My whole life, I’ve had skin problems, mostly eczema, and food allergies. When I was very little, I couldn’t eat chocolate, dairy, among other things. Those are the ones I remember the most. I always had to sleep with a humidifier in the winter and an AC in the summer to keep my skin from getting dry. Humidity or cold dry weather would trigger my eczema. I would have to sleep with socks, take oatmeal baths, coat my skin in Eucerin (especially if I wanted to go in my beloved ocean – the water would burn my skin horribly, but if I was heavily coated with Eucerin, I could stand to be in the water. Not being in the water was not an option for this mermaid girl). But it never really mattered…once the eczema would wake up, I would tear at my skin, because it was the only thing that would feel better.
I got older, I outgrew the original food allergies, I seemed like I was getting somewhat better at keeping the eczema under control.
But everything was just lying dormant, waiting. I think of it all now like a dragon, sleeping. Sometimes, it will be months, maybe years before the dragon wakes up, but you are always aware that it is there. And then you just start to feel just the slightest twinge, and you know that if you look at it too hard, or scratch just a little, the dragon, the very angry dragon, will wake up and devour you whole.
Lots of changes started happening in my life – I moved in with my first boyfriend (who was a dragon in his own right, but I didn’t see it at first). My life became very stressful, with my work like and home life. I began having health problems – stomach pains, weird back pain, headaches (I had a migraine for a week straight).
I left him, and began dating Tim (with whom I am still good friends with and I’m thankful for that). I wanted to lose a little weight, so I started the South Beach diet and began eating everything whole grain. High-fiber everything. Most of what I ate at the time was whole wheat pasta, whole wheat cereal, and cheeses. I lost weight but my stomach was always bloated. I began having more stomach pain, weird digestive issues, weird back pain.
And my skin exploded.
Tests, more tests, doctors, more doctors. Nothing helped. No real answers were given, until I went to a naturopath and learned that I have celiac disease.
Gluten left my life, my health improved. But I continued to have breakouts. I continued using the high-intensity steroid cream whenever I would breakout. I would think it was from eating out, where I would accidentally get glutened.
I finally decided to give up dairy (casein – milk protein- to be specific) as well, and again, my skin really improved and cleared up. My energy improved. I would go for a month, two, maybe more with my skin clear. I started to feel whole, I started to feel like maybe my dragon had finally moved on and I was free.
But the dragon was just in a deeper sleep than I realized. It woke up again.
In the past year, I started to have more breakouts again. I thought it was from eating out, that no matter how carefully I checked, I had eaten something that had gluten or dairy in it (I’ve gone to the same restaurant and told them very specifically about my allergies, have them say that the dish didn’t have anything in it, only to get sick, go back at a later date, ask again, and be told that yes in fact it did have something in it. Duh, and also, Not helpful). My stomach started bothering me again.
But I was getting married in May. I wanted to be healthy, I wanted my skin to be healthy, my stomach to be healthy. I worked really hard at it. And I told my body it had to get through the wedding. And it listened. And then after the wedding, it was no longer able to keep everything at bay.
I began breaking out maybe every other week. My food habits hadn’t changed and I wasn’t eating out much.
I continued to use the steroid cream, and it was helping less and less.
When I say I broke out, I don’t mean that I had pimples or acne or a few select spots of eczema. I mean I had this incredibly itchy, painful rash EVERYWHERE. When it was flared up, it hurt to shower. It hurt to wear clothes. I couldn’t exercise because sweat hurt too much. I felt ugly. I cried a lot.
And then it got even worse.
My hand had the worst of it. Everytime I would wash my hands, my hands would dry out. When my hand was dry, it would get itchy. I would try to scratch it just a little, but remember the dragon? Yeah, then the dragon would wake up and the itch would drive me mad and I would scratch my hand until it was bleeding, because it would give me a minute of relief.
And then it got worse again. For most of September and all of October, my hand barely looked like a hand. It never healed no matter what I put on it, and I tried, I tried so hard to not scratch it, not touch it, but I was no match for this dragon. It hurt, oh god it hurt. I am right handed, and I began brushing my teeth and eating with my left hand, because I couldn’t bend my fingers. My fingers began weeping. Just running them under water could get them bleeding.
My entire body, head to toe, was covered. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. I had a cough and a weird shallow breathing thing that lasted for a month and would make it difficult for me to talk because I would be unable to breathe properly. I had no energy at all. Just walking my dog around the corner exhausted me. I was trapped in my body, falling further and further away from myself, not able to do anything I love to do, and not knowing how to beat the dragon that had taken over my entire world.
I went to an acupuncturist. She said my liver, large intestine, stomach, spleen were all too “hot” and that was affecting everything else. Something that acupuncturists, and naturopaths, recognize that dermatologists don’t – all skin problems are actually the result of an internal problem. The body uses the skin to try to remove toxins…and of course the steroid cream that I was using nearly constantly doesn’t solve the problem, it just pushes the inflammation back inside.
I went to acupuncture for two weeks, and in those two weeks, I got so much worse. I don’t believe, and my acupuncturist doesn’t believe, that the acupuncture was making it worse necessarily, but it seemed that my system was so overloaded it couldn’t handle anything.
I had to go to the emergency room, to get seen by a dermatologist. They put me on a higher intensity cream, gave me antibiotics for the superinfection they found in my skin…and my skin finally started to clear up. I was able to start sleeping again. My energy started coming back. I don’t believe for a minute that it has fixed me, just given me a temporary solution that allowed me to live in my body again. But to be able to live in my body again is wonderful, joyous, cause for celebration.
I was able to start taking my dog for walks again. I was able to run yesterday. Huge celebrations.
The acupuncturist told me to get off sugar, because I have Candidia (yeast overgrowth). I am working very hard on that. I have eliminated almost all processed sugar at this point, and I am going to continue working at that. She also told me to get off soy milk and soy yogurt, as it is too damp, and she said what I had in acupuncture terms is damp heat. I’ve made good progress in that area as well.
In a lot of ways, right now I am feelign better than I have for a long, long time. My energy is high. I’m sleeping. No stomach pain or weird back pain.
But the dragon is still there. I can still feel it. There is the beginning of itching on my scalp, on my hand. I am not at full health yet, and I haven’t slain the dragon once and for all..but for the first time in a long time, I am fighting back.
And this time, I am going to win. I will find out how to control it and not be controlled BY it anymore.
