All You Want to Know About Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis)

What is Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis)?

Eczema is a skin condition where an itchy rash develops on certain areas of the skin, or over the whole body. It is typically a chronic (long term) problem and can vary in severity from small patches to covering one's entire body. Eczema is most common in children but can occur in people at any age, and may be accompanied by asthma or hay fever.
The symptoms of eczema can vary widely from person to person, but they can include:

By OpenStax College - Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site. http://cnx.org/content/col11496/1.6/

• Dry skin that may crack
• Itching
• Red, brownish or white patches on the skin
• Small raised bumps, which can bleed or weep when scratched
• Thickened scaly skin
• Raw, or bleeding skin from scratching

​Eczema is not contagious and can not spread to other people or other parts of the body through touch. Healthy skin helps retain moisture and provides a barrier to protect the body from bacteria, irritants and allergens. With eczema this barrier can break down and leave the body more susceptible to infections etc.

What Causes Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis)?

Eczema is caused by a combination of the immune system, genetics, environmental triggers and stress. The immune system can over-react to irritants in the diet or the environment and this overreaction can cause inflammation of the skin. Although not much can be done about  genetic factors, there are some things you can do at home to help the situation.

Some foods that can commonly contribute to eczema are dairy products, strawberries, chocolate, citrus fruits, and wheat products. While different people can be effected by different foods, the only way you can really tell if any of these foods is aggravating your skin, is by cutting these foods out of your diet for a period of 2 weeks and see if there is any improvement in your symptoms. If there is significant improvement after removing these foods from your diet you can introduce these foods again one by one and see which one is responsible for irritating your skin.

Since there is a lack of moisture in eczema prone skin, it can be helpful to avoid soaps, and instead use moisturizing body washes (or no soap at all), and frequently moisturize your skin. I share my recipe for my Intense Moisturizing Ointment for Super Dry Skin you can make at home here.

Stressors like teething, becoming run down or catching a cold may play a role in causing eczema flare-ups. 

To get the best results for clients with eczema, Louis targets the problem from both directions. Homeopathic medicine can help correct the over-reaction of the immune system as well as changing the way your body responds to stress, allergens and irritants, so the actual internal cause of eczema is addressed. Then  intense moisturizer can be applied to help the skin recover now that the internal cause of the problem has been relieved.

When to seek Treatment for Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis)?

Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW) By Heidi Akselin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101700845

Eczema needs to be controlled to avoid skin infections, however initially when eczema first starts it's probably worth just applying moisturizing creams to see if that remedies the problem. Heavier creams, ointments and intense moisturizers are the best options because they stay on the skin for longer, lotions are absorbed too quickly and then the skin becomes dry again. Applying moisturizers after a warm bath is good because the pores of the skin open up and 200-300% more cream can be absorbed by the skin.

When my daughter had severe eczema I tried every cream there was, and even tried making a few different ones, which over the years I tweaked and improved. What the hospital recommended was similar to Vaseline but I found although it kept the skin moisturized for longer, it did 

nothing to improve the health of the skin. My homemade Intense Moisturizing Ointment for Super Dry Skin (which you can download the recipe for free right here) was full of nutrients from natural ingredients, and it kept my daughters skin moisturized longer than anything else we tried. Because there was nutritional content in the cream, the skin actually benefitted significantly more from having this cream applied and she experienced faster healing. It is certainly worth trying to make up this cream, as unlike any other cream we could find at any pharmacy, this home-made one has no chemicals or toxins in there - it is actually fully edible.

Doctors typically prescribe steroid creams for eczema, which can be very effective at relieving the eczema rash, but in many cases because the cause of the eczema is not addressed, once the steroid cream is stopped the eczema soon returns. Also when steroid creams are used for an extended period of time they can cause Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW - see picture above), which is where people get eczema like symptoms when they attempt to stop using steroids because their skin has become addicted to the steroids. The steroids can actually end up causing eczema symptoms worse than the original eczema symptoms. There are also a lot of more serious side effects of long term steroid usage, especially if taken orally.

For people who would like the cause of their eczema addressed, homeopathy can be very good at improving the general health of the body so that long lasting relief can be experienced. Also, in cases where even strong steroids or medications are not able to control eczema, because it works in a different way - homeopathy may help.

Homeopathic medicines are safe for everyone including pregnant women and newborn babies. In over 200 years of use there has been no interactions with western medicines and these natural medicines also have no chemical side effects. In England 42% of doctors actually refer their clients to homeopathic care, and homeopathy is covered under their NHS (Australia's Medicare equivalent). The Queen of England uses homeopathy, which seems to keeping her well into old age, as well as the entire Royal Family having used Homeopathy for 3 generations.
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​You can download our Health Proforma Here, then book an appointment for Homeopathy in Geelong with Louis using our easy online booking here, or call 0430 795 666.

Why Louis Learnt Homeopathy...

In 2019 my daughter had very severe eczema. She started to get it a few months after she was born (2016), and with steroid cream from our GP we managed to control it. As she got older it became more and more severe. We were given stronger and stronger creams to control it but despite these stronger medications, over time it seemed like we were loosing control of the situation and I was beginning to panic. I tried a skin specialist, pediatrician, allergen specialist, accupuncture, kenisiologist, lazer accupuncutre, bowen therapy, natropathy, dietition, and every cream under the sun yet apart from steroid creams nothing helped significantly.

​We had kind of worked out over the years which foods aggrivated her condition, and we avoided those, but in the tests with the allergen specialist some of these even 

My daughter when her eczema got infected and went to hospital

came up clear! None-the-less even after avoiding all her triggers she continued to get worse, until in 2019, when she was 3 years old, she ended up spending a week in hosptial on IV drips and strong medications because of her eczema, where it got infected. Her whole body was covered in eczema and even though I tried everything I could possibly do (my life revolved around it) with strict diets, moisurising 3x a day, steroid creams 2-3x a day, bleach baths 2x a week, wrapping her up in wet bandages and pyjamas to go to sleep in, to try get the moisture back into her skin, I really felt sad and defeated that I could not let my little girl feel better. It was the worst feeling you could have being a parent.

My Daughter wrapped up in wet bandages and moisturizer to sleep in after her bleach bath in hospital.

​We had a pediatrition assigned from the hospital who was lovely, but all she could do was prescribe the strongest steroid cream (which we were already using) and just said we are not using enough steroid, we needed to use more. A skin specialist said the same, we needed to apply more steroids, and even gave us a prescription that the pharmacist even questioned us about and said 'Do you know this is known to cause skin cancer?' Luckily we didn't use that particular cream and didn't give up trying to find a solution. We started seeing a famous homeopath in Melbourne and my little girl started to heal. The amount of steroids she was using would have caused a normal person without eczema to get Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW) symptoms, similar to eczema symptoms if they suddenly stopped, and so over time we managed to ween her off of the steroid creams.

​6 months after we tried homeopathy this is what she looked like.. It was a bit slow to begin with, and we had to try a couple of different medicines, but there was progress. After 6 months of treatment with the homeopath we were at the point where her skin was clear, and she had totally weened off of the steroids and bleach baths. We still had to be careful about what she ate but her skin was clear! Over time she just got better and better - and can even eat chocolate now (one of her triggers).... and like her treating homeopath said, 'a life without chocolate is not worth living!'

..... So after having ran a busy Bowen Therapy clinic since 2015, I decided I needed to learn homeopathy to be able to help other people with problems like my daughter, so other families can have a happy ending too! :)