Hey guys I've recently been talking to quite a few people who have been suffering with eczema.
Now eczema is one of those conditions where you can actually really get a lot of improvement if you just do the work that you need to do.
Ezcema is a condition where the skin becomes really dry and itchy,
and for those who suffer with eczema will tell you that you just cannot help but itch it.
And as you itch it more and more it starts to become flaky and irritated and it can get to the point where it blisters and even bleeds.
So a very very uncomfortable condition and for some people it can be very embarrassing too.
I've had eczema pretty much all my life and it's taken me nearly 30 years to actually get it under control.
And it's only in the last couple of years where I virtually had no eczema whatsoever.
As I was growing up as a kid the eczema used to affect the creases of my elbows and the back of my knees.
Then as I got into my late teens and early twenties it all moved from my elbows through into my wrists, and the backs of my hands and my fingers.
And it got to the point where it was so bad that the skin on my knuckles would bleed and I would have lost of cracks and cuts on my wrists and the sides of my hands.
And it just really didn't look that nice and it was actually really embarrassing.
So I've been through all of this and my hands now are eczema free, so whatever I've done I'm going to help you guys out and help you guys try to clear up your eczema too.
I have tried the conventional approach using steroid creams and for me it really didn't work.
All it did was push the eczema back inside my body and suppressed it and suppressed the symptoms.
But it didn't actually address the causes.
So in the last couple of years I've been really working on the causes of the eczema and not just trying to address the symptoms.
For me the things that made my eczema worse were three things; and that was sugar (the main one), exposure to the cold, and lastly exposure to soaps and other detergents.
Obviously for you the aggravating factors might be different.
And some of these might be exercise or starting to sweat,
it might be certain foods or certain chemicals you're putting on your body, or even things like stress.
One thing to note though is that certain triggers may actually take two or three days to start to present themselves to you.
So for example if like me when you go on a sugar binge you might not notice any flare ups until two or three days later.
Once I worked out what was actually aggravating my eczema it was quite easy to try and make some simple changes, and
The first was to remove or reduce sugar as much as I possibly could.
Then the second was to try and minimise the amount of time my skin was exposed to soaps and other detergents.
So as I was doing things like washing up a simple thing to do would be to put on some washing up gloves.
and that would really minimise the amount of time my hands were exposed to soap.
Secondly when I went to the shower or washed my hands obviously you can't avoid putting soap on there but as soon as I come out the shower
or as soon as I'd washed my hands, the first thing I would do would be to put some moisturiser on my skin.
This would just stop it drying out, but I found that showers particularly dried my skin out.
And then last thing I would do would be in the colder months just wear some gloves or put my hands into pockets
or just make sure that anything that would get dry was just wrapped up.
So that there was minimum exposure to the cold as possible.
But what can you do for your eczema?
Well it's quite important to understand why you get eczema in the first place.
Eczema is really an inflammatory condition and if you're presenting with eczema then the chances are you've probably got quite high levels of inflammation in your body.
So one of the best things you can do is to try and work out how to reduce the inflammation in the body.
So when it comes to inflammation one of the worst things for it is SUGAR!
If you've got a diet that's high in sugar or high in carbohydrates that are easily converted to sugar; things like pasta, rice, potatoes, and bread particularly.
Or anything really made from wheat.
Then try to reduce them as much as you can.
Grains are also very irritating to the digestive system and the irritation that it causes will increase your levels of inflammation.
So try to reduce the amount of grains you're also taking in.
One thing that has been shown with eczema sufferers is that the balance of your good and bad bacteria is usually in favour of the bad bacteria.
So one thing that you can do is to help your balance by supplementing yourself with some probiotics.
and probiotics are the good bacteria, and you can get them from most health food shops but I'd recommend that you spend just a little bit more money and get a really good quality probiotic.
Wherever possible give your body as many nutrients as you possibly can,
so eat a diet that is very very balanced and very high in green leafy vegetables
and foods that are rich in colours and anti-oxidants
and also increase the amount of fatty foods that you can eat
things such as oily fish, such as mackerel and salmon
increase you nuts and seeds and even avocados or sprinkling your food with some really good quality oils such as olive oil or coconut oil.
Obviously that's working internally and that's the best thing that you can do.
But a few other little tips that you can do to help with your eczema is
one; keep your skin hydrated.
I found that many creams didn't really work and I used olive oil and coconut oil and when I was in a state of
really itchy phases of the eczema it really actually made it worse.
But I found a cream that has some almond oil in it and although it's probably not the best thing
that I could have possibly put on my skin, it actually helped to keep it moisturised and it didn't actually cause any itching.
Lastly just think that the skin is one of your organs of elimination, of excretion, so
just help your body by sweating and trying to get some toxins out of your body
and a really good way to do that is just to go and sit in a sauna for ten to fifteen minutes and just let your skin sweat.
But when you come out the *sauna just rinse it off with some shower water, not any soaps
and then when you come out of the shower just moisturise your skin.
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