Parabens, Phthalates & MSG

I recently have had a series of aggressive reactions:

- After eating Chinese take away
- When helping someone hang their laundry on a line

Having much better skin than in the past, I have become complacent. The worst thing about eczema is when you go into "destroy mode", it is hard to break yourself out of the deadlock hold of "the scratch" especially when you're trying to sleep.

MSG Destruction

The work place wanted to have a Fat Friday as a team meal and was persuaded to partake in a Chinese take away. I have avoided foods that have chemically laced MSG such as Chinese restaurants for such a long time and the skin condition was pretty good, I thought why not. It tasted quite satisfying.......but then the aftermath of an MSG feast. Headache, restlessnest and a darn itchy neck. My neck is an MSG / dehydration detector and it doesn't take long to destroy skin that has mostly healed.....red, raw and sore before I got up had lots to drink and an antihistamine to stop the itch attack that had now alerted the inner arms, the legs.....everywhere wanted to join the itch party.

The next day found several of my colleagues had suffered dehydration symptoms which I can only suggest it is MSG related.

* MSG = mono sodium glutamate. It is a naturally occuring substance added as a flavour enhancer.

Anyhow no more Chinese Take Away EVER for me.....as well as any other foods that contain MSG as an added ingredient (like crisps, processed meats, pot noodles and some seasonings). Me poor neck is a mess.

Parabens & Phthlates

The other day I helped someone put out their laundry, was over powered by the heavy fragrance, and broke out in rashes during the handling of their phthalate / plasticiser infested clothing….(yeah I am sensitive).  Why do I blame the phthalate? Cos the smell irritated me. In fact it could also be due to parabens still on the clothes. Parabens and Phthlates are 2 chemicals that is in many liquid soaps (body, hand, hair) and laundry detergents:

• Parabens: preservative to stop the product going mouldy + potential carcinogen + potentially reduces sperm count (endocrine disruptor) + skin irritant.The FDA think Parabens are safe:
  https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/productsingredients/ingredients/ucm128042.htmThe EU bans 5 types of parabens in cosmetics such as from body creams but still allows it in shampoos/conditioners: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-1051_en.htm
• Phthalate: helps to preserve the fragrance in the product. It is used to make plastics and is a potential carcinogen + suspected hormone disruptor

Ref: US National Library of Medicine
The FDA’s think it’s safe https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/productsingredients/potentialcontaminants/ucm128250.htm

However the EU thinks differently on this and will be restricting the use of 4 types of phthalates: https://www.env-health.org/resources/press-releases/article/europe-finally-recognises-four

Additionally Phthalate exposure has been linked to an increased occurrence of atopic diseases including allergic rhinitis, wheezing, and eczema

FYI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4626318/

The person had told me they had added double the recommended dosage as their clothes were stained with a dye.  Unfortunately I had an aggressive itch attack and again only did something about it when I was tearing into my skin making myself feel un well.


Oh well back to the drawing board. Glad the sun is out.....

Hydrogen Peroxide

Have had one of those episodes of strange rashes. On one side of my face, have been suffering from hives or urticaria which swells, burns and stings. It looks almost as if someone has punched me at times. It later proceeds to continue with with a niggly itch as if insects are walking on my face, and then goes scaly. This tends to happen in winter and goes away for a couple of months in summer (GP said it's eczema). Been off and on since December.

In February, another rash formed on the inside of my thigh and was mirrored on the opposite thigh. I wish I had bothered to take photos.Anyway it has been itchy everyday and wondered about it occurring from lack of sun.

Anyhoo, I found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and thought I'd apply it on the rashes. Have been using a dilution of 1-2. The hard redness of both rashes has reduced after two days of applying. Maybe it has bleached the skin. Will see after a week of application. Makes me wonder if it is some type of fungal infection instead.

BTW if you do decide to try this. Hydrogen Peroxide stings like #$%# if you have any cuts.

Wishing you happy healing

How to Help Eczema Sufferers

Those that have friends/family/partners (let's call them the "aiders") who suffer from eczema watch the eczema sufferer with concern. Sometimes they slap our hands to stop us from scratching because they want to help. This does not help!

Why We Have Become Apathetic Sufferers
Everyone has a story of someone who has been cured by using some cream, taken some medicine, etc, etc, etc. I have tried Indian remedies, Chinese medicines and loads of Western medicines and I am sure my story has been repeated with many other eczema sufferers. So after a time when a friend, family, partner tells the eczema sufferer "why don't you try xyz remedy" the eczema sufferer can appear stupefied because we have tried so many things and sometimes made the eczema worst. It seems we (eczema sufferers) are like a dog with fleas.....we like a good scratch, but really we have become apathetic. Why? - because we read and are told by doctors that atopic eczema is not curable. The doctors will try to reduce the symptoms so that the skin can have a chance to heal, but it is up to us eczema sufferers to manage the symptoms.

We live in societies now where doctors will look up the medicines they should prescribe to us that will heal us, and the pharmaceutical companies of course need us to be sick in order to keep selling products to us. Okay so I am a little cynical, but I have used so many useless expensive prescriptions that never really relieved the symptoms. So the exceptional eczema sufferer will learn to manage the symptoms so that they are always on top of the problem.

As I told a friend, if you can't be bothered to change your lifestyle and you want to continue using "crap" then expect your skin's well being to continue to suffer. If you really care about your family and friends, then start loving yourself and start a blog or a diary so that you can begin to become aware of what factors are affecting you. The doctor's solutions tend to be short term solutions and I don't know of any chronic eczema sufferer who has been healed by a doctor's prescription.

OK so I've waffled on and you do care about an eczema sufferer. What can you do to help?

STOP NAGGING ME TO STOP SCRATCHING
Personally I dislike people nagging me to stop scratching. It actually made me focus on scratching more. Perhaps this is the voice of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) . Tell a person/child not to do something and they will most likely do the action you've been negative about. If you really want to help the sufferer, give their hands and minds a distraction, such as to help you carry something, to write a letter to someone, try talking about something of interest, hold my hands to pray. Anything, but please do not tell any of us to stop scratching.

GIVE ME A HUG (except make sure you're not wearing a woolly jumper when you do so or wearing strong smelling perfumes)
Yes I like hugs because it often provides a "positive" emotion and it is difficult to scratch when you give a good hug.

GIVE ME ICY COLD THINGS
An eczema sufferer's skin becomes hot as we scratch. The hotter it becomes the more itchy the skin feels and can make us feel like we would like to gouge out our skin....and sadly and regrettable sometimes we do. An ice cold towel helps to relieve the heat a little but please take it away if we begin to use the towel to scratch our skin! Otherwise peas are pretty good.

A CLEAN ROOM WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATED
When I've been away my partner vacuums my bed and room, ensuring I have fresh sheets to sleep on and a clean room to walk into. Skin droppings create dust and dust mites get a good feed. Airing sheets out to remove the skin crumbs really does help an eczema sufferer to have a less itchy night.

At the end of the day, if an eczema sufferer really wants a long term solution they need to really want a long term solution and that means as M.J used to sing "If you want to make your world a better a place, take a look at yourself and make a change" (Man in the Mirror)

Good luck aiders :-)

To The Person Who Posted A Comment on My Blog 22nd Jan

Apologies, I meant to publish your comment and respond. I somehow hit the delete button although was pretty sure I hit the "Publish" button. Okay so now I dither on uncertainty and wonder if it is something to do with Blogger.

Anyway back to the commenter and from what I remember of your comment. I have a couple of questions for you
- Where do you live?
- How would you rate the healthiness of your diet and your surroundings?

I also would like to remind you that I am not a doctor and that my comments are from my long experience with eczema.

Stuff What The World Thinks!
Yes eczema looks wrinkly when we have been scratching our skins excessively and we look older because of it. My skin was bad and I could have been depressed and hidden my skin but I am also very "thick skinned". I also believe we are all too self conscious about how we look due to media focus and what is beautiful and therefore we are all far more self critical than what is reality.

Here is my reasoning. Fit people who look well and healthy and do a lot of running, tell me they they are fat. Either they have been looking at themselves in their "fat" mirror or they found they could not fit into an old skirt or I have such bad eye sight that I cannot see the roll of fat they imagine they have. I thus knew that although I thought my skin looked bad, it was probably not as bad to others and if it was, I was happy to explain what I was suffering from which I did sometimes when my skin was busy falling off my face or I was having a bad itch attack and trying to remove the skin off my body.

What About Those Who Are Important?
It sucks that you've suffered from eczema since a wee baby. However now that you are older, I can understand that you will be more sensitive to passing remarks but these are from ignorant people who perhaps are not important.

Does exposing your skin to sunlight help your skin? It certainly does for me, so my attitude is:

My condition is not contagious and I have every right to expose my skin as the next person. They don't own the space I am in! So on go the shorts and t-shirts for me. In my mirror, my skin looks wrinkly and parts are scarred but as I move away from the mirror and the further I get from it, my skin looks okay.

So I don't bother to look in the mirror otherwise so that I cannot be so judgemental on myself and we are so much harsher when our critical eyes are on ourselves.

Physically my body shape is okay although I have a little "noise" from my skin but overall compared with many others, it is okay and I am thick skinned! I have found most people I have met have been sympathetic to my symptoms.

Visualisation
When my skin was bad all over my body and everytime I started to get down about it, I focused on the good bits, the smooth bits and when there where no smooth bits I kept my mind mentally occupied and thought of happy thoughts or prayed and read my bible and reading what the prophets went thru, my condition is a speck in the ocean. I believe when we allow ourselves to be emotionally down about ourselves, that will affect the chemicals that are released within our body. Just as a lack of sleep will also affect our ability to heal.

Sporting Help
Sport really has helped me, although at one time everytime I sweat the itching was insane. But after sport, the itching calmed down and I would not itch for at least one night. I have now discovered that as long as I have rehydrated enough the day before and before the time I play sport, the itching is mostly not there or bare-able. It has been weird to find I am not trying to dig my skin off my neck, arms, torso and legs whilst doing sport.

Being Aware
My skin is constantly finicky about what it likes and does not like. If I find I am constantly itching now, I look for the environmental factor first such as the cream I have put on or the soap I have used rather than simply blaming it on food. Having stopped some of the emollients I was using that were prescribed to me, and that were once okay I thought, my skin condition has improved so much. Now a days my friends have been remarking how good my skin looks.

I still get eczema rash wanting to grab a hold of an area of skin and I now keep calm about it and try to cool it down. I still get dry patches of skin and thus have to be more attentive to those areas.

Apologies if I have not answered all your questions as I do not remember the exact content of your comment. If I have not answered everything and you have found my post useful, then please do comment again.

All the best to you and hope you regain the confidence you have lost.

Time is a Healer

2 days I took a step back. I had been neglecting myself due to a lot of work being thrown my way. My skin had returned to being dry, flakey and itchy. The eczema had begun to wrap itself around my body. I had not realised its extent until I took a step back to look at it all. Shame on me, after having fought hard last year to bring my skin back to normal.

This is a good reminder that one cannot let your guard down. I used an emolient earlier this year that put my skin back on the risk register. I changed my emolient at the end of May and then have not had time to fix it, 1/2 expecting it to go away itself. Unfortunately once eczema takes hold it tries to resist going away.

Sleep patterns have been attrocious partly due to work, partly due to scratching at night, partly due to hormones. Now that I have some time out, I am trying to settle sleep back to a regular pattern. I have begun table salt baths back again to gently exfoliate the flakey skin and have been applying mositurising creams and emollients far more regularly than I have done the whole year (about 4-5 times a day and when ever I wake up in the night).

After 2 days the skin has settled a little. There are still areas that are itchy but the itch intensity is more tolerable. It is going to be another hard slog to get it back to normality.

In my head I remind myself be patient with it and try to think more happy thoughts. It might look bad but it will improve better without applying steroid creams. I remind myself that when I have applied steroid creams, the skin becomes delicate and is not a fix until the itch sources are also removed - whether that is diet, sleep, creams, etc. And if I have removed the itch sources then the skin will heal naturally anyway.

Of course there is an expression.....time is a healer :o)

New Skin: Keeping the Itch at Bay

Gosh it has been awhile and I have been mostly itch free.

Having scratched the skin very little, it is amazing how smooth and soft it feels! I'm so not used to it, I keep having a little skin stroke every now and then! LOL. Still important to keep alert. The skin texture is still not normal from the years of scratching. I am willing it to be normal.

Contributing factors to easing the itch.

1. Being observant about how your own body reacts to environmental factors (see previous posts). This is really important for a long term approach to healing yourself. I am a "happy go lucky" type of person and seemingly "unstressed". However:

• Lack of sleep doesn't allow my body to heal (see previous post about The Sleepless Itch) and causes a stress that comes out as an itch.

• Poor nutrition. Like many out there, I like junk food. However this creates a stress on the liver and it is interesting that many eczema sufferers have found going on a detox for any period of time or a "body clean out" helps improve their skin. Rather than just go on a detox, I decided to change my diet (and hopefully forever) and reduce the saturated fat I take. Out with the biscuits, crisps and cake - except when visiting other people! My diet has a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit, more so now in summer as I grow my own vegetables. My skin tells me when I've been eating rich foods by itching when I exercise. I have been able to sweat without itching. I have not had that feeling in a very very very long time.

2. Doing something when the itch is triggered - just don't leave it and hope it goes away. That aggressive itch doesn't just go away. My defence has come about from my observations and varies according to the body part.

First Step:
a) If it is my eyes - I wash the eyes, if that doesn't help then I I force myself to rest
b) If it is my neck - I drink at least 500ml of water
c) If it is my face, arms or legs because I've been dealing with something dusty - then I have a wash and cream down
d) If it is because my skin feels dry - I cream down

e) If it is late, I go to bed.

These normally will ease the itch symptoms for me. However I still need to be aware that I can still scratch areas because the itch sensation is still there.

Second Step
Keep your hands and mind occupied. I will do the house keeping, gardening, wash dishes, anything to keep my hands and mind occupied. This normally does the trick of easing the itch symptoms.

Night Step
If I am itchy at night in bed, I will first try to ignore the itch for 1/2 an hour and keep the blankets off me so that my skin feels cool. If that does not work, then I will take an anti-histamine. I hate anti-histamines because they make me feel sluggish in the morning.

3. Cream cream cream. Keep moisturised! The skin will always be prone to eczema so I cream constantly and amazed at how much the skin needs! I now use moisturisers that make my skin feel soft. I used to avoid them because some have a stingy feeling and can make the eczema worst. However I have found applying them when am not itchy has helped me find creams that I can apply and that will make my skin feel softer so that I am not unconsciously scrapping off the dry skin and causing the eczema itch scratch cycle.

I hope these posts help someone else out there :o)

The Menstrual Itch

This is an itch that is again created by some type of imbalance within the body. 

I have noticed that about 2-3 days before my period arrives, my body, arms, legs, neck, etc itches constantly. It is like a background noise that is always there. If I dare to scratch any part then the eczema slowly rears its ugly head.  

Once the period starts, the itching subsides.

So what is happening to the body?

I found the image on the right in wikipedia (of course). 

A couple of things stand out to me:

1. The core body temperature rises
   
2. Progesterone levels are increasing and estrogen levels are decreasing before the period.
   
3. On the onset of ones period there is a sudden fall away of progesterone

Again I have found drinking more water when one is itchy has some effect in reducing the itch. The other is being in a nice cold environment. It is no wonder I find myself drawn to the ice and snow! -20 degrees celcius seems so inviting!

As for the progesterone levels,  perhaps I don't have enough of it or it is out of sync! I have read it is suppose to have a calming effect and there is a tendency for one to feel lethargic or depressed. Strangely I have quite an opposite effect leading up to the period. I have a lot of energy and when running, can feel like I can run forever!!! Two nights before my period I have insomnia. On the first day of my period, I want to sleep the whole day.

Without medical measurements of the production of my hormones, it would be difficult to understand how it is affecting the eczematic skin.  However, a rising body temperature will explain why being in the cold is the best thing for reducing the itchiness, as well as drinking water.