Tag Archives: Eczema

Chinese Nutritional Therapy Tips That Can Help Treat Eczema Symptoms

Eczema can be a severe disease that can affect both children and adults make their lives misery. It produces thick, scaly, and dry red skin constantly itches. For a lot of sufferers, eczema is set off an allergic response to certain; avoidance of these foods can alleviate the symptoms. Chinese nutritional therapy, an ancient holistic system of healing which is part of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine, views diet in an entirely different perspective from our western diets. This article will talk about the six Chinese food secrets that may aid eczema sufferers and change their life for the better.

1. Avoid Foods that Generate Damp in the Body

In Chinese medicine, one of the major underlying causes of eczema is internal dampness. Hence, it is best to avoid foods can trigger eczema. These include sugar, bananas, orange juice, peanuts, wheat, and dairy products like cheese, ice cream, butter, and cow’s milk.

Cow’s milk is the most food that triggers eczema in children. By nature, cow’s milk is extremely damp and if your child has a weak digestive system, the milk can cause weeping and oozing lesions, rashes, and itchy skin. In Chinese nutritional therapy, milk is not a common ingredient and is very seldom used. In Western countries however, a lot of people tend to over consume milk which is the reason more and more of them are getting an allergic reaction to it. You need to look for milk substitutes if your baby is suffering from eczema. Less dampening alternatives such as goat’s or soy milk can be potential replacements.

2. Select nourishing and cooling foods

If you have eczema, you can treat the symptoms of itchy skin, inflammation, and redness as well as their underlying cause by eliminating excess heat in your body. You also need to tonify the blood and vital energy (qi) and moisten dryness. Moistening and cooling foods recommended include tomatoes, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, strawberry, pears, tofu (bean curd), barley, celery, cucumber, watermelon, seaweed, lettuce, and grapefruit.

Blueberries, aduki beans, kidney beans, beetroot and other dark red veggies and fruits as well as leafy green veggies are all very good for tonifying blood and qi. Meats such as chicken, kidneys, and, liver are all blood and qi tonifiers. Eating bowl of oat porridge added with a few dates is a great way to start the day.

3. Don’t Eat Greasy Foods

By nature, greasy fried foods are warm and extremely damp forming. Eczema is itself a sign of excess heat (Yang) in the body which leads to symptoms like thirst, inflammation, and redness. Cooking styles that are Yang by nature include sautéing, stir frying, deep frying, grilling, and roasting. If you have eczema, it may be preferable if you steam, braise, simmer, or boil your food as these cooking styles are yin by nature and when cooked these ways, the foods cooked in this way will be more nourishing to the skin and body and are naturally cooler.

4. Balance your Tastes/Flavors

The saying, “too much of one thing is bad for you” is applicable in Chinese nutritional therapy. You will find a balance of tastes – pungent, sweet, bitter, sour, and salty in most Chinese recipes. Salty foods like fish, pork, and seaweed, for instance, stimulate digestion, drain built up moisture, and regulate moisture balance. Overconsumption of salt, however, will cause dryness and dehydrate the body. Sweet foods such as milk, bananas, and sugar, tend to moisten dryness and lightly the flow of blood and qi. But when you consume a huge amount of sweet foods, it will cause the buildup of heat and dampness in the body which can result in eczema. Hence, it is a really good idea to follow a balanced diet that includes all the flavors. You may need to reduce or increase a specific flavor depending on your specific needs.

5. Enjoy your Food and Chew them properly

Eczema is often triggered by emotional stress. We tend to not enjoy, under eat, or overeat when we are under stress. When you are angry while you are eating this will impact the flow of qi and may cause it to stagnate. Over time, stagnation of qi can create an excess of heat in the body that can come in the form of skin inflammation and rashes.

6. Avoid Ice Cold and Raw Foods

Consuming too much chilled foods ((as opposed to cooling foods) or raw foods can harm your digestive system. This system needs digestive fire or warmth to operate properly and an excessive and prolonged consumption of ice-cold or raw foods can eventually impair this digestive fire. Because of this, you will notice that the Chinese seldom eat ice-cold foods or raw foods.

7. Concentrate on Your Food When You’re Eating

When you’re eating your meal, just focus on your food and stop reading, watching TV or any other thing. Each portion you take in should be chewed fully since this helps your digestive system to work more efficiently.

Eczema – How does acupuncture see it?

Eczema, from the perspective of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine, is the result of a lack of Defensive-Qi or Wei-Qi. Wei-Qi is a concept of TCM that has a close association to your skin and helps shield your body from external pathogens. The Five Elements Theory is one of the three main theories that make up TCM. This theory states that the Lung (this is capitalized to make it distinct from the one used in scientific terms) system governs your skin which in turn means that it is also responsible for the skin’s health. The Kidney system, on the other hand, contributes to the health maintenance of the skin. The Kidneys are responsible for moistening and nourishing the skin.

Eczema often begins to develop when you are young. It is a condition that usually crops up along with asthma. There are two main forms of eczema, Wind-Heat and Damp-Heat. Wind-Heat is often caused by Lung deficiency) and Damp-Heat (is more associated with the Kidneys). You can see that both types deal with ‘Heat’. This means that eczema always comes with inflammation and redness on the skin. Wind-Heat cases will manifest dry lesions that move from place to place on your body (this movement pattern indicates the presence of Wind in the body). Damp-Heat, on the other hand, will produce oozing lesions which is a sign that there is Dampness in your body. The lesions are often limited to certain parts of your body like the lower legs and forearms.

How does acupuncture treat eczema?

Treatment for eczema that is acute in nature (particularly, some of the Wind-Heat type) is quite an easy treatment to do since the pathogen has had little time settling into your body. TCM practitioners, however, often encounter eczema conditions that are chronic in nature in this society; however, most cases treated by TCM are seen in the chronic stages. And usually these chronic cases have already been treated using conventional methods with no or little success. TCM and acupuncture can prove to be more effective than conventional treatments when it comes to addressing chronic types of eczema. However, the treatment may take a lot longer for chronic cases than for acute types of eczema.

For the treatment of eczema the main treatment protocol will be to nourish the Kidneys and/or Lungs and at the same time nourishing the Blood if there is Wind and/or a significant Dampness or Blood deficiency.

What can you do?

If you have eczema, you need to protect your skin from wind and cold exposure. You also need to avoid foods such as mushrooms, spinach, shellfish, alcohol, spicy foods, fried foods and dairy.