I have a story that I would like to share with all parents, in fact with all people – about my journey of curing my child’s eczema that I was told by medical professionals was ‘incurable’.
My 2-year old son, Noah, had suffered terribly with eczema through most of his life. The welts on his legs and the back of his knees meant that during the night he struggled to sleep, which impacted on his wellbeing in many other ways. During the day, it was awful to see him suffer so much, and despite me saying ‘don’t itch it, darling,’ he couldn’t help himself – and would scratch himself raw. For any parent, watching their child suffer is a horrible thing to go through, so I went to see my doctor.
I want to be clear from the start, I am a big supporter of doctors and the work they do to help people, but in this case, as we will see, although they tried, they lacked the knowledge of what was causing the problem and how to heal it.
I visited my GP who could only suggest I use a steroid cream on Noah. He told me, this would not cure the condition, but it might alleviate the symptoms. He said, my son might also have to take the cream throughout his whole life.
Believing in the words of my GP (who wouldn’t? they are the experts after all), I hoped the cream would help, and although it helped in the short term, the eczema would come back worse. After doing my own research into the pharmaceutical product I had been given, I was concerned about the side-effects it might have, especially for long term use. My doctor had not talked about the potential side effects, although the list of potential hazards on the insert was alarming. It made me think, how many people read the inserts in the medicines they take? I know doctors are busy and the NHS is under a terrible strain of massive waiting lists, but my son was suffering, wasn’t sleeping and this was starting to negatively impact the whole family.
In desperation with Noah’s skin getting worse, I was able to get an appointment with a specialist skin consultant. I hoped they would have a deeper understanding of the cause of his problem, having much better knowledge in this field than a general practitioner would. However, the consultant repeated the same message as the doctor - it is an incurable condition that can only be helped, no cured, through steroid creams.
At this time of my greatest need, I saw a post online by a nutritional consultant who lived near me. Neither my GP nor the hospital consultant had talked about nutrition, which I didn’t even think about at the time.
As a young mum, who is into fitness and working out, I know that the fuel I put in my body has an effect on my performance, how I feel and my overall health. Why was this component not being considered in my son’s terrible eczema? I had an insight like a lightning flash - could food be playing a role in the cause of his illness and its treatment?
Dr Rangan Chatterjee was on BBC TV some years ago and talked about how he had cured people of chronic illnesses like type II diabetes through making life-style changes. It seems there are now more medical doctors promoting this form of integrative medicine. It certainly makes sense to me - you are what you eat, right? Hippocrates, the ‘Father of Western Medicine’ said, ‘let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food’.
I booked an appointment with nutritional consultant Juliette Bryant. I looked on her website and saw she is a mother who has trained in nutrition for 17 years, which reassured me. With Noah in the care, I drove to her centre in Suffolk and noticed her sign – ‘Let delicious food be your medicine’. This seemed to be another sign of synchronicity. I felt I was on the right path.
Juliette was very professional, kind and understanding. She clearly has a deep knowledge of nutrition and healing, which comes from years of study and working with hundreds of clients. She spoke about potential food allergies that could be causing a problem, and suggested taking a hair and saliva sample from Noah for more information. She said a simple way to start is to eliminate common culprits for skin problems such as dairy and gluten from the diet and see how you get on. When the test analysis came back, it said that Noah was intolerant to dairy and gluten, as she suspected, but also that he was allergic to strawberries and kiwi fruit. As a family of vegetarians, Noah was eating a lot of cheese sandwiches, and he loved strawberries and kiwi! How could he be allergic to something he loved? This didn’t make logical sense, but I thought it was worth a try. I have since learnt that some people crave the foods that poison them – maybe like a smoker and nicotine?
The other issue Juliette raised about Noah’s health, was if he was getting enough nutrients. No mother likes to be questioned on if we are feeding our children properly. But Juliette explained to me that due to industrial farming and erosion, our soils have much less nutrients than in previous generations. The nutrients in our food are only there if the soil is fertile. It seems that many health conditions have their cause in lack of essential nutrients. Again, this makes sense – we all know about scurvy in sailors due to Vitamin C deficiency. But having done more research myself (and you can imagine what Juliette has learnt about this in 17 years of study), it seems that the standard western diet is seriously lacking in many essential nutrients - magnesium, Vitamin D and Omega 3 being common ones. And this is crucial - Juliette explained that Vitamin D is responsible for 900 bodily functions and magnesium 700!
Juliette told me that after years of seeing clients with nutritional deficiencies she wanted to do something about it, and had spent 18 months developing a superfood plant protein blend called All You Need. It contains essential nutrients like Vitamin D, C, B12, magnesium and superfoods and she pointed out a long time had been spent working on the formula so it tasted great. I suppose with the motto, ‘let delicious food be your medicine’, it should do!
I was concerned that if Noah wasn’t having his cheese sandwiches, strawberries and kiwi, where would he get his nutrients from. Maybe All You Need could be a solution? Juliette told me I could easily mix All You Need with plant milk to give to Noah in his suckle-bottle – so he was getting a boost of essential nutrients, along with eliminating the potentially harmful foods.
This is the miracle part of my story! In one week (please see the photos I took) the terrible ‘incurable’ eczema that had given him and me sleepless nights had cleared up. To this day his skin is clear and problem free. He points to the packet of All You Need and calls it ‘mummy’s milk’. The transformation in his health in such a short period of time was incredible.
Juliette told me that the speed of his healing was fantastic, but if we get the right nutrients in and cut out harmful components, the body has an ability to heal itself.
I am lucky that I found someone who could help me. The doctors and skin specialists at the NHS couldn’t help me. They wanted to put my son on a steroid cream for life. This would have been great to the profits of the pharmaceutical company. It made me think, what if it is not just eczema, but what if other problems could be solved, as people like Dr Chatterjee suggest, by lifestyle medicine? Dr Chatterjee’s own son nearly died due to a Vitamin D deficiency which spurned him on to study nutrition.
How many other people out there have health problems due to not getting enough essential nutrients? Or by eating foods, that although might be fine for some people, can bring about allergic reactions or intolerances?
I hope my story inspires other people out there to do your own research, find health professionals who can help you, and support your familie’s health by making sure you are getting All You Need.
Shannon Dilks
