The VH Podcast, Episode 13: How to Heal Eczema

Welcome back to another episode of The Vibrant Health Podcast! This week, we talk about all things eczema and specifically how you can heal this terrible skin condition.

Eczema is one of the most common skin conditions today. I get regular questions about how to heal it, what products to use (or not use), etc.

That is why this week Lydia and I wanted to talk about how she healed her own eczema and the eczema of her son. We also talk about how nutrition and gut health play a role in development and returning flare-ups.

Lastly, we offer some simple tips that you can implement today to start your own healing (or the healing of a loved one).

Now, let’s get this party started! 🙂

Missed previous episodes? You can find them all here.

Links From This Week’s Episode:

• Real Food, Allergen-Friendly Recipes
• Jessica’s Gut Health Articles
• Jessica’s Favorite Liver Support Supplement
• Jessica’s Favorite Soil-Based Probiotic for Gut Health
• How to Remove Cellular Waste From Your Body
• How to Love Your Liver Every Day
• Health Assessment with Lydia
• Hair Analysis with Lydia
• Information about HTMA and Minerals
• How to Create a Game Plan to Keep Your Whole Family Healthy

Listen to The Vibrant Health Podcast :: Episode 13

Read The Vibrant Health Podcast Transcript :: Episode 13

Jessica: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 13 of the Vibrant Health Podcast. I am Jessica from DeliciousObsessions.com and I am here with my co-host, Lydia, from DivineHealthfromtheInsideOut.com and today, we’re going to be talking about eczema.

Lydia is here to actually share her story. She has a great story of healing both herself and her son’s eczema. And since this is such a common skin condition today, I know that everybody is going to love hearing her story and also, learning some things that you can implement into your own life perhaps for healing your own eczema or if you’ve got a family member that suffers from eczema. We’ll have some great takeaways for you today.

So Lydia, welcome. Let’s dive right in.

Lydia: Hey there, everyone. I am so happy to talk about this because I really want to infuse the world with hope that this annoying health condition can improve and even disappear.

So I’d like to share my own personal story. It goes back to, boy, 16 years ago. I’ve been dealing with this. It was after I had my first son. There were a lot of issues with his birth. I won’t go into that. But after he was born, I ended up with this horrible, horrible itching, rashy, oozing, ridiculous skin irritation on my hand. And it just got worse. It kind of rose up my arm a bit and my whole hand was inflamed and raw and itchy. It was almost like reddish-purple in color.

I just didn’t know why. At the time, I wasn’t quite as up on understanding the body and health and natural means. So I just kind of dealt with. I tried a lot of skin creams and things. My mom told me that she had had it after she had babies, too. So part of me is like, “Well, this is just part of what to expect” because my mom had it and my aunt also did. So I kind of resigned myself to like, “Alright! Well, maybe it’ll just go away.” Hers just went away is what she said at one point.

But when you’re dealing with something like that, it’s kind of frustrating because it’s really horrible. Some people’s eczema can be mild and just annoying because it’s not attractive. Some people’s can be so bad that it impairs their sleep and their function. And mine was that. It would wake me up in the night, it hurt. It itched so bad that I had to rub my hand so hard and then they would bleed.

If you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t understand. People are like, “Stop! Don’t scratch it. Stop! Don’t rub it. Stop!” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I can’t help it.” It was that bad. It’s almost like you want to rub your hand off. It just hurts so much.

So it was pretty severe. I tried numerous skin creams, hand creams, lotions, you name it, all the commercial ones. I went to a dermatologist. I went through the whole rigmarole. Nobody had the answers for me.

It came and went over the years as I had more babies. I’d go into remission at times especially when I was pregnant. And it would flare up the most during periods of stress. That’s when it would be worst.

So I started to make connections more as the years went on. I found things that would help. But any time I had a season of severe stress, it would flare so bad. There were times when I’d be like, “Can someone just cut my hand off, like seriously. It would be better. This is awful.”

So, as I learned, I went through my training at NTA, I started to be able to make some connections. I started making more connections to gut health. But it really took kind of healing from the inside out at a deep level, not just in the gut, but supporting the stress in my body. I’ve been a single mom for a long time and I had a lot of stress. Plus, you’ve got to consider your liver’s ability to deal with toxins in this world and so many things.

And so I started really finding ways to get improvement, but nothing made it go away permanently. But last year when I started doing the HTMA, that’s when it definitely turned it around for the better. I haven’t had any flares like I used to. Occasionally, I’ll have a little bit of dryness in the summer from being out in the garden. But nothing even remotely –

My hands actually looked normal for the first time. Last year, when things started to get better, I just thought, “Wow! I have normal looking hands. They used to look like a decrepit old lady hands.” They were so dry and just wrinkly and just cracked and really ugly. There are even times I’d be out in public and my kids would be embarrassed. They’d be like, “Mom, put your hand in your pocket.” It was so ugly.

Jessica: Oh, no! That’s terrible!

Lydia: I know! They just don’t know any better. I want to kind of go there because I know this is what happens to people. It’s a very intense thing. It’s very emotional – especially with the moms who have kids with eczema as well.

So thankfully mine is under control. I think there’s still some healing to do because I had a little bit of a small, minor flare this summer. But I’m not itching, I’m not scratching, I’m not bleeding. I don’t have any open areas. It’s just dry and a little itchy. So that’s the most that I got this summer after a year of being completely healed up. So maybe my summer was a little more stressful than I realized.

Jessica: I’m sure it was.

Lydia: And it wasn’t even just any one thing, I don’t think. I think it was just more of a healing the body for me inside out through a deeper understanding of what my body needed. So that was where things really needed a major shift. So it’s been a good year of recovery for that.

Jessica: Yeah, I never dealt with eczema myself. I had some minor skin irritation mostly on my legs over the years, especially when I was working in the restaurant a really, really long time ago. I realized that it was the detergents that they were using to wash our uniforms when I was working in the kitchen. I actually started bringing my uniforms home and washing them myself rather than using their laundry service and it just cleared up.

One of my friends for many, many years had really severe eczema on her hands just like yours. I remember they would get cracked. She worked in the restaurant with me actually. I remember they’d be cracked. It’ll be really hard. She was a server and it would be really embarrassing when she’d have a flare-up, because how was she supposed to serve people food when her hands looked like that? So she would end up wearing gloves. She would lather it up with lotion and put gloves on and that’s how she had to work when she had the flare-ups. It was just horrible for her.

So I can relate as being a bystander and a friend and seeing her go through that. I relate with you there. I never had to deal with it myself, but it’s so common. I get questions on my site about it, “How do I heal eczema?” or, “My kid has eczema. Do you have any suggestions?” and that kind of thing. So this is definitely going to be helpful for people.

Lydia: Right, right. Well, it’s funny you mention that because I used to wait tables a long time ago and I had that very thing. I’m handing someone a plate of food and I got these gnarly-looking hand that’s less than appetizing, obviously.

Jessica: Right!

Lydia: So that was a problem, too. I’m going to a wedding. And then I stress. And everyone had their nails done and you’ve got this one hand that people notice. They just notice it.

And I don’t really care too much what people think, but I do know it does make it awkward. You can feel this weird, “What is wrong with her? She has like…?” What’s that disease they used to have a long time ago where the skin would turn white or whatever?

Jessica: Leprosy?

Lydia: Leprosy, yeah. But no, it was bad! And like you said, removing detergents.

I mean, for some people, just doing the simple clean-up of getting toxic cleaning products out and using more holistic natural ones without the harsh ingredients will really go a long way in improving a skin condition, but that’s not the case for everyone. So, it’s definitely something to deal with for sure to help. It may not be the only issue.

I mean, I even couldn’t wash dishes. It was so bad. Even when I would wash dishes, there’s no solution. I couldn’t wear gloves. They would make them itch too bad even if the gloves were completely non-toxic. Cotton, organic or whatever, it didn’t matter. So I would opt for just do it quick in the water with some big, long scrubby thing and not get my hand in the water or near the soap.

When I shower, I couldn’t even put the one hand, I had it on both, but the right hand was horrible. The left hand was just a minor irritation. So I would take a shower and I’d have to hold my right hand – and I’m not kidding you. I had to do this for a long time. I would have to keep my hand out of the water stream. I would wash with one hand. It was ridiculous!

I’m sitting there thinking, “You know, I’m a healthcare practitioner. I don’t even know how to take care of this myself.” It was bleak.

And so I was really grateful when the hair analysis came out because I could dig in deeper and really start to heal my body at a deeper level. And I think one of the key things probably was that I realized my body was a lot more stressed out than I had thought. I allowed myself a lot more rest, a lot more self-care. I gave myself a lot more liver support. A combination of things really helped to bring correction to the issue.

But I couldn’t do chores. I couldn’t clean the house. I couldn’t do yard work. I was very limited. It was very frustrating. I couldn’t afford to hire anyone else to do it. So it was pretty bad. It was a debilitating enough thing. To see it resolve like this is pretty massively life-changing.

Jessica: Absolutely! That’s amazing. You had mentioned that your son also had eczema, right?

Lydia: Correct! I have four boys and my youngest one had some eczema. It was sporadic over the years. It came and went. But he had it on his legs. He would have in the creases of his knees and arms, like where his elbows are and on his wrist. And then, he had some patches on the forearm.

And when he was little, he had a pretty bad flare. He also had a serious health incident. He ended up dehydrated. I had to spend months after that kind of reviving him back to health. The skin was a big problem because he was little and we didn’t know how to deal with the itching and stuff.

At that time, at least we were completely non-toxic products. We had a lot of that figured out. But not much was really making it go away even when I cleaned up his diet. Even when I was really strict with keeping things out, it didn’t go away. It would improve, it wouldn’t flare, but it wasn’t the answer.

So for him, I started mineral balancing as well. I noticed his skin started to clear up and get better. He’d still have these little patches. They weren’t horrible anymore. And that was probably a few months into his starting with the hair analysis.

But it wasn’t until I added a specific probiotic for him that it literally just went away in 10 days. It’s totally gone. It hasn’t come back. He’s even been given junky food (not by me). And still, nothing. He hasn’t had any flare-ups.

It’s been probably a good nine months or more where he’s been completely free. His skin actually looks good. It looks new and fresh. There are no spots or blemishes. So that was really encouraging to see after years and years of trying things and worrying.

I had sent him to school with special soap because they would give them these sanitizers and make them wash their hands and all these different things. Finally, I was like, “Can I just send him his own soap because he comes home and his hands are redder and irritated from all this stuff at school?”

And that’s a hassle too because then, you have to involve the staff. It just becomes this big, “Oh, my gosh! I’m that annoying mom.” You know what I mean? And so thankfully, once he got on the protocol and the probiotic, it just dealt with itself.

So I’m so grateful to have been able to dig in a little deeper and kind of get to the root of things to support the body as a whole. It just took a long time to get there, unfortunately.

Jessica: I don’t know, I’m not in contact with that friend anymore, so I don’t know if she ever got it resolved. But I know she was getting tested for allergies and stuff like that, allergens. So, she had all of that stuff done. I don’t know if she ever was able to resolve it completely.

In my case, I don’t even know if it was eczema. It probably was. It would be really patchy and super red. I always got it on my thighs, especially my inner thighs. It would itch and burn. But it really was just using my own green and non-toxic laundry detergent and that cleared it up for me. Thankfully, I haven’t had any other flare-ups once I recognized that was the issue.

I know the course of that really can vary for people, but at least this gives people some idea that there’s hope. I know sometimes when you’re just sick of it, it doesn’t seem like there’s any hope that you’ll ever be rid of it. It’s just something you got to live with for the rest of your life.

Lydia: Correct! And it is becoming more common, especially with children. There are a lot of reasons for that. And what I’m finding, since I deal with people who are trying to improve their health and I’ve got a lot of clients and emails and things like that, people are trying to get this diagnosed (whatever their skin issue is). They’re trying to get it diagnosed by a doctor and the answer is some kind of a steroid cream.

Well, we don’t really want to do that at any length of time, put steroid cream in the body because you’re adding to it in a way or to your health in a negative way and it’s not dealing with the root of the problem. It’s just kind of like putting a band-aid on.

Now, at times, it is necessary because if it works and you get the relief from it, then by all means, it’s better than dealing with it constantly. But long-term, that’s just not the answer. You know what I mean?

The medical community hasn’t figured this out, unfortunately. Maybe some of them have. I don’t know, I just haven’t heard that from any angle. I have a lot of moms with babies that are just frustrated. They don’t want to put these heavy steroid creams on their babies. It’s a very big deal and it’s becoming more common.

So I’d like to be able to give people some basic guidance and hope that it’s possible to bring some correction to this specific issue, but it could take more for others to really root it out than some.

Jessica: Right. Yeah, we are all so different.

So what are the main takeaways then after talking about your healing journey? What are some takeaways for our listeners, things that they can maybe start thinking about right now and maybe start implementing?

Lydia: Well, the first thing to do would be to clean up your diet. Anyone could stand to do that. Now, it doesn’t necessarily work for everyone to relieve the issue like you heard in my case, but some people actually can clear up a skin condition simply from changing their diet. I’ve heard that happen before.

So you want to source whole foods, real foods, foods without a label, foods that your great-grandparents would know what the heck it is, not these packaged foods that have 20 things on the label and half of them, you don’t know what they are – so real food, quality real food, Jessica and I, both on our sites have educated people on what that really is. The best quality food you can do at the time. And just always be focusing on doing the best you can.

Minimizing things like sugar because sometimes, skin conditions can be related to Candida. And Candida is opportunistic. So if you’re going to have too much sugar in your diet, you’re going to potentially flare it up.

There was a point in time if I literally touched a speck of sugar or fruit, my hand would flare up bad. It was just horrible! It was not worth it. I couldn’t even eat a piece of cantaloupe. You know what I mean? Many people would think, “Oh, but cantaloupes are healthy.” Well, no. My body couldn’t handle it at the time.

And I’m not interested in some radical Candida diet fixing your Candida problem. I don’t believe that’s the answer either. However, there are times when people really may need to kind of clean things up for a bit and it could bring things under better control. But there’s probably going to be more work that needs to be done. But that’s a biggie.

So eat clean, real food, the best quality you can with the least amount of sugar possible. If you can go for non-GMO, that’s going to be a biggie, too. We want to avoid the glyphosate and pesticides and all that stuff too because that’s a player, unfortunately.

So yeah, if you spent a lot of time already cleaning up your diet, you want to spend some time cleaning out your home and making your home environment non-toxic. So looking at everything you put on your skin, all your skincare products, all your cleaning products, everything you wash your clothes or your dishes with, that kind of stuff. Some people are far more sensitive than others. Do the best you can to clean up your own personal home environment and make sure you’re not putting things on your skin that are adding to it.

Water filters, if you can get them, you want to get things out of your water that could be affecting your skin. And water is probably one of the big biggies.

Jessica: The quality is a big thing. I finally got a chlorine filter from my shower head and I noticed that the dry skin – I’ve always had some dry skin. During the winter, it gets a little bit worse. We’re in Colorado and we have zero percent humidity. Dry skin is super common here.

I noticed a big difference once I installed the chlorine filter with minimizing dry skin. So definitely, that’s a huge one. I haven’t even thought about that.

Lydia: A bare minimum, you want a chlorine filter on your shower. And they’re not that expensive. The whole house water filtration, not everyone can do that. But eventually, if you can, great! But in the meantime, you want to get your drinking water filtered and a shower head at the bare minimum.

So yeah, that’s pretty important. Water is a biggie. We drink water, we need it and then we put it on us, too. We bathe in it. We wash our hands in it and stuff. So that’s a big deal.

And then, the next thing I would say is evaluate your stress levels in your life, where is your body at. I honestly don’t think people really take this very seriously. I’m not saying that as a judgment because I wasn’t doing it until I saw my hair test and realized, “Oh, wow! My body is real sick!”

So everyone alive today could stand to slow down, take more time to focus on rest, relaxation, restorative activities versus the go, go, go, “Oh, I got to exercise and do all my cardio… oh, I got to be in every activity for my kid” and all this stuff. We are a very driven society and truth be told, we have stressful lives. So giving yourself an opportunity to take a step back and look at that piece of your life and really think about doing something about it because when you’re under that stress, your adrenal health isn’t going to improve and you really do need strong adrenal glands to help kind of deal with this issue as well, believe it or not.

And part of that has to do with the minerals that are involved quite frankly. I know not everyone is going to go out and get a hair analysis done, but think about it at some point if you can. It’s going to help see what minerals are going on because that’s going to play into your skin health as well, your overall health and your adrenal health and show you your stress levels, where your body is at. So that would be a big one, but that one’s something that could take some time.

And then, I would say gut health in general. What does that look like? Well, that can be quite a process too. But for some people, just getting a really good quality probiotic could go a long way. That would be a good place for anyone to start for sure.

There are so many probiotics out there on the market and not all of them are quite as effective as we may believe they are. So, some people will try all kinds of probiotics and spend all this money and not get real results.

I’m going to welcome people to email me on this one because as a practitioner, I can only recommend this one one-on-one. The company has asked that we use it in that way. I have the probiotic that helped my son and myself – and many of my clients actually. I have quite a number of people writing to me saying that their skin conditions are clearing up with this probiotic.

So if you’re in the market for just even trying one probiotic, give it a shot, you can email me at [email protected]. I can give you some info there.

Jessica: Okay.

Lydia: And then, I guess, the fifth thing would be kind of a segue way from the healing your gut piece. It would be some kind of gentle detoxification or liver support. I’m going to say gentle because some people will go off the deep end and try to do all these crazy liver detox and make themselves feel worse.

Jessica: Yes.

Lydia: That’s a tough one. I do have an entire post actually and we can maybe just leave a link for that because it’s got a lot of information in one location. But everyone alive today could stand to support this piece of the health. The liver is trying so hard to keep us healthy, and we need to help it do a good job.

So gentle detoxification, something everyone probably knows is something like an Epsom salt bath. I really like castor oil packs. They’re gentle. Maybe you’re just getting up in the morning and having some warm lemon water. There are some good basic supplements as well, things that can help your liver out. So that would be something to look at.

Actually, that’s one of the things I did for my son too. I gave him a children’s version in addition to his probiotic. I think that that played into it as well.

Jessica: Awesome! Great tips, those are things that people can easily start thinking about maybe moving towards if they’re reading to tackle this issue. So, I think this will be really helpful.

Lydia: Right, right.

Jessica: So, do you have anything else you want to share with everybody?

Lydia: Yeah, just saying, “Hang in there!” because there’s a lot of pieces that may need to be addressed for your specific skin condition. There can be a lot of things that have built up in your body that play into it. So you may want to find someone to work with and have them guide you because this can be really improved greatly with a little more support.

But it’s not always a quick fix. I know there are a lot of moms out there with babies and little ones who have skin issues. It’s very frustrating. I get a lot of moms who are panicked. They’re kind of freaking out. It’s really stressful. That’s not going to help either.

Hopefully, this podcast will give you some outlook and maybe help you step back and say, “Okay, I’m going to tackle this and try not to freak out too much.” I get it though, it’s hard. But it definitely will be important to get in a good place about it and make some forward motions.

So if you can tackle some of the things we talked about today on your own and get somewhere, great! If you’re not getting somewhere on your own, you’re welcome to contact me. I’d be happy to help you out there if you need a coach, a practitioner helping you with that. That’s something that I’ve got a number of people working on.

And there are probably other people out there too. So keep your eyes and ears peeled and open. Hang in there with that, I guess. That’s really all I can say at this time. And infuse some hope for people out there, right?

Jessica: Right! No, it’s definitely a journey. There are no quick fixes when it comes to healing your body. I wish there was, but there’s not. So just be patient, be kind to yourself. Take baby steps. Do what you’re capable of handling at the time. Things will improve. If you’re making steps towards improvement, things will improve, but just be patient.

Lydia: Right! We always want to keep heading towards health, not away from it.

Jessica: Absolutely! Awesome! I think we’re going to go ahead and wrap up for today. But if you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to let us know. You can reach us both on our sites. We have contact forms there where you can email us.

If this information in today’s podcast resonated with you and you know others who could benefit from it, we would love it if you would share it. This information could help a lot of people. So if you know someone that it could benefit, definitely share it. We could send them the link.

We’ll also love if you can maybe leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher (if you’re listening to it over there). If you’re on our site or YouTube and listening to this podcast, we’ll have links down below where you can leave a review. Your shares and your reviews of our podcast really help us reach more people with our message of health and wellness so we really, really appreciate it.

Lastly, if you’re looking for more information on natural living, health and wellness, real food recipes, allergies and all that kind of stuff, make sure you check out our sites at DeliciousObsessions.com (that’s my site) and then you can reach Lydia at DivineHealthfromtheInsideOut.com. We look forward to hearing from you. We want you guys to have a great day. We’ll be back again next week. Thanks for listening.