What antibiotic alternatives can treat eczema & skin infections? – The Eczema Podcast S3E4

Abby Lai: Hey guys. As some of you know, I started my website primephysiquenutrition.com, a long time ago. Many, many years where I started blogging and making videos. And for a long time, I felt that the name didn’t resonate with me the most because it didn’t really have much to do with eczema. So I actually recently just done a complete name change. I’ve changed my name and my website name to eczemaconquerors.com. And this name change, it really resonates with me so much more. Especially the word conquerors, because I truly  believe that during my darkest times when I thought I wouldn’t make it and I thought I wouldn’t survive, that I hung onto the phrase and the words, we are more than conquerors. We are more than conquerors.

Abby Lai: Now some of you may be familiar with this phrase from the Bible, Romans [8:37]. Some of you might have just heard the phrase, “You’re more than conquerors.” But I just love this verse and this phrase, and it’s something that has always stuck to me, and it’s something I have meditated on and repeated in my mind during my darkest times.

Abby Lai: And so this name change is brought on because I believe that we can overcome anything, and we are conquerors deep down inside of us. And I truly, truly believe that I hope that the information I share, everything I share on my website, even the products that I have in my store, it’s also called conquerors. Because I want to impart this into you, and help you believe that you are more than a conqueror, and you can conquer anything that comes your way.

Abby Lai: This is my mission in life to help you, not just overcome eczema, but to help you believe that deep down inside you are conqueror, and you have the strength to overcome any eczema flare up, and you can completely heal from it. I believe that.

Abby Lai: Today I also wanted to share a special code for you on my website. I mentioned to you that the products in my store are conqueror, and I truly believe that we are more than conquerors. So I created these products because it helped me so much during my flares, and I really hope that it can help you soothe your skin, help moisturize it, and help you get through the hard times. So I have a conqueror soothing dry skin balm, and a conqueror soothing bath treatment too. I use these regularly, and especially the balm I use on my face and body daily. Even the bath treatment has helped to softer my skin.

Abby Lai: So I just want to offer you a 10% off coupon today. You can use it anytime, just head to my store page at eczemaconquerors.com and look for the store link. Use the code Podcast10 for 10%, and that’s Podcast10 for 10% off. Here’s today’s podcast

Abby Lai: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Eczema Podcast. Today I have a very knowledgeable guest who has been on the show before. She was on our episode previously where we talked about parasites. That was a really great topic because we definitely learned a lot from Jen’s knowledge, and she’s just so full of knowledge, and experience on dealing with the topic. And she also has tons of experience in dealing with eczema.

Abby Lai: She actually has four kids, and one of her daughters was on 10 different medications at one point, and had eczema as well. And she managed to get her daughter off of all 10 medications and also cleared her eczema, which is so amazing. I’m just really amazed by you, Jen.

Jennifer P.: Thank you so much.

Abby Lai: Jen is just a wealth of knowledge. She’s also a nutrition practitioner like myself. She has a specialty in clinical nutrition, and she’s also been a faculty at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition for the last 10 years. So she’s been an instructor there for a long time.

Abby Lai: She’s also a certified iridologist, a certified bio therapeutic drainage practitioner. And she also does dark field microscopist, which is basically live cell blood analysis, which she’s done for me a lot of times. It’s helped show me what’s in my body. And she’s been able to look at my immune system, check if there’s parasites, and check it’s doing overall in general. So it’s been very, very helpful.

Abby Lai: She’s an educator and instructor for it, and also she does quantum reflex analysis, which she’s done for me. It’s also a type of muscle testing. And it’s been very, very accurate for myself. And she uses that to test if she’s giving the right supplements as well.

Abby Lai: And I’m just so amazed by all the modalities that she uses in her practice. I’ve never come across another practitioner that has done these before, and it’s really been able to help me on my journey as well. So hi Jen, and welcome to the show again.

Jennifer P.: I love being here.

Abby Lai: So today, we are going to talk about the big topic of antibiotics. Whether antibiotics actually help eczema, whether they are actually necessary. Why do doctors prescribe them so much? Do they actually help the healing process, or slow it down? And whether there are alternatives you would take. Whether you take probiotics during antibiotics, or after. And also, what measures you can do to heal the damage. So those are all the topics that we’ll be talking about today, and Jen is a wealth of knowledge. So Jen, I’m really excited to dive into the topic of antibiotics.

Jennifer P.: Sure. Anything you want to ask me. I’ll do my best.

Abby Lai: Awesome. So Jen, can you tell us why doctors actually prescribe antibiotics when someone has eczema, and are they even necessary?

Jennifer P.: Well, so here’s the thing. The body has protective barriers and protective mechanisms to protect us from the outside world. So from viruses, and certain bacteria and pathogens, and things like that. And the skin is a very important barrier.

Jennifer P.: So what happens is when somebody has eczema, or dermatitis, or psoriasis, or some type of skin condition, that barrier is compromised unfortunately. And it exposes the sufferer to the outside world, and does make you more prone to infection.

Jennifer P.: So I’m never knocking conventional medicine because there is a time and a place for these necessary interventions, obviously. Antibiotics have saved lives in cases like that. But as holistic practitioners, our qualm about these medications is that number one, they are over prescribed.

Jennifer P.: So I’ve seen people go in to the doctor with a viral infection or the flu, and given antibiotics. Well I’m sorry, but that’s not going to help because you have a flu virus. And an antibiotic is for a bacteria, so how would that help in that case? Right? So it’s the widely over prescribed use of antibiotics that holistic practitioners have a problem with on a continual basis.

Jennifer P.: And not only that. What we see sometimes is that people, especially with recurring infections, they’re prescribed antibiotics and then prescribed antibiotics, and prescribed antibiotics, and then more antibiotics, different antibiotics, stronger antibiotics. So the problem is when somebody goes to a physician with a type of infection and it’s recurring, and they’re given more antibiotics, and more antibiotics, and more antibiotics, and more antibiotics, and stronger antibiotics, and different antibiotics, it’s like chasing a cure or hoping for the best. Well, maybe this last prescription will do the trick?

Jennifer P.: This is where we get into sometimes the longterm use of antibiotics. And that’s what we have a problem with in terms of from a holistic perspective, is longterm detrimental effects. And there’s a very famous quote that I love from doctor, from Albert Einstein. And it was the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And consistently, I very often see somebody again, trying to chase the solution, looking for the solution, but doing the same thing over and over again. I went back to my doctor, I went back to my doctor, I went back to my doctor. He prescribed me this, this, this, this, this stronger, stronger.

Jennifer P.: So there is a time and a place, obviously there’s a need for it. I don’t want to say that I’m completely against them. Obviously that would not be something that would be correct for anybody to say. But it’s the wide use and the improper use, and thinking that this is going to be the end all be all cure, is that kind of thought process would be what I would be worried about seeing.

Abby Lai: Yeah. And I think that’s a really great point that a lot of people go see their doctor and they are put on reoccurring cycles of antibiotics. And I actually know some people that have been put on four to six different cycles of antibiotics. It’s like it never ends. What do people do when it’s like that?

Jennifer P.: Yeah. That would be just, this is the type of person that would be on the internet, maybe on your website trying to look for alternatives. What can they do? Listen, if you go to a medical doctor, that’s what you’re going to get. You’re going to get medicine. That’s what they studied. And alternative or holistic health practitioner. So like what you and I do as holistic nutritionist. So I’ve taken my holistic nutrition just to another level because I can’t stop taking courses. Sorry.

Abby Lai: You take a lot of them yeah, which is awesome.

Jennifer P.: I’m on a quest, right? But an integrative medical doctor, a functional medicine specialist, or a well versed naturopathic doctor. But I always tell somebody if they don’t see a change or results in six months in working with a practitioner, then they’re not with the right practitioner. The person is not looking in the right place. They’ve missed the mark. And again, don’t keep putting your money into a practitioner that hasn’t really gotten you on the right track. So it’s very important that way as well for your viewers to know that it’s okay. And really, a healing journey takes a community of people. It’s not one person who is going to be the end all, be all. So it’s okay to have a few different practitioners and get a bird’s eye view. And maybe one’s doing lymphatic drainage, or lymphatic massage. And another one’s doing the nutrition, and another one’s doing the supplementation or whatever the case may be. But again, it is a journey, and it’s finding the right fit for you too.

Abby Lai: Yeah. I think that’s a really, really good point Jen, because I don’t think every practitioner is right for each person. Sometimes, the different modalities that each practitioner specializes in can help different people. So I think that’s a really good point as well.

Abby Lai: So I want to know, does antibiotics actually slow down the healing process then, or does it actually help and heal the skin? Because for me, I know that I flare up so badly whenever I take antibiotics. And you’ve seen my face. I’ve never taken antibiotics for the skin. I have had skin infections, but I’ve used natural methods to help. I’m not suggesting that for everyone, but that’s just my personal experience. And Jen, I know you’ve seen me on antibiotics, especially after giving birth. I had some infections. I didn’t take it for the skin, but other types of infections.

Abby Lai: And yeah, my face got so red, and it was some of the worst and darkest, and most traumatic moments I’ve ever had because I flare up so badly to it. So yeah Jen, do you think that antibiotics actually slows down the healing process, or does it actually help in the case of eczema?

Jennifer P.: Okay, so here’s the thing. For your viewers, just so they know that there’s something called Hering’s law of cure. And this is a cardinal rule in terms of holistic healing, and it’s a very old and ancient homeopathic principle, Hering is spelled with one R in case anyone’s looking at.

Jennifer P.: So Hering’s law of cure states that the body heals from the head down from the inside out, and symptoms in reverse order than they appeared. And so very often when you’re working with a client, you take them back in time in terms of a health related issues. It’s called uncloaking.

Jennifer P.: So I want your viewers to picture peeling an onion, where sometimes when you see somebody for the first time, all you’re dealing with stuff is on the surface or stuff that’s more acute. But in order to heal the really root of the issue or the underlying cause, as you’re working with them, you’re taking them back in time.

Jennifer P.: And anytime that symptoms were suppressed, or medicated, or treated conventionally, which is suppressive medication. And the root cause was not dealt with, it may have taken them a step where they no longer suffer from those symptoms anymore. But the issue is still there. Such as the case sometimes with using antibiotics is that it can help somebody for a short period of time, but it’s not a longterm solution, again.

Jennifer P.: And listen, if somebody does have a skin infection and they’ve tried natural remedies and it’s gone downhill, or taken them down this rabbit hole where there is an open wound there, there is an infection. Again, lifesaving. There’s a time and a place. But again, Hering’s law of cure states that you still got to go back and treat that issue naturally in order to overcome it for the very last time.

Jennifer P.: And so I’ve seen in your case where antibiotics, it took you a thousand steps backwards. And you and I had to work to do damage control. But then we see sometimes where somebody takes antibiotics and lo and behold, thank goodness that this persistent infection does end up clearing up. But again, does it get to the root of the issue or why that infection’s there or where it came from? The answer’s no.

Jennifer P.: So the answer to your question is like two fold. And the answer to your question is also both yes and no, because of those reasons.

Abby Lai: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I definitely agree with you. And yeah, I just remember going through antibiotics and feeling that I would never heal and it sent me back, like you mentioned, 1,000 times back. But I couldn’t imagine that I would be able to heal. And I feel like I’ve gotten so much better. So I just want to encourage you that you all can heal too, even though you might be in a place where you’ve been really set back or maybe you’ve tried antibiotics and it hasn’t gotten better. So Jen, can you tell us what alternatives there are to antibiotics that some people can take?

Jennifer P.: Well, there’s some natural antibiotic type herbs. Obviously garlic is one of them. It’s a great blood cleanser. The allicin and alliin, the active components in garlic have special antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal properties. When you take garlic in a capsule, one capsule is literally the medicinal equivalent of about 10 cloves of garlic. So garlic is a great natural antibiotic.

Jennifer P.: There’s herbs called berberine herbs. Those include Oregon grape, barberry, and goldenseal, and those have a very potent antibiotic type properties. Manuka honey. So the Manuka factor in honey and propolis are very antibacterial as well. Some other options like colloidal silver, and iodine even. Using iodine, making sure that your body is saturated with your daily dose of iodine, especially those viewers who do not live close to ocean and ocean water and ocean type foods.

Jennifer P.: So here in Ontario, we live around the Great Lakes. It’s called the goiter belt. We’re very iodine deficient, therefore we must get it from a type of food source. And those aren’t readily available, so a lot of us in the goiter belt take iodine supplementation.

Jennifer P.: So there’s all different types of herbs. Olive leaf extract, grapefruit seed extract. All of those can be used as a first try or a first line of therapy. And some of them are just as strong as an antibiotic. And some of them can even be applied topically, where you can make a paste or put it on a bandage or a bandaid. Especially the honey type products if you have a skin infection or you’re worried about it, those are great options.

Abby Lai: What about oregano oil? Does that help?

Jennifer P.: Oh yeah, that kills everything too. The only thing about oregano oil is that it is so powerful that just like an antibiotic, it’s almost like a slash and burn technique.

Jennifer P.: So I’m not a proponent or an advocate of the daily use of oil of oregano all winter long to combat colds. I’d rather see you build up the immune system rather than tear down bacteria. Because it will kill the good guys too.

Abby Lai: So I’ve heard multiple different things. Some people recommend taking probiotics with antibiotics, and some people recommend taking probiotics after a course of antibiotics. So what do you usually suggest?

Jennifer P.: Well, it’s kind of a case by case basis. However, let’s just say I want to dose in your case, when you use antibiotics Abby, we know how you’re going to react. So we use the antibiotics with the probiotic.

Jennifer P.: But you have to dose it away from the antibiotic by about three, four hours. And let’s just say the doctor’s recommended that you’re on the dose of antibiotics three or four times a day. Sometimes that can get really tricky. And so when it gets tricky like that, you don’t want to waste a good probiotic because you and I both know how expensive a high quality or a high dose, high amount of colony forming units, probiotics, probiotics are measured in CFUs. How much that can run you out of pocket.

Jennifer P.: So sometimes it could just be, I want you to eat fermented food while you’re on the antibiotics. And so you want to get them just from food. And then what we do is we go in after and we try to reinoculate with the good guys.

Jennifer P.: In terms of dosages for a probiotic, for your viewers who are wondering, there’s a very popular one that’s recommended by physicians called Align. Align is 1 billion. But if you actually look at the human body and how we’re structured as humans, we’re actually less human DNA than we are bacterial DNA. So the human body is made primarily of bacteria. And if we have 100 trillion cells, you’re putting in 1 billion bacteria, that’s not enough. So a therapeutic dose would be at least 50 billion or higher, especially after an antibiotic.

Jennifer P.: For the viewers who have never taken a probiotic, they’d probably want to start a little bit lower and slower. Otherwise, if you start high and you’ve never taken it before, it can cause extreme diarrhea or constipation. You can swing either way, and you could start suffering from symptoms of IBS. And in terms of your case, we used a 500 billion probiotic, which is the highest on the market was the 500 billion.

Jennifer P.: So not available in Canada anymore, but still available in other countries is the VSL #3, which is a 450 billion. And the 500 billion, it’s the HMF Intensive 500. Right? So those two are the highest probiotics in the world.

Jennifer P.: But you also want to get this from food too. So don’t forget about at least two tablespoons of sauerkraut, kefir, miso, borscht. I don’t know, what else? Kombucha, but I don’t prefer Kombucha because it does have sugar in it. What else is probiotic?

Abby Lai: Kimchi.

Jennifer P.: Things like that. None of these foods can be replaced by a probiotic, because again, it’s a natural source and a live source. Apple cider vinegar with the mother. Things like that would also help recolonize. So you don’t just want to use a straight up probiotic, you want to use food sources as well.

Abby Lai: Jen, I think last time you had also mentioned to me that people who are on antibiotics, if they’re going through a flare up and they use a really high dose, sometimes they can flare up as well because it revs up the immune system too much. Would you mind sharing about that?

Jennifer P.: Yeah. So some people who suffer from eczema, if it’s an autoimmune based disease, it’ll either be mediated by a branch of the immune system called Th1, or Th2, or Th17. And unfortunately, if you have autoimmune type of eczema, which is the microbiome project learned way back in the early 1900s that there’s a gut brain connection. There’s a gut nerve connection, but there’s also a gut skin connection. And if you really high dose antibiotics and you enhance the immune system, you could enhance the autoimmune response and the eczema could get worse.

Jennifer P.: So in these type of people, maybe want to use more immune modulators. You still need to heal and seal the guts and to recolonize the guts, but you might have to go lower and slower with them.

Jennifer P.: So you maybe want to do a 10 billion probiotic three times a day. Or Saccharomyces boulardii, which isn’t really a probiotics, more of a yeast, loving yeast. Great for traveler’s diarrhea by the way. You can use a Saccharomyces boulardii.

Jennifer P.: Or you can use what I like to use then in those cases is something called HSOs, which is the homeostatic soil based organisms, which is basically probiotics from dirt. There’s a lot of websites that do talk about this type of probiotic, usually coming from grasses or dirt based. And those are a little bit more gentle, but do the same job. And I really like those type of probiotics as well. Unfortunately, they’re very difficult to get in Canada. You just can’t go to a store and get the HSOs here in Canada. They were banned about nine, 10 years ago now. So if you are a Canadian resident and you’re listening to this podcast, you can order them online.

Jennifer P.: But I think I mentioned the last time we talked, just be careful about ordering off of Amazon. Because when you get into those third party sellers, the companies can’t guarantee what’s in the bottle. And what was happening is that not just probiotics but just natural supplements in general that were bought on Amazon were being returned. And these supplement companies were getting complaints. And then when they got the bottle back they’re like, “Hey, where did you buy this on Amazon?” It’s like, “Our product is not in the bottle, so I don’t know what you’re getting.”

Jennifer P.: Which is kind of scary because if people suffer from allergies and anaphylaxis and things like that, if you’re buying something and you’re getting something else, that could be quite dangerous. So just be careful if you’re going online. Where are you buying it from? Make sure you’re getting it from a trusted source, not some type of third party seller. Okay? I’m just throwing that out there, it’s a consumer beware. I’m a very caring individual. I just don’t want to see anyone get into a health crisis because they bought something online and didn’t get what they were asking for.

Abby Lai: Thanks Jen. That is very scary, just thinking about it that way. So thanks for that tip. Now I want to know if you take antibiotics and you’ve taken it and the damage has been done to your gut, what measures would you take to heal the damage? Not just your gut, but your skin and just the damage in general.

Jennifer P.: Right. So again, I’m going to reference the microbiome project. The unfortunate statistic here is that after a round of antibiotics, they have done studies that have found that it takes two years, two years to rebuild the gut microbiome.

Abby Lai: That’s crazy. That’s a long time. I’ve also even heard of some taking up to four years to heal.

Jennifer P.: Yeah. Well, it depends what your guts look like before you started. Right? And a lot of people who do suffer from chronic and degenerative diseases is that they have found that unfortunately, and especially Dr. Bernard Jensen talked about this in his practice where he healed over 450,000 people of chronic degenerative diseases. They found that most people who are sick with a chronic and degenerative illness have the opposite ratio of the good to bad bacteria. So we should have 85% good guys, good guys. And 15% bad guys. But we don’t want to say bad guys, because these are natural inhabitants of the gut.

Jennifer P.: So you’ve all heard of Candida, Candida albicans and different forms [inaudible [00:28:47] everybody has Candida, right? We’re all carriers. It’s a natural inhabitant, and H. pylori is the same. We need it. We’re supposed to have it. It’s supposed to be there. But they’re antagonistic or opportunistic, meaning that if they’re not babysat, what happens is they can overgrow and they can flourish. They can take hold, they can grow roots, they can perforate the intestinal tract and things like that.

Jennifer P.: So two years to rebuild it. It’s not an overnight protocol going, “I don’t know why I still have diarrhea symptoms. I haven’t taken antibiotics in two months.” You haven’t done the work yet. You’re not finished.

Jennifer P.: So definitely you’ve got to get the foods in. Please a very clean eating diet. So you don’t want to be eating foods that animal products that were fed antibiotics or hormones, or for recombinant bovine growth hormone. You don’t want fruits and vegetables that were sprayed with glyphosate and anything else. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, larvicides, moldicides, and the like. All of those disrupt the gut bacteria.

Jennifer P.: For the love of Pete, pollution. And we can’t get away from that just because we need to breathe air in order to live, unfortunately. So get a nice filter in your house, get some house plants in there, get your air cleaned, and watch the products that you put on your body as well. You got to live a clean life. And then you’ve got to work on the guts, right?

Jennifer P.: So it’s not I’m going to take this probiotic and I’m going to go through the drive through and have burger, fries, pizza, pop, and all that stuff. You’ve got to start with the diet. Diet is number one. And for your viewers, I’m sure that they’ve already gone through numerous of your podcasts already and implemented some of the dietary changes. But for those of you who haven’t, I’m going to warn you right now, you can’t out supplement a bad diet. And that’s my number one rule of thumb is if someone doesn’t change their diet, we can’t help them basically. We could give them $1,500 worth of remedies, and multivitamins, and nutrients, and things like that. But if you’re eating garbage food … so that’s rule of thumb is first and foremost is get it all cleaned up.

Jennifer P.: One of my favorite diets for this type of issue is the paleo autoimmune, the AIP diet. For those who really don’t want to do the AIP diet, there’s a really good, it’s called the ketotarian Diet. So for those of you viewers who are more prone to not consuming animal proteins. And listen, I’m a proponent that you have to eat right for your location and your genetic background, and where you live in the world, and your blood type and things like that. There’s so many factors into consideration. What type of diet is right for you. So if you’re not wanting to follow the AIP diet because you don’t want to consume that much animal protein. There’s the ketotarian diet. So it’s like a vegetarian based diet, but it’s high in fat. So you’re hammering in olives, coconut, nuts and seeds, flax, hemp, Chia. And those type of foods.

Jennifer P.: Then you’re augmenting with the vegetarianism. No soy please. Don’t go there. I could do a podcast on that, by the way. So those are some good options. The simple carbohydrate diet is a good option too. It’s called the SCD diet or the, it’s a simple only monosaccharides type of diet, which is kind of paleo in a sense.

Jennifer P.: So those are some of the things that I implement with my clients to get them back on the right track. Then we do some something called the four R strategy for gut healing. And the four R strategy is remove, replace what’s missing. Any digestive juices, or fluids, or enzymes, or anything like that. Reinoculate is to get the good bacteria in, and then heal the gut.

Jennifer P.: And the thing is, I teach this when I teach at the college. There’s something in math called BEDMAS, right? Brackets, exponents, division. So in math, there’s BEDMAS. And if you’re doing any mathematical equation, if you don’t do it in that order, you don’t get the right outcome, and your answer is incorrect. Well in natural healing, there’s BEDMAS as well. In terms of order of the way you go about doing things with a client in order to get the right outcome.

Jennifer P.: So the four R strategy, you got to do step one through three before you get to the step, which everyone wants the prize. Everyone wants the gold medal, but a lot of people don’t want to do the work or the BEDMAS, right? They just want to go for the gully, and it doesn’t work that way.

Abby Lai: So after they’ve gone through say the diet change, what supplements do you recommend for healing the damage that’s been done?

Jennifer P.: It does depend on the client. Some people respond really well to herbs. So obviously there’s some great herbs that will coat, and soothe, and heal up the intestinal tract. Some that come to mind, slippery elm, marshmallow, licorice, artichoke, things like that. Irish moss, and things like that that’ll help.

Jennifer P.: Nutrition wise, there’s some amino acids like methionine, which is also known as vitamin U. Very helpful. That’s found in cabbage juice for those viewers who are wondering what food is high in methionine. There’s the L glutamine as well. So that’s the standard go-to for a lot of people who are doing gut healing.

Jennifer P.: Vitamin ACE and zinc are all a part of the wound healing protocol. For the epithelial, B12 and folic acid a would also help. So just looking for those deficiencies, making sure that the client has optimal levels of those nutrients in order to promote healing.

Jennifer P.: There’s of course aloe is very healing, so there’s aloe capsules. I do a lot of aloe shots with my clients to try to just get the healing down. Gamma Oryzanol is a great anti inflammatory for the guts because you want to tame the fires of inflammation.

Jennifer P.: So there’s many different options. If you see a bug or you want to mop up the mess, there’s activated charcoal and bentonite clay, and things like that where you can go in and do a clean sweep of the gut. Some, practitioners use diatomaceous earth. I’m not a huge fan of that. So I try to stay away from that as much as possible, but I know that there are people who have used it quite successfully.

Jennifer P.: So you want to do a protocol that may be combines a little bit of each of those. But again, repairing the gut is the very last step. You’ve got to go in, you got to do everything else. So for those who don’t have a gallbladder, you got to get the [inaudible [00:36:55]. For those who don’t make stomach acid, you’ve got to replace the HCL, the hydrochloric acid in the stomach in order to get the acid trigger. For those who maybe have a week pancreas, you want to put the pancreatic enzymes.

Jennifer P.: So you need to basically support each chain of the digestive system. If there’s bugs in there, you’ve got to remove the bug. So we have that podcast on parasites and bacteria that people can listen on. And of course then you want to reinoculate, and then you can repair. Okay? And sometimes this can take a year, a year and a half, or it’s a bit of a battle.

Abby Lai: I feel like there is so much to healing the body, and sometimes it gets so tiring, there’s a lot of parts to it. But like you mentioned at the beginning, it’s like an onion where we have to peel the layers open and then finally get to it. And sometimes the process for some lucky ones will only take a few weeks or maybe even months. But for some people, it can take years.

Jennifer P.: And it depends on the severity, and how long the situation’s been going on as well. Right? So somebody who’s born with it, obviously this is going to be quite the journey. I like to see if a child is born with eczema, if I see them in the first two years, it can be a very quick protocol for some. But when I see somebody and they were born with it and they’re 35 years old, now we got to work our asses off basically. Right?

Abby Lai: Yeah. It’s very tiring. And I think I fit in the latter one, so I feel like the process is even longer. And one thing I’m wondering is a lot of doctors, whenever they see the weeping or oozing eczema, a lot of times they’ll prescribe the antibiotics. So can you tell me what is in the oozing that’s come out? Is it always an infection, or is it always toxins that I’ve heard?

Jennifer P.: No. I usually would ask my clients to describe the oozing. I want to know the color, the consistency. What makes it better, what makes it worse? If they notice anything. Some people get worse in the cold, some people get better in the cold, some people get worse in the heat, some people get better in the heat.

Jennifer P.: Typically what I find is that if it’s clear, then it’s more a lymphatic type of condition. If it’s clear and yellow, it’s possibly more indicating liver/gallbladder. If it’s thick and pussy, that could indicate infection of some sort. Bacterial. If it’s white and it’s oozing, it could be yeasty, fungal. If it’s yellow, that might indicate also yeast, fungus. Or infection. Sometimes if it has a greenish tinge to it, it could be a copper, zinc imbalance. So I always ask my clients to describe if there is some oozing, because our plan of action so to speak would be different for each different type of secretion.

Abby Lai: That’s very interesting. Thank you so much for that. And I’ve just found today’s topic very helpful. Do you have any last words that you want to add?

Jennifer P.: Well, I don’t want your viewers to if they need antibiotics because, to shy away from it. It can save your life. It can save a limb, or a finger, or an infection from progressing into something. Obviously natural medicine, and I’m saying this from a legal standpoint, should not replace sound medical advice. A lot of people, again, they’re looking for alternatives because the system has failed them. And I understand that completely. But if there’s a need and again, a time and a place to use these medications to get you out of a sticky situation, I hope that they have a few strategies now also to feel like they can take this, and overcome it, and not have really bad repercussions because of it. And if you have a skin infection, using like an ozone cream on the infection itself. Ozonated coconut oil or ozonated olive oil, that can very often bring the client to a spot where they can avoid using antibiotics. So they can go on with the protocol that they’re on, or the healing journey that they’re on without that setback.

Abby Lai: Thank you so much, Jen. Where can people find ozonated skin cream? I’ve heard a lot about it. Even ozonated saunas that can kill bacteria.

Jennifer P.: Yeah. So people can buy their own ozone maker to be honest. So you can buy online machines that make and infuse ozone into certain liquids and substances. If not, very often holistic dentists or biological dentists will have some type of ozonated cream. And again, go online. Go online. Just be careful again about third party sellers if you’re buying off of who. Don’t want to say it again, I don’t want to get into some internet trouble, but you know what I mean. You could try that.

Jennifer P.: I got bit by a spider. I was in a health crisis a couple of years ago. And actually, ozonated cream helped me immensely. It actually saved my leg. I was doing a whole protocol around that as well. I was doing a lot of work internally, but I was applying it externally. It doesn’t smell great just to let you know. But these are just some strategies that people can use instead of, or to try beforehand. So that’s not their first go to. And to stop the recurring prescription from coming through.

Abby Lai: So one last question. I did hear of a case where someone had an open wound from his eczema. And then they said because he didn’t take antibiotics for it, the next day he had stepped sepsis and he actually passed away. So I think that’s a more severe case than what usually happens. But can people really get infected and have a whole body infection with fever and all that, just from eczema wounds?

Jennifer P.: Certainly. Certainly. And again, he got septic. That doesn’t mean the next person who gets a little minor skin infection, that’s going to happen to. It depends what he was exposed to, right? So it’s like what got in that barrier. And again, what did his insides look like? What did his immune system look like? What were his kidneys able to filter? What was his liver able to filter? Because people who suffer from appendix rupture also get septic. Their whole appendix and part of the contents of their bowel has ever released into the parenchymal abdominal area down there. And how do you clean that up? What’s the kidneys doing, what’s the liver doing, what are the bowels doing? Think about all of these detoxification type of organs.

Jennifer P.: So yes, you should be worried about infection. But the germ theory was refuted, meaning it’s not the germ, it’s the terrain. So I wonder in his case, and I’m not saying he did anything bad or wrong, but what did his terrain look like? What was his diet like? So when you hear stories like that, obviously that was a worst case scenario. And of course we don’t want that to happen to your viewers. And of course whoever that happened to, obviously there was a reason that he didn’t want the antibiotic. Maybe he had a bad experience like you did. Right? And he thought, “Oh my God. If I take these, I’m going to be in pain. I’m not going to sleep for weeks. My skin is going to erupt really badly.” He says to the doctor not yet. No thanks.

Jennifer P.: So you don’t understand the context of the situation there either, but we also don’t know what he was exposed to. What was in that infection that caused him to be septic? Because every time I get a cut, I fell down and scraped my knee. A few weeks ago I had open sores on my wounds. That very well could have happened to me. My knee could have been exposed to any number of different pathogens. Obviously someone who has eczema, one of their physical and immune barriers are compromised. What does your immune system look like? Level of exposure. What do your guts look like? Are you able to build immunity? Are you tearing it down? So there’s all different things to look at in a situation like that.

Abby Lai: That’s so true. Thank you Jen. You’ve brought up so many great points today, and I think that it really helps our viewers, just to let them know that the goal is really to keep your insides as clean as possible as well, not just through diet but lifestyle and also supplementation for support.

Jennifer P.: Thank you.