Scratching
Oh boy. I write this post today feeling all the distress of watching my baby suffer and not knowing how to help. Do I have a plan? Yes. Is it sensible and multi-faceted, considering the whole body, person, and system? Yes. Does that automatically make me feel better?
Are you kidding me???
I have no certainty that I’m “right,” or that this plan will work. It’s an experiment. What a great thing an experiment is! How many opportunities to learn and discover! I can recognize and even feel the joy of that, and yet how much I still long for black and white, yes or no. I just want to KNOW what to do. Better yet, shouldn’t someone ELSE know what to do and fix it for me?
I wrote in the first post of this series that I’d share some of my process for finding healing, that I’d answer questions like, “How did you know to try x?” Here’s a secret: I didn’t. I don’t.
I
don’t
know.
But I’m trying something anyway.
And if that doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. That’s how this goes.
Lame, right?
There is no magic formula. It’s just a long road of uncertainty and endurance. I suppose a very non-magical formula might go something like this:
suffering+courage+openness+patience+mindfulness+endurance+$$$+TIME+energy=???
That’s right. You never know what you’re gonna get. That’s the “adventure” part.
I have learned to expect the unexpected and to appreciate any outcome that contributes to my or someone else’s learning, quality of life, growth, or healing. This doesn’t come effortlessly (I can’t tell you the number of tears I’ve cried over the years), but it is possible.
Okay, that’s enough of my method for today. It’s time for some details about our eczema adventure. Here’s what we’ve already tried:
Preventative Measures (i.e., from Day 1 or earlier of Baby Bear’s life)
- All-cotton clothing, linens, and diapers (wool or PUL covers)
- Completely nontoxic mattress, crib, and mattress pad
- Zero fragrances, phthalates, parabens, etc on the baby or elsewhere in the home
- Infrequent baths, rare soaping, and he simplest skincare, mostly plain oils, for Baby Bear
- 100% breastfed, nothing else
- For me: mostly organic diet, grass-fed/pasture-raised animal products, lots of healthy fats, probiotic supplements and foods, food-based vitamins, fish oils (including fermented cod liver oil); following birth, no commercial dairy or gluten
- Practitioner-governed homeopathic treatment for me throughout pregnancy and for Baby Bear soon after birth
- Working on relationship system dynamics (I know that seems vague; I’ll explain in a future post)
Sunshine and fresh air treatment
Treatments We Tried after Noticing a Problem
- No gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, nuts or seeds, fish, or citrus — for about 10 days, until we saw our homeopathic doctor for treatment; zero results
- Severely restricted diets for me (much more so than the diet in the first bullet point), based on testing by our homeopathic doctor. These rotational diets have not been about what I can’t have, but what I can have, which is always an appallingly short list.
- Homeopathy, as prescribed by a specialist
- All kinds of calendula concoctions, neem oil, coconut and olive oils, cocoa butter, homeopathic ointments, un-petroleum jelly, etc
- Stopped using wool blanket and wool diaper covers
- Switching from natural detergent (Charlie’s Soap) to real soap (I’ll write more about what this means later)
- Finally ditching cloth diapers altogether, at least for now
- Using only filtered water for bathing
- As a last resort before steroids, slathering on Vaseline after an oatmeal bath before bed
You may be reacting to this list. Perhaps it seems intimidating. Please know that I have years of experience with “pure” household choices. Because of the scores of times I’ve sought healing already, I have real skills and training for this work. It’s hard, and yet I’m well-prepared for it. If you’re newer to this path, don’t lose heart. Practice helps.
Maybe you find the lists discouraging. I get that. It can be discouraging for me too. If all of that doesn’t prevent or fix sensitivities, can anything? Well, for many people, this list would have knocked the problem out of the park. You can scour the Internet for stories like these. It’s quite wonderful. The preventative measures alone could have done the trick. It’s not so simple for all of us, though, and the reminder is a good one. Sometimes health problems are not about poor choices in caring for our bodies or environments.
Or, you might be thinking I’m C.R.A.Z.Y. and that all this “natural stuff” is a load of hooey, and we crunchy people should just shut our traps and take the prescriptions our highly-educated doctors write for us. Hm. I see where you’re coming from, but my guess is that you and I have different histories with prescription-only approaches. I’ve done things that way and have been dissatisfied. I consistently get better results with less collateral damage through a holistic approach. Pharmaceuticals are not categorically bad, but I treat them with great respect and caution, and I always want to look at the big picture.
Or perhaps you know exactly where we are right now because you’ve been there too. Hello, fellow traveler! I hope you’ll share your secrets and experiences in the comment section below.
Our Results So Far?
Overall, we’ve seen a huge improvement, and for a while, I thought we were going to cure it. It’s now increasingly apparent, however, that Baby Bear is still suffering. He claws at himself any chance he gets. A recent flare-up that severely disrupted his sleep sent me running for the oatmeal bath+Vaseline trick, which worked beautifully. I’m so thankful, but because I believe eczema is a system-wide problem, I’m still looking for deep healing, not a band-aid (especially not a petroleum-based one). I think that whatever underlying issue is causing the eczema now will continue to disturb his body as he develops, even if he outgrows the rashes.
Thus, we have a plan. More on that in the next installment: The New Plan.
If you’ve been down this exploration road with eczema or any other health concern, what’s your formula–magical or otherwise? Do tell!