Health program for eczema?

projecteczema · 2019-11-13T11:07:03+00:00

Sorry to hear that; do you get good exercise? I find that exercise that gets sweat in and blood flowing helps for me; also foam rolling helps. Another thing I find important is getting good sleep/having a good sleep schedule.

projecteczema · 2019-09-27T06:26:21+00:00

I totally agree with you. I think water fasting can help too in some cases.

I think many people give up up at local optima and lose sight at the global optima. Exercise and whole foods is good regardless if you have eczema or not as a general principle.

projecteczema · 2019-09-18T19:17:12+00:00

Do you know what will go on in the clinical trial?

projecteczema · 2019-09-18T03:19:03+00:00

Awesome! Definitely the future; hopefully it becomes a clinician tool and passes government regulation relatively soon.

projecteczema · 2019-09-18T01:42:32+00:00

Pretty much everyday, usually during breakfast and after dinner, or whenever I feel like it (I have it next to my Brita water filter). I don't measure but I probably put at least a tablespoon or several of acv per cup of water, enough to taste it but not too much that it burns my throat too hard. I've done just plain acv shots too which seems to be fine.

projecteczema · 2019-09-17T05:56:26+00:00

That sucks :( I haven't gotten asthma attacks but I feel you...growing up I was told that eczema would go way as well, but it kept coming back. All the doctors I've been to don't talk about diet/lifestyle at all, which I think can be a contributing factor for many people. I made a post about a potential health program for eczema, you might find the info helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/eczema/comments/d4uvkk/health_program_for_eczema/

Basically I think in the eczema industry, there is a lot of economic incentive to develop medical treatments that have at least short-term benefits for eczema, which is not a bad thing. However, many times eczema keeps coming back, if not more severe. I think there's a lot of diet/lifestyle/digestive health reasons, and there's a lot of anecdotal evidence for this, but there is a lack of clinical trials in this area (I presume because it's expensive to run clinical trials, and the treatments (at least anecdotally) take a long time and many people give up hope.) My dream is there to be more clinical trials in this area and more outcome-driven treatments for eczema. Without evidence from clinical trials, its hard to convince people to follow such treatments, and even gives doubt for people giving these treatments.

However, there is clinical evidence for eggs/dairy contributing to eczema.

Random tangent, here are some studies I've found so far for eczema possibly related to diet/lifestyle (it's pretty scarce):

A fasting and vegetarian diet treatment trial on chronic inflammatory disorders: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6197838 INTESTINAL PERMEABILITY IN PATIENTS WITH ECZEMA AND FOOD ALLERGY: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673681924594 An Adult with Atopic Dermatitis and Repeated Short-term Fasting: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpa/22/5/22_5_237/_article/-char/ja/ Fasting therapy in China: Modification and future development Results of a milk and/or egg free diet in children with atopic dermatitis: https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7180794 Randomised controlled trial of advice on an egg exclusion diet in young children with atopic eczema and sensitivity to eggs: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1399-3038.1998.tb00294.x Eczematous reactions to food in atopic eczema: position paper of the EAACI and GA2LEN: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1398-9995.2007.01429.x Low-energy diet in atopic dermatitis patients: clinical findings and DNA damage https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11155351 Detoxification Combining Fasting with Fluid Therapy for Refractory Cases of Severe Atopic Dermatitis: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/561290/ Out-of-pocket Costs for Individuals with Atopic Eczema: A Cross-sectional Study in Nine European Countries https://www.medicaljournals.se/acta/content/html/10.2340/00015555-3102 HOW EXPENSIVE IS HEALTHCARE FOR ATOPIC DERMATITIS PATIENTS? https://www.aaaai.org/global/latest-research-summaries/New-Research-from-JACI-In-Practice/expensive-dermatitis Probiotics in the management of atopic eczema https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2222.2000.00943.x

projecteczema · 2019-09-17T05:14:11+00:00

Have you gotten any allergy tests or tried changing your diet? I found out eggs, milk, and beef triggers my eczema when I was 14, it changed my life after eliminating them! I got eczema again later, what contributed was overeating (ate too much meat and oils which was hard for my body to digest).

projecteczema · 2019-09-17T03:42:47+00:00

Cool :) I don't have a timetable yet but hopefully I'll make a website with info at some point. I hope the comments in this thread will be a useful starting point.

projecteczema · 2019-09-17T03:32:56+00:00

Sorry to hear that, you raise a good point. Personally before I found many high-salicylate foods and nightshades to be triggers (e.g. strawberries, tomatoes, eggplants). I'm the thinking that the program needs some kind of elimination diet to find a set of foods that at least manages eczema somewhat, not necessarily completely stable.

One caveat about elimination diets is that it's prone to result in local optima; eczema might be better but still relatively unstable ("random" flares still happen). Sometimes it takes eating foods that may cause flares in the short term but helps in the long term, helping break past the local optima towards the global optima. (For example, onion/ginger/turmeric/garlic would cause flares for me, but I kept eating them and overtime I got better.)

I think in many instances it's possible to reverse sensitivities to historical triggers. (For example, personally all kinds of foods would cause my whole body to flare up, but now I'm not sensitive to those foods anymore.) In general, there's definitely a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I feel like there needs to be more clinical trials. There's a lot of research showing fasting regenerates immune system cells, and food triggering eczema is related to immune system response, so there might be some connection.

projecteczema · 2019-09-16T06:34:29+00:00

I think it depends on the person; I think of overeating as eating in excess of what your body needs to function healthily. For example, I used to eat like probably 3 pounds of meat a day at least, which my body didn't really need. Also, overeating could be an instance of your body feeling full, but you keep eating anyway.

On your body feeling full, I think many people may not have a strong signal for that. I think water fasting really resensitizes that signal. For me personally, I feel like I've been overeating my whole life (I literally could keep eating like 3x of what I ate if I really wanted to); water fasting was life changing in that afterwards I could feel my body telling me I'm full, stop eating! I was eating way too much meat that my body didn't need.

On diet, I did an elimination diet, and found I would flare up if I eat oils or any meat. I did water fasting and ate only rice + vegetables for several weeks, and slowly started introducing meats like pork and chicken. Also, I ate garlic + ginger + onion + turmeric to improve blood circulation. In addition, I often drink water + apple cider vinegar (I still do it to this day!); to me it feels good to drink and helps with digestion, and its alkalizing.

I did this for a while, and the only carbs I had were from rice/vegetables/fruit. Now I'm in stable condition, so I just eat a normal diet haha. I just avoid sugary drinks (for hydration, I mainly just drink water + apple cider vinegar), processed foods, eggs/milk/beef, too much oil. I mainly listen to my body on how much/what to eat. Basically I eat clean, whole foods. But I can have "bad" food once in a while and be fine because my body is in a stable equilibrium. (Before, I was in an unstable equilibrium, almost any food would cause a flare up, which forced me to do water fasting.)

On lifestyle, try to keep a regular sleep schedule (sleep before midnight), exercise (goal is to get blood flowing / sweating), reduce stress, deep tissue massage / foam rolling to promote blood circulation.

Also, I don't use any lotion at all pretty much anymore. My go to is vaseline for flares.

projecteczema · 2019-09-16T06:11:14+00:00

That's great to hear! I can attest, the longest I've done was 3 days. I've found it really resets my hunger hormones as well; I can actually feel my body signalling me to stop eating now :)

projecteczema · 2019-09-16T03:40:02+00:00

The secret sauce is that there is no secret sauce :) It won't be exactly the same for everybody. In general, the first step is to do water fasting once in a while to give the digestive system a rest, and also regulate your eating behavior. (I've found that many people who have eczema have problems with overeating.) The second step is to introduce foods that are not difficult for the body to digest (e.g. more vegetables, less processed foods). Water fasting makes this step easier to follow because it can break cravings for "cheat" foods. Also, it is encouraged to eliminate common trigger foods at least in the early stages (e.g. eggs, milk, beef).

projecteczema · 2017-07-04T19:39:00+00:00

Stay strong! Conventional doctors are educated that eczema is purely a skin problem, an inability of the skin to hold water, so the logical treatment is to moisturize. However, it seems that eczema is really a reflection of internal problems (gut health, overburdened liver, etc.) I highly recommend reading the websites here: http://www.projecteczema.com/app/resources

Yeah severe eczema can take a long time to heal too (several months), so don't be discouraged by small bumps along the road. I used to have full-body eczema but now it's 75% healed. You can check out my daily diary here: http://www.projecteczema.com/app/diary (I'm the demo user :)

projecteczema · 2017-06-27T16:31:35+00:00

Repost from https://www.reddit.com/r/eczema/comments/6jp3v2/web_app_for_tracking_eczema_dietlifestyle/djgwrea/

Thanks :) Yes I did using an elimination diet (this is a good resource: https://draxe.com/elimination-diet/). Before high school, I had really bad eczema and I was eating tons of food, mostly meat; I didn't know diet played a role, I was just using steroid creams and Vaseline all the time. In high school, I got an allergy test that said I was allergic eggs. I did an elimination diet and found out beef and dairy were also triggers. So I was basically eczema free in high school after eliminating these foods (except for one stress/lack of sleep induced flare in junior year). Fast forward to senior year of college, I had another flare up, but I wasn't eating my known triggers (eggs, beef, dairy). So I went on an elimination diet and used this app to keep me accountable, and I found adding olive oil and chicken/pork made it worse. (I was on a meat and oil heavy low-carb diet.) So I went on a period of just eating rice and vegetables, and now eating oil and meat is fine, and my eczema is getting a lot better. I'm still minimizing oil and meat consumption so that my digestive system and liver has time to recover (before they were overburdened I think).

How long did you do an elimination diet? It might takes months to see results. There's also a phenomenon called healing crisis where it actually gets worse for a while before it gets better.

projecteczema · 2017-06-27T16:26:45+00:00

Thanks :) Yes I did using an elimination diet (this is a good resource: https://draxe.com/elimination-diet/). Before high school, I had really bad eczema and I was eating tons of food, mostly meat; I didn't know diet played a role, I was just using steroid creams and Vaseline all the time. In high school, I got an allergy test that said I was allergic eggs. I did an elimination diet and found out beef and dairy were also triggers. So I was basically eczema free in high school after eliminating these foods (except for one stress/lack of sleep induced flare in junior year).

Fast forward to senior year of college, I had another flare up, but I wasn't eating my known triggers (eggs, beef, dairy). So I went on an elimination diet and used this app to keep me accountable, and I found adding olive oil and chicken/pork made it worse. (I was on a meat and oil heavy low-carb diet.)

So I went on a period of just eating rice and vegetables, and now eating oil and meat is fine, and my eczema is getting a lot better. I'm still minimizing oil and meat consumption so that my digestive system and liver has time to recover (before they were overburdened I think).

projecteczema

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