Atopic Dermatitis. That's what the doctor called it. To the average person, it is simply known as eczema. Some people are born with it. Others develop it later in life. For me, I can remember having a mild case of it when I was young, but it didn't officially rear its ugly head until I was fifteen. For me, that's when the suffering really began.
If you are one of those unfortunate people who suffer from eczema, and if you have had it for any length of time, then you have probably been to numerous family doctors and dermatologists. Each one asks you to try some pill or skin treatment that contains some ingredient that has a small, negative side-effect, like sterilization! On top of that, everybody and their grandmother have given you a gazillion home remedies that they swear worked for their great aunt's nephew's cousin's brother's ex-roommate! Some of the concoctions weren't so odd, so I gave them a try. Others seemed downright bizarre, but you tried them anyway, hoping desperately that it wouldn't turn you into a frog or lizard!
Each "cure" you tried, both from doctors and from well-intentioned friends and family, caused your hope to die a little more, until at this point, you have just resigned yourself to a life of ceaseless itching, dry, flaky skin and ugly, oozing sores.
If you can relate to what I have described, then I ask that you continue to read my story. I know what you are going through. My eczema covered my entire body -- some places worse than others. I have had doctors tell me that I have the worse case of eczema they had ever seen! How encouraging.
My skin was so full or sores that I never wanted to wear shorts or t-shirts, even in hot weather, because my legs and arms looked so bad. Sometime I had so many sores on my knees that it hurt to walk, or sometimes they were located in highly delicate places, making it hurt to sit down. When it got really bad, I would take a sick day off of work and sleep for literally 14 hours straight, then soak in an oatmeal bath all day. I was thankful for the hair I had that covered the sores on my head, that is until my hair decided it didn't like me anymore and I list it all down the sink!
Needless to say, I was pretty miserable. Finally, a friend of mine introduced me to some supplement products, which helped keep my eczema somewhat under control. These products at least got rid of the eczema on my face and head (just as the last bit of hair fled for good!), and reduced it on the rest of my body. However, I was buying over $100 worth of products every month just to keep me only slightly miserable instead of oh-God,-let-me-die miserable.
Finally, one day (following the advice of yet another doctor!) I tried using vaseline on my legs to help with my extremely dry skin. In all fairness to the doctor, who would have ever thought that I was allergic to vaseline! Needless to say, I wasn't going to be doing any swimsuit modeling anytime soon after that.
I began seeing a natural doctor, Dr. Alomar. I'm not talking about some wacko who grows his own "medicine," but a real M.D. who uses natural methods to heal the body. His philosphy is to go after the cause of a disease, not simply treat symptoms with chemical medicines. Over the course of several months, he showed me that even though I was eating better than I had years ago, I was still eating way too many processed foods and stuff containing chemicals and such.
Dr. Alomar not only helped me change my diet and improve my eczema, he also helped me discover that I was anemic, and taught me a lot about the body and how it works. One of the main things I learned was that the body uses three methods to eliminate toxins from the body: 1. urine 2. bowels 3. skin (in that order). Therefore, if you have a skin problem, it is because the body cannot get rid of all the toxins through the other two methods. Therefore, you need to reduce the toxins coming into your body (through healthy eating, of course) and through helping the other methods become more efficient.
Now, I can actually wear shorts and not be embarrassed! I don't wake up itching in the middle of the night, I am not scratching all of the time, and I am not in pain from numerous sores.
Our bodies are amazing machines that were created by God to function properly--if we give it the right materials to work with. In our screwed-up society, is it any wonder we have so many problems physically? How do you think the engine of your car would run if you mixed mud or tar in with the gas every time you filled up? Yet we fill our bodies with crud and then are surprised when we have physical ailments. Dr. Alomar has helped people overcome not just skin problems, but allergies, stiffness and pain, and other sicknesses. Check out his website (www.dralomar.com) and read some of the stories from other patients.
Keith A. Robinson
Author of the novel Logic's End
