If you’ve been following my podcasts – this was definitely one of my favourite interviews!
It was so great interviewing Dr. Peter Lio because he’s so full of knowledge and experience with eczema.
Just to give you some background on him – he’s a Doctor & Clinical Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, he received his medical degree (and internship) at Harvard Medical School, and he serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Eczema Association!
What’s great is that he’s passionate about finding safe, holistic treatments that work for eczema. The Chicago Integrative Eczema Center, which he helped to co-found, allows him to blend traditional medicine with alternative medicine (i.e. acupuncture) together!
I’ve learned a lot in this episode and I was so glad that Peter was able to share some new things – such as acupuncture, bathing, how to deal with eczema in babies, and what happens to people who have eczema in the long-term.
What we cover in today’s episode
- How acupuncture can help eczema
- Why acupuncture may not help eczema in some cases
- Why bathing can actually be beneficial in in some cases of eczema
- How to bathe properly
- What types of oils are good for your skin
- Why olive oil may not be so good for your skin
- How to deal with eczema in babies and toddlers
- Why people get eczema for the first time
- The hardest and easiest people to treat
- What happens to people with eczema in the long term
There’s definitely a lot to learn in this episode, so stay tuned and keep watching the video podcast below!
If you’d like to listen to the audio only version, click below to listen.
P.S. I’ve been following Dr. Peter Lio’s tips on adding oils to the bath (coconut oil in particular), and I’ve been bathing once every two days. I’ve noticed so much added moisture to my skin when I do this bath! I love it.
See below for the interview notes:
Abby:
Hi everyone. Welcome to The Eczema Podcast. I’m here today with my special guest, Dr. Peter Lio who’s a medical doctor and a clinical assistant professor at Northwestern University. He’s also one of the co-founders of the Chicago Integrative Eczema Centers, which blends both alternative holistic and traditional treatments, which is really awesome. And he also got his degree from Harvard Medical School. He’s done his dermatology training at Harvard and he serves on the scientific advisory board for the National Eczema Association.
So thank you so much, Peter, for joining us today.
Peter:
It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Abby:
No problem. I’m excited to welcome you here. Can you tell us how you got into the eczema specialty?
Peter:
Yes. It was a tough story because it was really a series of patients, and one in particular, that had really really bad disease. They were really suffering. The family came in crying. They had seen a number of different specialists and they just wanted answers. And more importantly then even answers — at that point they just wanted relief. The baby had not been sleeping for weeks and weeks so the family hadn’t been sleeping, and it just struck me. I’m like “this is broken. We need to do more for this, we need to have a better set up.” And, you know, of course we don’t have a lot of time for patients, so I said “we need to think out of the box to get these folks better”.
Abby:
Is that also when you started the Chicago Integrative Eczema Center?
Peter:
This actually was long before that. And this was when I was still back in Boston. And even back in Boston I started toying with the idea of a center devoted to this. So that was then, and then I moved to Chicago in 2008. When I joined the faculty at Northwestern, Dr. Amy Poehler, who’s one of my mentors and heroes and is truly an eczema guru — she said “you’re gonna do this. You’re gonna make this happen”. So the first one was actually hosted at Northwestern. Then a few years later, I snuck out to a private office to have a little bit more control, and then so I was able to do something even a little bit more unique and make an integrative center at Northwestern that wasn’t, maybe, quite the goal. So this allowed me to be truly free. And now that’s been going for almost three — almost four years now.
Abby:
Wow, that sounds very exciting. So do people fly in from different cities, or how does it work usually?
Peter:
They do. I would say most of our patients are regional, so they’re in the Chicago-land area or from greater — you know, the greater area. Sometimes adjoining states, but we have had people fly in from California, we’ve had someone fly in from the UK. We’ve had people come in from New York, Pennsylvania. So it’s kind of interesting to have people come from far away and spend part of the morning with us. And sometimes they’re just there to listen and learn because we have a big didactic session. Starts out with sort of an introduction to eczema and talking about, sort of, what we know and our general approach. And then, if they want, they can be seen as a patient too, which is really fun.
Abby:
Do you find that there’s a certain treatment that works better or that works best for your eczema patients?
Peter:
I think that’s a great question. The hardest part about this disease is that it is not one disease. And so as soon as somebody says “Oh, I can fix all of it” I’m like “I think that’s a fib because it’s not one disease.” So anything that supposedly works for all of is probably false. Most of my patients really need different pieces of the puzzle and sometimes things I’m absolutely certain are going to help a patient totally fail and I’ll reverse and go in opposite directions and say “son of a gun, this is a different sub-type than I had thought or it’s responding to a different set of approaches that I thought”. And it’s a very humbling disease and it’s a disease where you’re learning a lot. And so that’s exciting too, that it’s the Wild West a little bit.
Abby:
So what types of treatments do you use at the Center?
Peter:
I think, you know, my training is mostly in traditional sort of Western medicine. So we’re going to do conventional things first. But I also spent a full year studying traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture in Boston, which was an amazing, incredible year. And it changed me completely. It re-opened my eyes to medicine in a whole new way. I then spent a second year learning more about it and doing more hands-on training, which was incredible. So, I think, we kind of start with the basics. And, truth be told, I think of the basics as not really being part of one tradition or the other. I think that they’re just great things.
So, for example, good moisturizing. That’s important. I don’t necessarily think that’s a Western concept. I think just protecting the skin and soothing it can be done a number of different ways. Sometimes it’s done with a plant oil. Sometimes it’s done with, you know, something more natural. Other times maybe something a little more synthetic. But the idea is very similar. The other thing is bathing. We actually think that most of our patients do better — not all, but most of our patients — because, again, this whole sub-type issue — with a daily bath or even a twice-daily bath when things are really bad. Now this is a little bit controversial because many patients are told “hey, don’t bathe too much. You don’t want to take away that natural oils”. And what I say is that that’s absolutely true if — especially if you’re using plain water or, even worse, if you’re like a traditional soap. A rendered fat soap which is usually rendered with lye or a very strong alkaline substance. Then that is perfect advice. Don’t bathe. It’s better just not to.
But we’re gonna add special oils to the bath. We’re gonna make it so that as soon as they come out, when the skin is supple and soft, we’re now gonna add our medicines and our moisturizers and lock that water in. So then it can be sort of spun around to be a very powerful treatment and really help the skin.
Abby:
Interesting. So you mentioned that if you include oils in the bath or in the shower then it helps the skin?
Peter:
Yes, for many patients putting different types of oils in the tub or even when they shower can make a huge difference. The skin, when it’s soft and moist, that stratum corneum top layer is very very pliable and the ability for good fats and good calming substances to get in there is much improved. So it’s a great time. And then, if you seal those in with an eclusive moisturizer — and again, that could be a petroleum product like Vaseline or something, or if you didn’t to use petroleum it could be a natural wax. There’s all sorts of interesting natural waxes that we use and combinations of waxes such as beeswax that can do a similar job sealing up the skin and keeping that water where it belongs.
Abby:
Awesome. So what types of oils would you recommend if people were to put it in their bath?
Peter:
My favorite one for the bath is sunflower seed oil. So long as you’re not allergic to it, it’s a wonderful oil. It’s high in gamma-linolenic acid. It’s incredibly soothing. It has both anti-itch and it has moisturizing properties directly, so it can really do kind of two things at once. And we love it.
Abby:
Awesome. And I know we talked earlier, before this. But you mentioned something about coconut oil as well? Being a gentle product and a gentle moisturizer?
Peter:
Yes, I’m a big fan of coconut oil, particularly virgin coconut oil. And the reason we make that distinction is that older coconut oils were sometimes extracted — in the past they were extracted with solvents like hexane, which is kind of a nasty chemical. And we don’t really want residue like that around. So we want virgin, which is sort of cold-pressed or expelled without a lot of treatment and a lot of refinement. But those — it’s great. There have been a couple of studies that have shown that it has powerful antibacterial effects against the bad bacteria on the skin and eczema. The staph aureus that’s overgrown. But it also is a really good emollient and skin barrier improver. So, again, both of those oils — particularly together, I use them a lot together. Sunflower and coconut, and I think they’re just really really powerful for most patients.
Again, barring allergy. We do have some patients who are allergic or even suspected allergic so we wanna be a little bit careful and tread lightly. But most patients do well.
Abby:
Okay. Are there any other types of gentle products or gentle moisturizers that you would recommend our audience?
Peter:
I think that there are a number of really neat oils out there. I think that jojoba oil is very nice. It’s technically a wax when you look at its kinda chemical structure. But it’s a really nice protective oil. Some people like grape seed oil. Borage oil is a wonderful oil too. And evening primrose. Despite the fact that there have been some recent studies saying “well, borage oil and evening primrose maybe don’t help the eczema that much when you ingest them.” I still think as topical oils they’re very very nice. One of the hot new ones — and this can go on and on. The problem with alternative medicine is that it is a bit of an endless category, you know. It’s anything and everything that sort of isn’t sanctioned So people can say “hey, have you heard of, you know, emu oil? And have you heard of this kind of particular variant of mink oil? And what about sea buckthorn oil?” so it could go on and on and on. But there are — I think a lot of the natural oils are pretty nice. The only oil I recommend again, I think that’s worth saying, is olive oil. And you have to know I’m Italian so I love olive oil and I eat it with everything. It’s — it’s in everything we eat practically. But it turns out there was a very interesting study that showed when you put it on the skin it actually damaged the skin barrier. And so we don’t recommend — I don’t know why that is. You know, there’re many — natural oils contain thousands of chemicals so we don’t know why. But I tend to recommend against olive oil and I tend to recommend towards sunflower, safflower, and some of the other ones we mentioned.
Abby:
Okay. That’s interesting, because I did have a time when I flared up really badly on my skin and I started using olive oil a lot and my acupuncturist at that time actually told me to stop using it. And I stopped using it and I found that my skin was a lot less dry. So —
Peter:
Interesting.
Abby:
Yeah. So it goes along with what you said.
Peter:
That’s neat. Now I definitely — to that point I also have patients who swear by olive oil. And, again, your mileage can vary a little bit and these effects are probably minimal. But if — my goal in thinking about integrative medicine is “can we put every possible gentle treatment together, even if they seem kind of goofy?” It’s like “oh golly, who cares what moisturizer they use. Just pick a moisturizer” but I’m like “No no no. We can find the best moisturizer for their skin. Maybe that’s the difference between sleeping tonight and not. Maybe that’s the difference between needing to use a topical corticosteroid and not. And so we try to maximize every other point, to the point of obsession.
Abby:
Yeah
Peter:
You know, we’re thinking “what else can we do to get you better?” Until that point where you say “Okay, we’ve really tried in earnest. We’re stuck, now we might need to lean on conventional medicine for a bit.” And we’re careful and we’re trying to really balance that and be respectful of it. But to get people past a hump and then we try that all over again.
Abby:
Right. Have you ever seen people that have used natural oils to seal the skin and act as the moisturizer for the skin barrier to the point where it healed the skin and the eczema and they didn’t need any conventional treatment?
Peter:
Absolutely. And I think for milder cases of eczema and particularly for just dry skin-type eczema, that can often be enough. Just good moisturizing, natural protection. That seems top be great. And now there’s some new evidence that just moisturizing babies can potentially prevent the development of eczema, which is gigantic. This is a huge, huge revelation for everybody. And so that’s exciting too. So, yes. The problem is most of those patients don’t see me. They get better before they come to my office, so I’m stuck unfortunately with a group of folks that have really — they’ve tried everything. They’ve gone gluten free and dairy free and they’ve changed the formula and stopped breast feeding and put the kids in a bubble and moved from Minnesota to somewhere else and, you know, and then they say “we’re still stuck. What do we do now?” And so this is a very different kind of patient that I’m — unfortunately, you know, I have to — I wanna help. And I’m stuck with this.
Abby:
Wow. What do you think it is for people who’ve tried, like, diet? They’ve tried a lot of different things to help their eczema, as you’ve mentioned, and nothing seems to work.
Peter:
So I think the hardest kind that I face is, really, the — what I call the immune sub-type. And these are people that tend to have — their patterns tends to be red all over. It’s, like, very wide-spread. They tend to have face involvement and a lot of scalp involvement. They tend to have tons of allergies. They often have IEG levels in their blood. This is sort of my nightmare patient because their skin really seems to be more of an innocent bystander. It’s almost like their skin is just stuck in this loop and we — if we’re focusing on topicals, it’s not enough. They need more. So these are really tough. My favorite kind of eczema to treat, the one that’s sort of the easiest, are the dry skin patients that have kind of scaly, sort of lizard-y skin that’s called ichthyosis pattern. Those tend to do well. Even though — if you’re reading the literature, many people say “oh they’re more severe”. But I find they respond much better to our topical therapies. Their immune systems seem to be secondarily getting whipped up into a frenzy.
So it’s like, if we seal your skin and protect you, usually don’t need as much aggressive stuff as the other case. So those are — you know, we get both. I have a mix of both and other sub-types still.
Abby:
Got it. I would have been your worst patient. I had, like, read —
Peter:
Perhaps, but — you come over. You might come over and see some pretty severe patients on a Saturday when we have the center.
Abby:
Oh wow.
Peter:
It’s — it can be pretty depressing.
Abby:
Wow, yeah. That’s really hard. I had rashes all over my face and then my scalp was, like, peeling. Like big flakes and it was — I’m glad to be out of that phase but I’m glad for what you’re doing, because it seems like it’s helping a lot of people as well.
Peter:
Thank you.
Abby:
But I also saw that your center has support groups. So that looks pretty neat.
Peter:
You know what, that’s a really important part of it too. The support group is something that, even when patients are better, sometimes they still come. Because even if you get better, even if you’re cured — which is a wonderful word which we’re very careful with, that we call that “the C word” in National Eczema Association. That you have to be careful with that word. “Cure” is a powerful powerful word. But for patients that really — you know, five years have passed and they say “boy, I haven’t had any flare-ups. I feel great”. For those patients, they still sometimes come to support group because when it was bad, as you know, it was the worst time of their life. They weren’t sleeping, they were miserable. They hated themselves, they hated their skin. So it’s a disease that sticks with you. It’s a miserable, miserable disease.
Abby:
Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. It’s hard. So tell me about acupuncture and how that’s helping with eczema.
Peter:
So acupuncture is amazing. I think that it can do so many things. I think the biggest Western misconception about it is that it’s like a magical cure-all thing. It’s not that, you know. It’s not magic. But it is kind of like a magic for some patients in that it can help with itch directly. It seems to be able to calm down the immune system. It seems to be able to calm down anxiety and stress, which is a huge part of eczema. You know, you know this. When you’re stressed out it flares. When my patients are — my students are studying for exams and they’re not sleeping right and they’re eating junk, they fall apart. Their skin falls apart. So if we can use acupuncture to help calm that down and get them better, it can be incredibly powerful. But, by itself, it’s probably not enough for most of my severe patients. For milder patients, it can do it. It can do the whole job. But for severe, it’s part of their plan, it’s one piece of their treatment.
Abby:
Is it possible that if people to go to acupuncturist who isn’t that great or experienced with eczema that the acupuncture doesn’t do anything to their body?
Peter:
Yes. And that’s another problem when people ask me about, you know “does alternative medicine work? Does traditional Chinese medicine work? Does acupuncture work?” It’s like — it’s a hard question because a lot of it is provider-dependent, you know. My teacher Kiiko Matsumoto is amazing. She has a whole school of acupuncture named after her. She’s a magician and a very very experienced practitioner. I trust her with my life, you know, and I watched her work. You just don’t doubt her. Kiiko will find a way. But that being said, someone else who maybe’s done a little bit of training — even myself. You know, I know enough to be dangerous but I don’t really know primary acupuncture treatment myself. I still work with an acupuncturist because my day job is a dermatologist. That’s what I’m good at. I’m not going to quit that for my acupuncture. I just wanted to learn about it.
Abby:
Right.
Peter:
So you really want someone who knows what they’re doing, who’s been through a lot, and who is also gonna know when things aren’t going to work. And the most powerful moments with Kiiko, my teacher, would be — she’d say “No, I can’t help you. This is not going to work here. You need more than this. This is beyond me.” And to me, as a practitioner who’s also, you know, pretty confident in his skills in dermatology, I respect that. That’s one of the hardest things to say and also the smartest people really are the ones that know their limits. It’s amazing.
Abby:
Wow. Now I know one thing that we wanted to talk about as well is what happens with patients in eczema in the long term. What’s your experience with that?
Peter:
So first the good news: The good news is that most of the kids with it, the vast majority — I’d say probably 80 or 90% — really do get much much better as they get older. And so even if you do nothing, even if you just say “we’re just gonna wait it out, they’re going to get better for the most part.” That being said, not everybody. Right? Because even if it’s 80 or 90%, there’s still a group of people that suffer the whole time. Also, they get better, but it doesn’t mean it goes away. Many of my older kids still can have flare-ups. They still are sensitive, they still can have a miserable day here and there even though it’s not like it used to be. So we have to really really keep an eye on them. And I tell them, you know “You’ll probably never be able to go to some, you know, Bath & Body Works shop and just try all this fragrance-y stuff on. Like, that’s not for you. You might not ever be able to just go and pig out on a bunch of junk food if food is one of your triggers. You may have to be careful and kind of control your skin and control your body.” But I spin it in a positive way. I say “You are sensitive, you are a sensitive person in the world. Your body can pick up things better and stronger than other people and so you have to — with that great power comes a great responsibility. You have to be careful and control your environment.”
Abby:
Right. Now what about new-onset eczema in adults who have no history of eczema or allergies?
Peter:
Super interesting and very difficult. So these patients, these poor adults, are caught off-guard. They’ve never heard of anything like this. They are just miserable and itchy. It tends to be super severe. The most important thing for a new adult, or even an older kid — I’d say if you’re, you know, even a five or six year old who come out of nowhere with new symptoms like this, we have to make sure that’s what’s really going on. We have to make sure that it’s not a true allergic dermatitis because, right, that’s very different than atopic dermatitis. If you are just allergic to something — for example, nickle. People get allergic to metal and keyboards that they’re working on at work. Even in the iPads and some of these, you know, aluminum-coated things have a component of metal. And so we’ve seen this over the years growing. That’s a wonderful diagnosis because you can say “holy guacamole, this is what’s causing it. If you avoid this you are cured. You don’t have to do anything. There’s no steroids, there’s no nothing. You’re just done, just avoid it.” It can be chromates, it can be something like NCI, all these different allergens out there. So we test for that. Sometimes — or like more scary stuff would be certain cancers in adults can actually present as super dry, itchy skin.
So particularly lymphomas can do this. And I had a patient a few years ago, a wonderful wonderful lady, who had terrible terrible hand dermatitis and we were doing all this stuff and trying all these different things. We could get her better but we could never get it clear and we did all this workup and finally it turned out she had a huge lymphoma. And this is how it was manifesting. Her immune system was broken and she passed away and her family was just wonderful and it was just a huge outpouring of emotion and gratitude that we tried. We tried everything to help her get better. But it was weird. I thought “why isn’t this getting better? What’s wrong with this?” And we got our answer and it was a terrible, frightening answer. Super rare; I don’t want to scare your listeners or your viewers. It’s not something we see commonly, but we do need to ask that question: Why am I not getting better? What else is going on? What else do we need to do to make sure we’re doing everything we can.
Abby:
Yeah, that’s definitely true. I love your heart for helping people and I can see your passion in just talking about eczema.
Peter:
It’s the kind of disease that motivates people. Right? I mean it really — it can ruin lives. So if we can band together and fight against it and do good stuff to understand it, it’s a worthwhile cause.
Abby:
Yeah, for sure. Now what about babies with eczema. How do you approach them differently?
Peter:
It’s my hardest group. It’s what wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. The hardest part for me is that parents blame themselves immediately and frequently. You know “it’s my fault, we’re doing something wrong.” There is also a lot of desire to find the root cause. And we want that too. Let me tell you, I would pay anything to find the root cause of this disease. It’s something that’s elusive. That’s really what pushed me into acupuncture: I wanted another perspective. I felt just so unfulfilled and unsatisfied. And I can tell you that the traditional Chinese medicine explanation is interesting and beautiful, but no more satisfying. It’s still not a root cause. You know, to say that somebody is liver yang-excess — why? I don’t get it. Why? It’s more of a — it’s almost like saying somebody has really really dry, leaky skin. Which is compelling too, to a certain extent, but doesn’t get to the root.
But with the babies the hardest part is that the parents blame themselves and they really focus on food. And the problem is that food can be a real issue for a lot of the kids. But sometimes it’s not. And again, this is this whole idea that it’s not all one disease. There are multiple sub-types. And what’s really heartbreaking for me is parents will say “okay” — mom says “I thought it could be something I’m eating, so I’m breast feeding the baby. So I thought it’s something I’m eating so I cut out dairy, gluten. You name it. Nightshades, sugary foods. I’m basically eating broccoli and rocks and goat milk” or something, you know. And it’s like “okay, how’s the baby doing now?” No better. So they said “We’re gonna pull off breast feeding.” And I’m like “don’t do that.” But they do. They stop breast feeding and the go on an elemental formula, or sometimes it’s multiple different ones. “We’re gonna go on a soy formula, then we’re gonna go on this formula, then — now we’re basically eating puke. We’re eating vomit.” Which you can’t be allergic to any more. These elemental formulas that are terrible. And the poor baby is eating it and doing okay and growing, but their eczema is terrible. They’re a mess. And so then you’re left with this mom sobbing who says “I gave up breast feeding because I thought that was the answer. We did all these crazy things and we’re still right back where we started. So it was all for nothing.” You have to understand I see that once or twice every week of my life. And so I get real — my, you know, my fur gets — what’s the word? Riled up. You know, like the cat’s fur rearing up.
Abby:
Yeah.
Peter:
When I hear people say “Oh it’s just food. Like, come on. Just eat your way to health, it’s so easy. Quit being a wimp.” I’m like “are you crazy? You’ve got to talk to these patients. These poor parents have done — they’ve screwed up their whole life. They’ve stopped breast feeding, they’ve done all this stuff and it’s not the answer for them!” So I get very, very — very excited about people saying that they got a simple cure and this is one of the ones that I’m really cautious about. What I often end by saying is if food works for you, oh my gosh. I’m in heaven. Because you’re done, you don’t need to come in. You’re set. You’re finished. I would also argue, it’s probably not atopic dermatitis as we know it. You probably had something a little bit different. A very specific kind of food allergy with an eczematous reaction because, I would argue, by definition, atopic dermatitis is multifarious. Which is also why it’s a maddening disease. Wool makes your skin go crazy, fragrances make you itch and scratch. Season changes drive you crazy, stress brings it out. Bacterial infections are going crazy. Your gut microbia is all screwed up anyways. From birth, even when you’re in your mom’s womb. Day one they checked out microbia, it’s different. Your gut flora is abnormal. So there is more to it than just eating. Eating is important, of course. I know that’s an important part of your healing and I think that’s wonderful, and I don’t mean to undermine it. But that’s what I get excited about. When it seems easy, why can’t we just simply solve it by food.
Abby:
Right, I see. Yeah, there’s definitely so much to eczema. I know it’s — it can get really complicated for sure. Do you have any last words of advice or, I guess, things that you want to leave our viewers to, in their mind after they listen to this podcast?
Peter:
Absolutely. First, you’re not alone. There are lots and lots of people just like you, suffering. And so never feel alone, because so many people feel alone and it’s crazy. I go from room to room to room with people feeling alone, so that’s part of why we built the center. We said “come in, meet each other”. It’s so powerful and it’s such an emotional moment when everyone comes together and says “oh my gosh, I’m really not alone. This person’s just as bad as me or has been as bad as me in the past.” And so that’s incredibly empowering.
The second thing is you shouldn’t suffer. The whole purpose of medicine, the whole purpose of me, of doctors, of medical school, of the whole system is to relieve dis-ease. So if you’re miserable, something’s wrong. We can help. And if you’re frightened about regular treatments, then find somebody who’s interested in doing alternative stuff with you. But don’t give up. Keep searching, keep finding it because there’s no reason to suffer. And there’s now pretty good evidence that the longer you suffer the more the skin is broken open and miserable and infected, the worse off you’re going to be. So I really feel strongly to find somebody you’re comfortable with, find a good healer, and get healed.
Abby:
That’s great to know. Do you also have a website or some sort of contact that my audience can visit you at or contact you if they’re interested to learn more?
Peter:
Absolutely. It’s just ChicagoEczema.com.
Abby:
Awesome. Thank so much, it’s been so great having you on the show today. And I know that I, especially, have learned a lot. So I’m sure my audience has also learned a lot. So thanks so much, I appreciate your time.
Peter:
Thank you for having me.
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Biography
Abby is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist who helps clients achieve optimal health. She is passionate about seeing people use health and nutrition to transform lives. She hopes that her experiences and knowledge can help educate others on natural remedies that will help eczema. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or YouTube for more updates!
Disclaimer: All the information found on this website should be used for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace proper medical advice. Always consult a qualified health care provider before embarking on a health or supplement plan.
Hi Abby,
I have atopic dermatitis on my face, neck, hands and nipples. My dermatologist says that it is ‘localised’ and therefore unlikely to be caused by food allergies. Do you agree with him, and do you think going on a cleansing diet would help me at all?
Thanks,
Karen
I disagree and I truly believe that going on a cleaner diet will help the skin!