If you missed them, please catch up on
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
I wish I could tell all of you about the “magic bullet” that cured Malachi of his eczema. There really is no such thing and it’s been a huge struggle for us throughout this journey. I’ll tell you more about some of the things we’ve tried and what’s (mostly) worked tomorrow in a separate post, but I WILL tell you here and now that we have NO REGRETS that we pulled him off the steroids and cortisone creams. Especially now that we’re on the better end of his eczema battle, we can testify that you do NOT have to resort to drugs to help your child’s eczema…no matter how severe a case it is.
Even though we were just at the beginning of our healthy eating journey, we had learned enough about food, drugs and overall health to know that eczema is NOT a skin issue. Skin is an organ. When something is going wrong inside our bodies, toxins have to go somewhere. In Malachi’s case…they appeared to be “coming out” through his skin. (This was explained to us both by our chiropractor and by another homeopathic doctor that we took Malachi to.) If we were to just treat the rash as a skin condition, those toxins inside of him would be suppressed in his little body…and then what? It was making him miserable, but at least his body was trying to rid itself of toxins.
Ultimately, this meant that there was no quick fix for Malachi. We were going to have to get to the root of his problem and figure out what was going on inside of him before the rash would go away. It was going to be a process.
We faced incredible opposition to our choices and took all kinds of criticism because “we were allowing our child to suffer” by not giving him the drugs. People couldn’t believe we weren’t “giving him anything for that awful rash”. From doctors to strangers, we felt like we were being looked down upon for “letting” our child look and feel like he did.
It was a very painful time. I wanted to scream at people, “Do you think we LIKE watching our baby suffer? Do you think we don’t KNOW how bad he feels? Do you think we’re just IGNORING his pain? We’re NOT!!!!! We are SO not!! We hate this!!!! We HATE it! Don’t make this worse for us!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I know people didn’t mean to make it worse…I was just weary.
And so, we began learning about food and nourishment. We began learning more about how our bodies work. We began learning more about toxic cleaners and detergents.
And we began changing almost everything about how we ate, cleaned, stored our food, cooked our food. So many changes. Because of Malachi, we felt quite an urgency to make a lot of changes all at once, but wow was that very overwhelming!
I’ll write a separate post tomorrow to explain several of the ideas that have helped Malachi because if you have a little one suffering from eczema…you don’t want to wait on me to get through with this series to hear about it!
But this post is already getting long and I have yet to tell you about my hospital stay because of asthma complications and how much I learned about myself and about true health and oh yeah…many of you are waiting to hear about how I finally gave up drinking Pepsi…
More Coming Soon…
I would love some tips on how to deal with eczema… my 20 month old son has it on his cheeks. It is not too severe, but it drives me crazy (he looks like he has acne) and we have tried many things to no avail. Thanks for sharing.
I have a 3 1/2 yr old who has had eczema since about 6 months. It usually flairs up in Spring/Summer, usually on his wrists and inside of the elbows. Also very prone to cradle cap, still. We have been given 2 steroid creams, one stronger that the other. But I don’t feel it’s taking care of the problem. I try to purchase a lot of organic things for our family, but it’s not economical at all where we live. I hope to learn a lot from your posts. I also can’t wait to try many of your recipes! They sound great. I just hope I can find time to make them. Oh, and we’ll be starting a garden this year, hopefully the deer won’t attack it! Thanks for your great stories!
I’m taking my son to a chiropractor for treatments for chronic hives. It’s a loooong process, but I’m praying for health for my son. And, we need to make some food changes. We’re definitely not bad, but it could be better. So sorry your little guy has had to suffer with eczema.
I’m looking forward to more of your posts about eczema. My daughter was just diagnosed with it. She’s 6 months old. It doesn’t seem to be a horrible case of it, but if there’s changes we can make now to prevent it from becoming worse, that’d be great.
Love your blog, by the way!
I’ve just recently discovered your blog and am soooo thankful that I’ve found it. My husband and I are trying to become healthier, not to mention that my oldest son has had eczema since he was an infant. My mom and sister both have celiac disease and so I’ve often wondered about the food aspect of his skin issues. I can’t wait to see what light you can shed on this for me.
How awful for you all! It takes so much courage to stand up for what you know is right for your family, when the rest of the world thinks you’re nuts. I’m so glad that you have been able to help Malachi, and make yourselves healthier in the process. My family has always been pretty healthy but I am learning so much from this blog, and just purchased a copy of Nourishing Traditions. Thank you for sharing all of this with us!
P.S. I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear how you gave up Pepsi! I love Diet Pepsi -I know, I know, it’s terrible!- and I have cut down significantly but I haven’t been able to give it up. My kids have never had pop in their lives but it just picks me up like nothing else. I did order the big thing of lemons from Azure and am hoping some fresh lemonade will be enticing enough.
can i please tell you…i am on pins and needles for your next post of your journey!! you sound just like me!! i have been on this coupon kick (’cause it was fun to save so much $), and all the sudden it hit me that my pantry was full of junk!! then i began reading the lables on those boxes…oh-my! i literally started combing the internet this weekend trying to find a site to help me start feeding my family more naturally…that’s how i found your site! thanks for the little boast i needed to get me started!!
Wow, it is so exciting to hear about how you are on a search to eat more naturally and you found me site! I LOVE it when God does that! Thanks so much for commenting and letting me know. I get so much encouragement from this!
Thanks for anther great post. (And recipe! tried the Butterscotch bars and wowee were they yummy! When I told my sister they were made with whole wheat flour and sucanat she was gobsmacked.) I really am enjoying this series so much, since we are in the middle of the same process.
Hi Holly. I saw the word “gobsmacked” and wondered if you’re in the
UK, since this is the only place I’ve heard that word. :-) I’d love
to know of others here who are eating natural foods.
Thanks, Laura, for sharing your wonderful ideas and recipes with the
world! It is making my family’s journey to healthy eating so much
easier. You are a blessing.
Thanks for this post, Laura. We got a lot of criticism from all sorts of people, too. Even the doctors were amazed, though, when my baby with “bad excema” turned out to have multiple, severe food allergies. I’m glad you figured out Malachi’s problems, and I am so happy that you are helping other parents and their children!
I’m so enjoying this series! My son doesn’t have excema but we have had digestive and skin issues since birth. He is also a horrid sleeper and I’ve often wondered if food plays a part there. I SO want to be healthier and I do think that compared to others we are. We just have financial restraints. I’m hoping you’ll share a little more about that in your future posts! Thanks for all of the information thus far!
Aww! I wish I could give you a hug. No mother should have to watch her baby suffer with ANYTHING. :( I do think, though, that I understand a bit more of your dedication knowing your motivation. If my baby’s health and comfort depended on me to purify my diet and home 99% of the time, I would be on it!
I am making baby steps of progress though. If I could defeat the sugar monster, I would be so happy!
This is such a great series! Thanks for posting regularly on this topic!!
Allie
As mentioned, the eczema is a symptom of what’s really going on. The body is trying to eliminate toxins in the body. For children, they probably received the toxins from the mother as she would have passed some of it on to her child (probably from father as well). Vaccines also contain toxins, such as mercury and other metals such as aluminum. Doing a cleanse would help… clean the blood through drinking certain teas such as stinging nettle tea or dandelion tea (would have to look more into it). For metals, one could take selenium, wild garlic, and chorella (in powder or tablette form). Then eventually cilantro to remove the metals from the brain. These are natural and non-invasive.