A 43-year-old woman came to our office on October 6, 2016 complaining of severe eczema which was covering her entire body. This had been going on for 3 years. She tried medical treatment with steroid creams, which would take some of the symptoms away, but it kept coming back.
She felt like she wasn’t getting to the root of the problem, so she saw a Naturopath near her home in Laramie, Wyoming. She was put on numerous nutraceuticals, such as Vitamin C, turmeric capsules, multivitamins, was told to drink vinegar in the morning and was taking some garlic capsules as well. The doctor told her she had to detox, so she was put on milk thistle for the liver.
Her rash got worse and worse to the point it became weeping open wounds in her lower legs (see the pictures), her neck was red hot and her arms and legs were hot, red and dry, like alligator skin. She was in such agony, she couldn’t sleep at night.
Her history revealed frequent use of antibiotics for infections (7 times over the past few years) and had high levels of cadmium, aluminum and lead.
I had her stop her nutraceutical protocol immediately. She was given the following regime: probiotics to restore the immune system in the gut, we had to cool down her liver with Bhumi Amla drops and liver clay on the liver 3x a week. She was given Daruharidra to stop the allergic reactions in the gut, Manjistha to stop the reactivity of the toxins coming through the skin and Pro Apana drops to fix the gut lining to encourage the growth of the friendly bacteria.
She was also given an herbal tea with coriander seeds (used to direct the toxins away from the skin and into the urine) to sip on throughout the day. In addition, Indian sarsparilla root (to clean the fat tissue — many garavisha or chemical toxins get stored in the fat tissue forever and Indian sarsparilla operates on that level and can pull them out and eliminate them when used correctly.
She was also given Rasa Sodhaka drops to chelate the heavy metals. We instructed her in proper alkaline diet as well.
This picture of her lower legs was taken only two weeks after she started the SVA protocol with us. In such a short time she got incredible relief, with the eczema clearing up throughout her whole body. She is continuing her herbs, and we have great confidence her skin will be clear by the end of the year.
I give this case history so you can see visually what happens if you attempt to detoxify without having the full picture in view, and trying to detox just to address the symptoms instead of isolating the root causes. Most detox protocols also use heating (in ayurvedic terms) ingredients, such as turmeric, milk thistle, vinegar and garlic. The logic is to dislodge and evacuate toxic build-up, but they do not understand that the toxic accumulation is also very hot and acidic in nature and will only further aggravate the condition when you attempt to evacuate them. In addition, all these ingredients are also heating to the liver, our major detox organ, and this patient is an example of what happens to the skin when the liver overheats.
The skin is doing just what it knows how to do — it is eliminating toxins all day. There is nothing wrong in that. But if the toxins are highly acidic/overheated as they come through the skin, any skin condition, such as eczema and others, can result. The trick to treating these cases is to honor the liver in whatever you do — give remedies which will not increase the heat in the liver, while maintaining an alkaline diet, such as the SVA diet.
Thank you Vaidya for teaching me how to treat all various skin conditions I see everyday in my practice. This case history gives me a chance to show how successful you can be if you take good care of the liver as you heal the patient, giving the herbs through transdermal creams and glyceride drops as opposed to tablets of herbs, which would have further aggravated the liver, creating even more disturbance in the skin.
Dr. Marianne Teitelbaum
You can call Dr. Teitelbaum’s Clinic in Cinnaminson, New Jersey at:
1.856.786.3330
Hello Vaidyaji and Marianne-ji,
Namaste! Firstly, I am an avid reader of your blog and a lifelong student of Ayurveda. Let me take this opportunity to thank you for all that you do to heal and nurture all of us through your work. We are sincerely grateful.
I have a 20 month old daughter who has eczema triggered by dryness during winter. (During this past summer and fall – she was perfectly fine.) I do all I can at the symptomatic level – keep her heavily moisturized, give her luke warm short showers, offer her plenty of jeera – saunf water to drink, always have humidifiers running in the house etc. All this helps until it does not. I would love to find a more permanent solution to the issue and was wondering if you could advice.
She is also allergic to cashews, walnuts (& my guess is tree nuts in general) – it causes her to throw up all she has eaten.
She used to have irregular bowel clearance that has improved in the recent months when I started including lots of fiber in her meals (oatmeal, cracked wheat instead of rice). She eats fresh, mostly indian preparations along with an avocado and a boiled egg every day.
Even when the bowel movement improved, she struggled with intense flatulence that often woke her up from sleep both during naps as well as at night. The only change in diet that has improved this is offering her lactose free milk. I did this very reluctantly since I do not like the idea of heavily processed milk – however, the flatulence did almost completely disappear and she has had a couple of nights of 6+ hours of continuous sleep for the first time in her little life!
I am continuing to offer her regular milk in small doses (in oatmeal for example) as well as butter, cheese, dahi, ghee etc.
I would love for her to be able to consume regular (hopefully raw) cows milk, as well as be allergy free to nuts and sleep peacefully without painful gas or intense itching.
Could you please advise us as to what we can do for her?
Thank you in advance,
Priya
Please consider scheduling a consultation with Dr. Marianne Teitelbaum: http://drmteitelbaum.com – SVA Customer Service Team