Why Western Doctors Are Useless For Eczema (Solution Included)

mask
Masking is temporary.

Let’s be realistic.

The Western approach isn’t perfect, nor is any other healing system.

But when it comes to eczema, Western medicine is completely useless except for a few doses of steroids and several general “moisturize your skin” tips.

Or… is that why it’s useless…

Unfortunately, most of us live in the advanced world, and 95% of first-time eczema incidents, the patients choose Western doctors because drugs are fast.

Now, fast isn’t always a good thing, and the reason behind it is why the Western scientific approach isn’t suitable for eczema.

The Western Approach To Eczema

What you get from the Western approach is a prescription of topical steroidal treatments, or better known as cortisone creams.

Once you apply these steroids to your skin, they affect your body’s internal hormones that are responsible for inflammatory responses, the steroids help stop them from activating the unwanted results.

In other words, the creams interrupt the normal functioning of your hormones so you will never get the itches. And your wounds can heal at peace.

The Problem With Steroids

drugs
Don’t be chemical, be natural.

The problem is obvious.

You’re messing with your body’s act of trying to balance things out, the steroids will indefinitely help control your inflammatory responses but as soon as you stop the drugs, your eczema is bound to return.

Simply put, the steroids temporarily stop your body’s natural processes, and will continue to contribute to your build-up of toxins within the body. As soon as you stop the medications, toxins in you will begin to expunge all at once, and that means your eczema will come back and depending on the length of usage, your eczema will spread to new places and be worse than before.

Not being a cure isn’t the only problem, there are also other issues:

  • Skin thinning and discoloration.
  • Usage for more than 2 weeks will be harmful (the Western limit; using it any one day should be harmful anyway if you think about it).
  • Continued usage can lead to addiction.
  • The longer you use, the more toxins reside in your body.
  • The longer you use the more tolerant you will be, the more doses and the stronger doses you will need.

The only problem you should be concerned of, is that steroidal creams only temporarily suppress the symptoms, not fully addressing the root cause.

Are Western Doctors Entirely Useless?

maskNo. (keep reading…)

Other than giving you fast-acting temporary creams, the doctors can also give you professional advice on eczema, from the university degree they earned. And that the government officially allows them to offer.

But judging from the millions of times I’ve heard from numerous of different doctors, specialists and dermatologists, that so-called professional advice is only worth hearing a few times, because it’s as simple as:

  • Take your medications on time.
  • Eat more vegetables, fruits and stay away from unhealthy stuff.
  • Don’t use hot water for showers; don’t shower for too long.
  • Apply moisturizers as soon as you finish your shower.
  • Whenever your skin gets dry, put some lotion on.

After the “help” from hearing this, if you try to force the question “so how long until will I be able to fully eliminate my eczema?”

You’ll get what I call the Western eczema truth.

“Eczema is incurable, you can only control it with medications.”

If you believe that, it will be. If you persist on looking for solutions, there will be.

Guess which option I chose?

Quick Reference: Logan’s Case

Just want to quickly pop it in here, I recently read a true story of a mother who had experienced problems with her son, Logan, who was showing obvious signs of eczema.

As usual, using steroidal creams just wasn’t the right path. So, after years of struggling to eliminate the problem, she had finally found it. Her journey included:

“Here there we were with 7 GP’s, 2 allergy specialists, 1 pediatrician and 2 dermatologists (not to mention the myriad of well-meaning strangers who stop you in shopping malls and offer advice of teabags in bath, and all kinds of weird and wonderful homemade concoctions).”

(Read the whole story here)

As you can see, the mom went with numerous of Western doctors for help, only to face disappointment.

At the end, they found the cure via a professor of immunology, that is classified as Western, but in what I was referring to in this post, I’m only referring to doctors who know nothing but the general “moisturize yourself and take steroids” advice. So, don’t get me wrong.

What’s The Solution?

integrative approachSo, if the Western approach doesn’t work, what’s the solution that will?

I’m lying to you if I told you one specific trick will work.

The belief is to stick away from the scientific approach that requires rock-solid back-and-forth studies and evidence and instead, switch to natural healing.

You could call it:

  • Holistic healing
  • Traditional cure
  • Alternative treatment
  • Unconventional treatment
  • Folklore remedy
  • Integrative medicine
  • Functional medicine

I like to name it the natural approach.

The method that I used to cure my eczema involved combining multiple changes together, and it took serious time to make gradual healing improvements.

The Natural Approach: Brief Introduction

This page will not have enough room for me to explain in details how the natural approach works and everything else that go along.

But here are two key points you’ll need to achieve for a successful eczema recovery.

Again, there are many possible ways to call or name the terms of the approach, but for the sake of simple understanding:

1. Psychological

Your emotions can strongly influence your body’s natural healing system. You will need to be emotionally stable to promote the best recovery.

This essentially means stress, depression, pain and all kinds of negative emotions can impact your ability to heal.

While emotions are involuntary, it is possible to learn to control how much your feelings can affect your mind.

2. Physiological

Under the physiological branch, there are three factors: physical, sleep and consumption.

1. Physical

It is a must that you will to fulfil your requirements of physical exercise. Not only is moving yourself around natural and help you shed those unnecessary fat, sweating is a highly effective way to detoxify yourself.

2. Sleep

Sleep is inevitable and it is needed for survival. Most of us who live in the modern society are not getting enough hours, almost everyone is deprived of sleep.

If you’re not sleeping enough, your body will not be able to heal at its maximum capabilities, plus it’s harmful to your vital organs.

Sleep is not a choice, it is a need.

3. Consumption

Consumption refers to how you eat, when you eat and what you eat.

How should you eat?

Slowly, chew to pieces, don’t rush, don’t mess up your swallowing with wrongly timed breaths.

When should you eat?

You should be eating in accordance to your body’s metabolic cycle.

  • Elimination: 4AM-12PM
  • Appropriation: 12PM-8PM
  • Assimilation: 8PM-4AM

(More information on the cycle)

Which means you should eat breakfast sometime in the middle of your elimination period, lunch in the beginning of appropriation and dinner in the beginning of assimilation.

What should you eat?

I believe this part is the most important aspect of the whole recovery. Food is what sustains life and choosing between what to eat is crucial, and I’ve written a post earlier on this…

Read the truth about dieting for eczema. (Highly recommended)

Functional Medicine Is The Way To Go

The natural approach I talked about above is very concise, the cure isn’t JUST that.

The purely Western approach is wrong because it addresses WHAT and not WHY. Recently, I’ve discovered a trend called functional medicine which addresses the causes rather than stopping the symptoms. It’s Western and it works (it’s the exact method of natural medicine but with official terms).

I trust Dr. Hyman in this field, you’ll LOVE his TED talks. In 2010:

And in 2012:

(he’s my new idol…)

To Eczema Sufferers

The message of this post is to let you know that Western doctors who know nothing but the general textbook advice are useless for eczema.

It’s more along the lines of the Western approach should be used when in emergency because drugs can mask the symptoms, but you’re serious about healing, you should be aiming for a root-treating medical approach.

Next time, rather than visiting a new specialist from another city or a doctor recommended by a friend, consider natural healing methods: herbalism, acupressure, acupuncture, aromatherapy… and so on. I suggest herbalism.

If you’re looking for a real, natural and effective treatment for eczema, it exists. But, it’s slow and bases on the body’s healing powers, rather than suppressing your body’s normal functioning.

“Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds.” – Norman Vincent Peale

(Tweet this)

The simple message, if convention tells you no, it doesn’t always mean no, there are always solutions that exist if you keep on searching.

Just as Logan’s mother did.

Published by Harrison Li

HARRISON LI is a typical example of an eczema sufferer who had gone through the waves and storms of steroid therapy, Chinese herbal medicine, numerous general physicians, dermatologists, and to no avail, in recovering from eczema. Until ten years later, he discovered the possibility of using an integrated evidence-based approach by applying nutrition and lifestyle strategies to reverse autoimmunity. Since 2013, he has established a web presence for the mission of eliminating worldwide eczema and spends his spare time advocating for eczema patients. He is undertaking the Food and Nutritional Science program at The University of Hong Kong. Harrison is also a guest contributor to several publications, particularly at Health Union. Visit him online at www.CureEczemaSlowly.com.

Join the Conversation

10 Comments

  1. I’m glad that I found your blog when I was searching for eczema remedies through youtube yesterday and came across your video. Really grateful for what you’re doing right now for all the eczema sufferers out there. Keep it up, I’m sure you’ll be able to inspire more people in the future 🙂 I, too have suffered eczema for few years now, it started from a small part then slowly spread to every part of the body, but I couldn’t find the right remedy to treat this problem, from steroids to herb ointments, nothing seem to work , the flare ups will come back once I stop using them, it’s very frustrating at times , so 3 years ago , I stop using steroids after I saw what they can do to the human body, up until now my determination to find the right natural remedy have yet to accomplish, but, after reading your blog and the tonnes of research you did, I am determined , and truly believe that Eczema can be cured , slowly , from inside out, looking forward to it, will update you when I see improvements 🙂 Thank you !

    1. Hey Wendy, thanks for leaving some feedback about the site. Yeah, I really want to reach out to as many eczema sufferers as possible and help them solve their problem. I know how painful it is. And I feel very happy to hear that you have stopped steroids and going the natural route! Yes, no matter what the media says doesn’t always mean it’s true. “don’t give up!” is the message. Good luck for improvements! And please update me with your latest stats! And I’m always open to talk (email).

  2. Duuude!!!
    THANK YOU! for letting it out there. Mark Hyman is talking essence here and makes so much more sense on actual solutions to why and not what.

    Your blog is what I needed in my life, and became a total game changer.

    I suffered from psoriasis inversa, so the doctors said, and I used to scratch my skin at night time every day, and in 4 years I had been to 4 skin-practitioners and 1 with a PhD in skin diseases, and they all threw crap at me. – use this, then use this and this and that, and they always talked about propabilities without any facts, and in the end I never got a single straight clean answer. Purely assumptions on behalf of what they’ve written in books to get their degree.

    Whats even more crazy is that I also used to have IBS, and that is now gone too. But that on the contrary was gone after a week and haven’t showed it self since. But to be honest I used something called the low FODMap diet and mixed it up with Mark Hymans directions on what and what not to eat.

    All I can say is, a few months later my body is now back in tune with it self as if I’m a new born baby.

    Best birthday gift I’ve had in years!

    1. Hey Malik,

      Great to hear about your experiences and the FODMap diet! (I’m assuming your skin problem was derived from the internal problems due to IBS) I’ve actually never heard of it until now, just read some about it and it looks quite promising. The thing is, there are so many variations out there it’s just confusing. Perhaps I’ll write a post about different diets with this one included.

      Best of all, thanks for dropping by and sharing your story!

      Cheers,
      HL

  3. I’ve been suffering for 3 years, gradually getting worse. I’d been prescribed cortisone cream but after a while did not work, now on Protopic which doesn’t seem to help either.

    What’s your opinion on trying Chinese herbal medicines? I just started and hope this will help.

    1. Janet. Thanks for reaching out.

      You need to first stop steroid usage. This is the first step for any eczema recovery. And when you stop, be prepared for its withdrawal effects – your eczema symptoms will get worse as a result of detoxification made due to your steroid usage over the years.

      As for TCM, I’ve personally tried for a year. To put it simple, it wasn’t effective. This is how most TSM systems work:
      1) Drink the juice for several “sessions” over a lengthy period of time up to years
      2) Eat healthy and ban certain “heat-causing” foods e.g.: no fried foods, seafood, lychee, mangoes…etc.

      For 1: any “eat-healthy” diet when consumed in the long term will cure eczema.
      For 2: removing heat-causing foods will eliminate most parts of your food intolerance substances but it fails because it never fully covers everything.

      To make it simple: TCM is not effective unless you add extra rules that fit your personal body requirements.

  4. Hi Harrison,

    I’ve glad to have found this perspective of handling dermatitis! I have had atopic dermatitis on my face for nearly a year now (and have had mild eczema on my hand for nearly 10 years) and I was already leaning towards ceasing topical steroid use, so this was an interesting read. My dermatitis has spread over the past few months due to stress, and even more so since I’ve stopped using steroid cream a few days ago. Consequently, there is little ‘normal’ skin left on my face. I was wondering, what are your thoughts on natural topical treatments, such as aloe vera and coconut oil? I know you’re a strong advocate of healing within the body, but do you think these topical applications help at all?

    Thank you!
    Karen

    1. Hi Karen,

      Thanks for reaching out. While internal healing requires internal treatment, eczema is mainly expressed in external symptoms which mean external treatments are definitely helpful in reliving the symptoms (but not get rid of). Aloe vera and coconut oil are both top choices for topical relief for the skin, others include oatmeal, shea butter, chickweed. As long as the cream/ointment you are using is made of purely natural ingredients it is beneficial for your skin. But always read the ingredient labels, most products will label “natural” at the front while the ingredients will shock you.

      No worries, let me know if you have more questions.

      Cheers,
      Harrison

  5. “[…] sweating is a highly effective way to detoxify yourself.” It’s also a highly effective eczema trigger.
    “Most of us who live in the modern society are not getting enough hours, almost everyone is deprived of sleep.” If I were a technophobic hermit living in a cave and I’d still have trouble sleeping. Because I have eczema.

    I read the article thinking it’d give me something less useless than what the doctors always say to me in regards to my condition. Yet it manages to be even worse. But sure, “relaxing” and “chewing slowly” will magically cure my everything-resistant, long-lasting, severe AD. What’s next? Crystal healing?

    I guess the less generalized, milder cases are easier to dismiss as “mostly a stress reaction” and have more chances of vanishing unexplainedly with time. Probably why some might think this method is somehow more valid than what dermatologists say, specially after hearing about the big bad corticosteroids.

    1. You’re right Mac. I’m continuously trying to write better and more actionable posts. As you can see my more recent posts are all very actionable, won’t you agree?

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