Eczema, from the beginning......

I got diagnosed with Eczema this winter, during the coldest, driest part. I am also in massage therapy school, and had been washing my hands with crappy antibacterial liquid soap (you know, the orange stuff), and washing my hands more frequently than I ever have before. Add in stress of going to school full time and working part time. And I have eczema.

I didn't know what it was, I was terrified it was something contagious. I saw an TCM Dr, who told me I had sluggish digestion and did some electric acupuncture that was pure torture, but seemed to make the redness go down. He also gave me an herbal salve that I believe had turmeric in it among other things, but it was hard to tell if it worked because it turned my hands yellow. Before my next appointment with him I decided I wanted to get an official diagnosis, so I saw a mainstream dermatologist. By this time the skin on my right thumb and on the top of both hands was incredibly inflamed, with many layers of cracks and crevices, and it hurt and itched all the time. So the dermatologist said eczema, and given the horrible state of my hands gave me a very strong steroid prescription. It started working immediately, and those places went away. I did not return to the eastern doctor, because I was convinced that if I just did what I needed to to take care of myself, I wouldn't have another outbreak. Even though my dermatologist said that even people who take perfect care of themselves still get outbreaks when under stress. I was very, very, wrong. Since that time I have had one spot after another. I didn't want to use the steroid cream in the first place, so I have used it very sparingly. Still, it seemed to thin my skin out, and the more frequently I used it the more spots I got.

I believe in the body's ability to heal itself, and I was frustrated with my attempts to go with natural treatments. I've tried:
tea tree & lavender essential oil
shea butter
coconut oil
castor oil
having a humidifier on in the house
raw honey
oatmeal and oatmeal soap
pine tar soap
topical apple cider vinegar (though I didn't dilute it and I prob should have)
I have also tried a petroleum jelly/castor oil mix, and with any of those topical applications I would put cloth gloves on at night to let them soak in.

What do all these things have in common? They are on the outside of the skin. I had considered what the eastern Dr. told me, that this was digestive, and so somewhere in there I tried psyllium seed husks. However, they interfered with the way my body was metabolizing my anti-seziure medication, so I had to stop. But that stuck in my mind. I went back to the eastern Dr, and he told me I had too much fire element and made me a tea. This was last Monday. My patches that were forming on my arm got much worse. On Thursday, I called him and told him, and he told me to stop taking the tea. I was going to go back in on Saturday, but by Saturday I was discovering something else. I was eating mostly raw fruits and vegetables, not because I said to myself at the beginning of the week "I'm going to be a raw vegan and detox my body", but because I was listening to what my body wanted. And it wanted pink grapefruit in the morning, no coffee or sugar, raw sweet potato soup, slightly wilted kale, and green smoothies.

To be continued.....