healing your daughter of her eczema due to pollens? If so, I would love to know what has helped!! My daughter (and now her little brother) suffer so much. At first, eliminating food sensitivities and supplementing seemed to help, and now it seems that all things in bloom from spring to fall cause intense itching and terrible flares that don’t let up. I wonder what else I can try. It is so heartbreaking to see them suffer (and for years now). Even the antihistamines do not seem to bring much relief anymore. Hope your daughter has found relief! Thanks, Heather
Elimination never helped my ezcema, I already eat super healthy still 99% of the time too, I also dont use chemicals. I never developed ezcema or allergies until adult and now my ezcema flares when its colder and can dissapear in the summer, which is ot connected in anyway too diet.
Even ‘super healthy’ can sometimes feed the bad bugs if they’ve gotten established. Are you grain free?
I was, now only eat occasional sourdough kamut wholemeal organic bread. Otherwise no other grains. I eat heaps of sauerkraut. My skin flares in the cold, not with food as it clears up with the warmth and sun. Its also only on my hands and wrists, nowhere else.
Mine is also on the hands and wrists, but flares more in humid heat. I discovered mold in our previous house. Do you live where it snows? Is it wet in the winter? Mold can be behind walls or from a wet basement, slow leak etc. I live in Atlanta . I have reacted to foods. Light therapy does help my skin. Hope you find healing.
I had hoped to leave a “stand alone” comment, but couldn’t. I hope it’s ok to attach mine to this one.
As a child I suffered from sporatic eczema (winter time) too. Now that I am older it has returned; mainly in the winter/cold months of the year.
I had a “scratch” (food) test done as a child and that didn’t conclusively find anything except a mild reaction to tomatoes which I hated and didn’t eat anyway. (My father was a GP btw… ) Since then I have come to the conclusion that my sensitivity is more related to the environment. I can NOT wear wool! As a young child, in the winter my mom would dress me in beautiful wool sweaters which were “uncomfortable” but I would get over heated and sweat and then my reaction to the wool was like I was on fire. I was too little to explain this to her then, but even now I react this way to wool.
Now, my hands in the winter time can break out in eczema if I don’t protect them enough when washing/rinsing dishes. And once a break out has become severe, it’ll take months to completely heal. (I think it’s the soap & cold, not being in water). A bitter cold wind can really aggrevate the sensitive, fragile skin.
Eczema is not ALWAYS a gut issue… But perhaps a combination of factors.
Great post. We have also had success with elimination diets, GAPS and a whole host of other alternative therapies. With each thing we have tried we have seen improvement and learned something. In the end we eat cleaner have a lower toxic load and have grown so much on this journey.
My brother-in-law had hand and wrist problems too. He found that when he cut out bread and reduced his fruit intake (he is a fruit bat!) that his hands cleared. If he eats too much they start to itch and he knows he needs to be careful. We can eat too much of a good thing!
Does your 30 day guide also include supplement info? Every thing is so jumbled in the original GAPS book that I’d have to reread and rewrite a guide just to be able to get started on it! With such detailed information I am surprised and disappointed that no kind of a guide was included. I want to know every thing we need to do for each day and how to do it all in one place.
It does, but I should add some more supplement info from the book (enzymes, etc). Thanks for reminding me. I’m in the middle of revising the book, and I”ll include that. If you buy now I’ll email you the updated version when it’s done :)