Eczema

[Mandrake]

My sister has eczema since birth. Now in adult age it is getting worse, and results in cracks and wounds. It hurts me to watch her suffer from it, and I wish I could help somehow. It gets worse in stressful situations, and oils such as from evening primrose and flax alleviates it.

 

Is there anybody who knows how to get rid of eczema? Can you do it permanently? Any people with experience or do you know people who have successfully helped others with it?

 

Many thanks to all of you who help

 

 

Mandrake

[C T]

Encourage her to visit a genuine Ayurvedic healer. Get references prior.

 

I have heard many positive feedbacks from people who have used Neem oil in tackling this. Worth a try maybe.

 

http://www.discoverneem.com/neem-oil-eczema.html

[Birch]

I'd go check out a good nutrionist who could help identify causes from that source.

Or a TCM, although maybe not acupuncture, but it depends on the cause again.

Obviously if stress is a trigger then whatever helps reduce that is going to help too.

Sorry not to be of more help (the idea of milk/dairy hit me when I saw your request but I'm not a TCM or a specialist so please take with a barrel of salt:-))

[Andrei]

You can try to introduce in your nutrition mung beans, soy beans, winter mellon and other cooling and cleaning chinese foods.

[C T]

You can try to introduce in your nutrition mung beans, soy beans, winter mellon and other cooling and cleaning chinese foods.

Mung beans is great, though, i remember when i was growing up, the Chinese elder folks would often remind the younger folks that those with skin dysfunctions should avoid any consumption of mung beans as it seems to aggravate conditions. Especially of note is that it tends to cause flare-ups and terrible itchiness in the problematic areas, and also the non-problematic areas, especially around the neck and around the backs of the knees.

 

Apparently, excessive intake of cooling foods are also said to be avoided. It brings on a condition called damp heat. One way to detect this is when stools become small and watery, and motion gets painful. I think Westerners simply lump this as 'constipation', but there is more to it.... apparently. (sorry for diverting off.)

[Harmonious Emptiness]

My sister has eczema since birth. Now in adult age it is getting worse, and results in cracks and wounds. It hurts me to watch her suffer from it, and I wish I could help somehow. It gets worse in stressful situations, and oils such as from evening primrose and flax alleviates it.

 

Is there anybody who knows how to get rid of eczema? Can you do it permanently? Any people with experience or do you know people who have successfully helped others with it?

 

Many thanks to all of you who help

 

 

Mandrake

 

I used to to get exzema, which I don't anymore. Milk can make it worse. A good thing to do is to cut out milk and take bone meal with extra vitamin D. This will make up for the calcium lost from milk, and is a much better source of calcium which is important for strong nerves and absorbing the shock/reduction to the calcium in bones that stress causes.

 

I would also suggest taking 1 tablespoons of hempseed oil per day which provides 120% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin E, and I suspect that is the main reason the flax seed oil helps, though flaxseed oil is also really nutritious so she could alternate them if there is any issue that might develop from too much vitamin E due to a pre-existing blood condition or something. I'm not a health professional, so she should probably check with one about this.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Mandrake]

Thank you everybody. I'll suggest to her that she visits a TCM clinic. Stress is the key in her case, but not everybody gets eczema when stressed, so there has to be an underlying base of sorts. I have thought about different types of detoxifications, and will show her some material.

According to TCM, how is eczema classified?

 

 

Many, many thanks

Mandrake

[goldisheavy]

Thank you everybody. I'll suggest to her that she visits a TCM clinic. Stress is the key in her case, but not everybody gets eczema when stressed, so there has to be an underlying base of sorts. I have thought about different types of detoxifications, and will show her some material.

According to TCM, how is eczema classified?

 

 

Many, many thanks

Mandrake

 

Different people channel stress in different ways. Depending on how people channel stress they can get different ailments or even no ailment at all.

 

How well your sister would respond to various kinds of healing approaches depends on her mindset. The best case scenario is when the sick person is the one who seeks out healing. If you seek on her behalf, it may mean she is not interested in healing, or it may mean she is in a hopeless state of mind where she simply doesn't believe in the possibility of healing. Alternatively it could mean she is seeking her healing in a different place, so in this place you have to seek on her behalf, because she herself wouldn't want to look for healing in a place like thetaobums.

 

This is important because the best way to heal is to heal from within where doctors and external circumstances act as co-conspirators in your own healing from within.

 

She should try meditation and healing visualizations, but these will not work if they go against her will. In other words, if she doesn't believe that the mind has domain over the body, it's fairly pointless to visualize and meditate as a method of healing. The only exception to this is if you think there is a possibility of her beliefs changing during meditation or visualization.

 

Dry skin suggests internal fire at work (she probably actually feels heat or dry air inside or around the skin area), so the visualization to neutralize that would be water or even better cool oil. But if she doesn't believe that the mind has the power to do these sorts of things, she will be looking to take pills and ointments from conventional practitioners and will only accept alternative treatment as a last resort. So what I am describing in this paragraph is a counter-symptom visualization, which will help, but is not a full cure on its own. Root causes of stress must be dealt with, or the counter-symptom visualization will be overwhelmed from within by fresh stress and fresh fire channeling (assuming she's channeling stress into fire).

Edited August 16, 2011 by goldisheavy

[River Rat]

Dr. Mercola has a video and article on eczema which you might want to take a look.

 

Here's another Dr. Mercola article.

 

One thing you should check is if she has a hidden sensitivity/intolerance to foods such wheat or milk. Sometimes the bad effects show up days after consumption, so you would not think it's connected.

 

I also have seen many articles say probiotics can help with eczema. Here's one. This Bryon Richard's article suggests candida could be a cause, which is why probiotics can help. You might want to try a high quality probiotic product such as this one. It is quite expensive though. This brand is pretty good and economical.

[Mandrake]

Thanks GiH and RiverRat,

Mindset is important, yes, and therefore I am afraid that any more demanding and exotic measures won't make headway in this case.

 

Will check out the video, RiverRat.

 

 

Mandrake

[.broken.]

Calendula cream. Works everytime.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Stress is the key in her case, but not everybody gets eczema when stressed,

 

 

... so there has to be an underlying base of sorts. I have thought about different types of detoxifications, and will show her some material.

 

According to TCM, how is eczema classified?

 

 

Many, many thanks

Mandrake

 

The following is provided for information purposes only and is not intended as advice for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical conditions.

 

Regarding stress, TCM acknowledges such factors in its diagnosis. A successful TCM program will not only alleviate the symptoms, but can help people become more resistant to stress.

 

Regarding Detoxification, the 'urge to purge' is deeply ingrained in Traditional Western Medicine and its survivals in alternate therapies with a Western basis. It goes all the way back to the Humoral treatments of the Ancient Greeks, but the purpose of such treatments was to reestablish balance. In the 19th Century this become rather unbalanced and one finds such authorities on "Western Eclectic Herbalism" as Jethro Kloss practically reducing treatment to enema's. The attitude carries over into 'detoxification' procedures and can sometimes create more problems.

 

The Chinese ideal is balance and harmonize, and then strengthen. They will purge as needed as a preliminary, but they do that as little as necessary to prepare for restoring balance and strengthening the system.

 

Eczema is of course a Western Medical term and TCM generally considers its symptoms under the heading of Heat disorders. Heat can be either excess or deficiency, excess being when the Heat is greater than a 'healthy' balance would require and deficiency when Moisture (Yin in TCM)which balances healthy levels of heat, becomes so low that the Heat starts to manifest as symptoms. The deficiency can be of Moisture or Blood (Capitalized because they are translations of technical terms and mean more than would usually be the case in common English usage.) From here the diagnosis can to to Heat in the Blood, Damp Heat, Wind Damp Heat, Dry Heat, Moisture of Blood deficiency Heat and a few others. There are herbal and acupuncture treatments for all of these and you have to be sure that you are using the right one, for example to treat deficiency heat with excess heat medicines will very likely make the condition worse.

 

I would recommend that you get a copy of Between Heaven and Earth by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold. This book is an excellent introduction to the theory and practice of TCM and includes a questionnaire that can be used for self diagnosis. If you find a good TCM practitioner this will help you to understand what they are talking about and communicate with them more effectively. It also has a great introduction to Chinese Therapeutic cooking.

 

From my own experience, a little over twenty years now, I can say that Chinese Herbal Medicines can be very helpful in dealing with a wide variety of conditions. Also, unfortunately, a lot of Western trained Acupuncturist are not good at using them.

 

If you don't have a friendly neighborhood Chinese pharmacy, I recommend Maxnature.com. When I can't get something from my local sources, they are really invaluable.

 

Best of luck to you and your sister.

[C T]

Mandrake, for your attn - http://www.cureeczema.net/eczema-natural-remedy.html

[Mandrake]

Mandrake, for your attn - http://www.cureeczema.net/eczema-natural-remedy.html

 

Thank you CowTao, I'll forward it.

 

 

Mandrake