The Beautiful Letdown

A breastfeeding blog that dabbles in tandem, extended nursing, gentle parenting and much more

Eczema Connection

January14

Through­out my entire life, I have had eczema.  It has ranged in sever­ity from annoy­ing to unbear­able.  I have had it on my legs, arms, feet, hands, neck, face, and ears.  Yes, I’ve even had it on my ears!

Now, at the time of year when it’s nor­mally at its worst, my eczema is gone!  About 9 months ago, I saw a doc­tor about it, and she rec­om­mended that I try to elim­i­nate (at sep­a­rate times) wheat and eggs from my diet.  Since I had already eaten dairy free for such a long time after hav­ing A, we knew it wasn’t dairy caus­ing my eczema.  Well, I didn’t fol­low her advice.  I couldn’t ever get started.  I would plan to start, and then I’d decide to do it a dif­fer­ent day.

Mean­while, over the past year and half or so, Jason and I have been try­ing to decrease the num­ber of processed foods we’ve been eat­ing.  We’ve also been eat­ing many more fruits, veg­gies, and whole grains.  In the past few weeks, I’ve been mak­ing our bread, spaghetti sauce, and soups.  The other thing that I have changed (more than Jason or the boys) is that I have stopped eat­ing most meat.

Over the past year and a half or so, I’ve been a part of a group of women who have dis­cussed sev­eral times the ben­e­fits of eat­ing well and using high qual­ity, whole foods.  One of the women went to a com­pletely whole foods, mostly organic diet.  She has also found that her eczema cleared up.  So, while I’m not guar­an­tee­ing a con­nec­tion, it seems like a pretty strong con­nec­tion, and I plan to con­tinue eat­ing this way.

posted under Healthy living
5 Comments to

“Eczema Connection”

  1. On January 15th, 2009 at 6:07 am Samara @ Through The Eyes of The Creator Says:

    It is amaz­ing how many ail­ments we have that are food related. My 12yo has either eczema or pso­ri­a­sis on his arms and scalp that flairs up in an almost reg­u­lar inter­val. I have never thought about check­ing his diet. Though with him eat­ing school lunches it would make it hard to limit his diet-maybe try­ing it dur­ing the sum­mer would help. I’m glad your eczema cleared up. Have a great day!

  2. On January 15th, 2009 at 8:43 am Karen Says:

    And what group of friends might that be?

    I really hope that the change in diet helps your eczema. I’m work­ing on eat­ing more whole foods too, and while I don’t have eczema, I’m hop­ing that some other things will improve for me.

  3. On January 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am Terra Says:

    I look for­ward to ‘see­ing’ the results — both my boys have eczema (my youngest has it worse than my old­est ever did) and I’ve read a hand­ful of thing that could cause it, but I won­der if what *I’m* eat­ing, since I’m nurs­ing it affect­ing him.…hmmm.… :)

  4. On January 18th, 2009 at 10:10 pm Michelle Fry Says:

    I grew up with eczema as well–it was really bad when I was lit­tle, and we tried the food allergy diet, and noth­ing we elim­i­nated seemed to make a dif­fer­ence. The eczema went away for sev­eral years and then came back a few years again–my poor pinkie fin­ger has been scratched to the core for almost a year and a half straight now! I don’t dare take any drugs for it while preg­nant (or before that when breast­feed­ing), but OTC lotions don’t seem to be help­ing either. Maybe it’s time to try the allergy diet again.

  5. On March 24th, 2009 at 1:59 pm Carole Says:

    I’ve never been one for pack­aged foods. I hate the taste. Real foods taste so much bet­ter and they really don’t take much longer to prepare.

    I don’t think that meat is a trig­ger. It seems to me that you need to make sure that you’re get­ting enough iron. But more than 6 ounces a day is bad for you. You’re prob­a­bly doing it right by eat­ing smaller quantities.

    The fresh fruits and veg­eat­bles will take care of most health prob­lems. You’ll be amazed at how good you feel!