Starting a diet today to see if my eczema goes away

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WorldTraveller
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:51 am
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by WorldTraveller on Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:25 am

Starting a diet today to see if my eczema goes away

Hi,

I have pompholyx or dishydrotic eczema on both hands and feet. Even though it usually appears on palms and soles, mine is mostly on the top of my hand and feet.
It started almost 2 years ago, when I moved to a new job where I had a lot of pressure and stress at first, but now I have absolutely no stress. It was just on one finger for many months, then I went to the beach and it went away, but then it came back and started to spread a little on my hand... then to the other. It was itchy, but I could live with it.
Like 2 weeks ago, it got really bad and spread to my feet as well. It's so bad now that I can't even sleep well, as I wake up in the night with horrible itching and nothing calms me. Also, I also got pimples on my legs and elbows (they look like mosquito bites) in the last few days tooº

I've been to several doctors: a general doctor, 3 dermatologists and an allergist. All of them say it must be stress. Also, the fact that I have chronic rhinitis, hay fever and very sensitive skin are risk factors for eczema. However, as said, I don't have a stressful life, so I guess they blame stress when they don't have any other reason. They say it can't be an allergy, but I've seen many people on forums saying that giving up certain foods (particulary dairy) has helped.

Today I started my diet: no dairy, no citrics, no eggs, no wheat. I want to try this for 3 or 4 weeks. I don't think I'm allergic to one of these foods, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were making my eczema worse. If it doesn't work, I will try a nickel-free diet (although this is much harder to follow in my opinion).

Also, I want to share some tips I've noticed that help me:
- Going to the beach clears my eczema. When I come back home I get worse again.
- Green clay seems to calm the skin
- White vinegar. I read this in a forum and it does help. You need to dilude 1/4 in 3/4 of water and soak the affected zone. It burns a bit (which I actually like, because it's better than itching :lol: ).
- At night I get worse because when my feet and hands are warm it starts to burn like hell. So it looks like the heat makes it worse. Unfortunately, I can't sleep with cold feet, so I don't have a solution for this.

I will be posting here to let you know if I see any improvement. Also, if you've tried a diet to stop eczema, it would be great to know your results.

WorldTraveller
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:51 am
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by WorldTraveller on Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:35 pm

Re: Starting a diet today to see if my eczema goes away

Hi,
I followed this diet for 3 days (longest 3 days of my life :lol: how can people live without milk and bread? ) and then stopped because my allergist prescribed a blood analysis to check if I had any food allergies. I got tested for all sorts of foods: fish, chicken, beans, lentils, wheat, milk, oranges, you name it... all the results turned out negative...
It looks like pompholix/hand eczema is rarely or never linked to food allergy, but I just wanted to make sure...

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