Chronic Skin Rash | Leaky Gut Symptoms.
I FELT HYPOCRITICAL WRITING ABOUT WELLNESS BECAUSE I WASN’T WELL
I began wanting to write blog posts around the time I began spending most of my time at home, becoming what felt like a homemaker. I have always been an avid journal writer, documenting daily lessons and monumental life moments. Beginning a blog for me would push me past my comfort zone, which I knew is where I’d find growth. In addition to my personal reasons for wanting to begin a blog, I also began gaining knowledge that I wanted to share. Knowledge that I felt should be more widely known and taught. I felt that if these new discoveries could help me in my life, they sure could impact others and save many people stress and frustration. My goal is to help save minds, bodies, and our collective well-being.
Progress was halted completely because I felt I wasn’t in a position to give advice. I’m a very thorough and considerate person and felt I just didn’t have enough knowledge yet to be in the place to suggest ideas and concepts to others. I felt I may mess up and be wrong at times, which does happen. Now, I realize it’s not about being precise and flawless, it’s about where I am at this moment in life and just as I am learning from my own experiences, others can too. And in reverse, others can assist me on my journey by sharing what they know and interacting through this online community.
Finally, I felt confused about nutrition because even though I felt I was doing and TRYING to do everything “right”, I was dealing with a chronic skin rash all over my body which I had never experienced before. This affected me daily. I knew something was off and felt phony trying to solicit advice as someone who was secretly struggling against this self imagined plague. I was afraid for anyone to see my developing rash because I felt that once they knew that I didn’t know why it was happening, they’d offer their ideas of the many possibilities and solutions out there, to which I knew would send my mind in a million different directions.
[Slightly hypocritical, me wanting to offer helpful advice to others but not wanting to accept any advice into my life about this personal sensitive issue. This taught me a little more about human nature.]
But I felt it safer to battle my issue quietly with long sleeves and the occasional cortisone cream (when I knew a big event was coming that required me to show my shoulders and arms or my back.)
[See, I saw a dermatologist in hopes that I’d get his “professional opinion” and maybe even a solution! The doctor looked down at ONE of my many marks and simply called it eczema and prescribed me cortisone cream in a matter of seven minutes (if that). This angered me because I had grown up with mild eczema and it never acted in the way it was presenting itself now.]
Listen to your body! I knew cortisone was just a temporary cover-up and I didn’t want to NOT listen to my body by quieting it’s alarm system. Fueled by not having any answers, I began my own research. I weeded through many internet web pages and search engines, reading medical diagnostic possibilities with my same symptoms, reading other’s personal experiences, and I delved deeper into Traditional Chinese Medicine.
OH, THE CHANGES AND MY EXPERIENCE
Around the time I began to see my rashes I had made so many changes in my life that I didn’t know where to begin to find the culprit. I thought it could be the dust in the new home I had moved into, or the pet dander from the new pets I had moved in with. I thought the water might be more harsh than my last home so I bought new filters. I did everything I could to keep my contact with allergens and triggers to a minimum, even discussing with my honey the possibility of not keeping his dog. My determination would push me to try anything at least once to see if it made any difference, but I really didn’t want to affect anyone else’s life with this crazy quest for answers. There were countless nights I’d stand before the mirror, bare and naked, seeing my reality, looking and feeling infected and not really seeing myself anymore, not past the raised, red blotches. I knew I was chosen to learn from this experience but I was becoming impatient and just sad about it. I struggled to feel strong, sensual, and beautiful. I remember just a few months earlier, I found happiness working on creating curves and muscles, falling love with my balance of feminine and masculine qualities, and now suddenly I was doing everything I could to hide it all.
DETAILS…
The rash had begun on my upper right chest muscle and slowly spread and traveled across both shoulders and down my arms. The rash made its way down my breasts, even affecting my nipples, which was one of the worst itches, right along with the itch that would burn my armpit areas. The rash wrapped around my arms and moved down my back, to the top of my bum. Traveling down my thighs, it became hard to lay down to sleep because I itched wherever my legs touched.
By this point, I had already changed all of my beauty products to the most simple, natural and close to the earth ingredients (with a purpose to calm inflammation.) I could only wear certain clothes to bed because my skin was hypersensitive to being exposed after a shower and also, certain materials itched more than others.
On rare occasions, the rash would develop on my eyelids but didn’t stay long (thank God.) When the rash began appearing down my calves and shins, it also began to show itself on my neck where I could no longer hide it. (I was genuinely afraid that it would soon reach my toes, fingertips, and scalp and I’d be completely covered in patches of discolored, itchy skin.)
So I watched people whenever they looked at me to see if they glanced at my neck or any other places my rash was uncovered and visible. As a Massage Therapists, I interact with people on a daily basis so it wasn’t easy to hide my discomfort while just holding normal conversation. Regardless of the many negative feelings this experience had brought into my life, even on my hardest days, I was determined to find my solution, whatever it could be, I just knew I couldn’t live with this forever.
RESEARCH LEAD ME TO LEAKY GUT
I was forced to research and learn which fostered a deeper awareness and consciousness in me for how to personally nourish and care for my body. My research and connection building led me to find that DIGESTION was my problem. This may seem like the obvious answer to some, but I was blindsided because I felt I was doing so much right!
[I had stopped eating meat and animal products and processed foods, I was making more smoothies, and cooking with mostly vegetables. Problem was, I was in-taking mostly grains and gluten (cereal, oats, pasta, bread, tortillas, baking flour… etc), nightshade vegetables (tomatoes and peppers), and more sugar than my liver could handle.]
Knowing what I know now, I am the one who created the perfect storm in my body, but it took me a year to come to the conclusion that my digestive organs were in turmoil; overworked and weak. At the tender age of 21, no one would expect for me to have developed Leaky Gut Syndrome, but I did. Because there was no relief from my incessant skin aggravation to clue me in on any specific culprits causing my rash, my answer became Leaky Gut, my solution, the elimination diet and to reinoculate.
GLUTEN AND SUGAR…
Gluten and Sugar are bad guys in anyone’s diet but in my body, they (along with other undigested proteins) were passing right through my weakened intestinal wall, floating through my blood stream, and putting continual stress on my liver. Once I learned that our livers detox through our skin (my rash!) I continuously researched and built connections between everything relating to the body systems and organs, signs and symptoms, and care. It all made sense now, I learned how to understand what my body was telling me and I knew I needed to cleanse my gut to heal my liver and thus my skin!
[There’s SO much to discuss about everything I found out and all the connections I made but I’ll have to save that for another post. For now, I just want to close with this…]
I developed Leaky Gut and my main symptom was a chronic all over body rash. Since implementing serious changes in my diet and healing my gut naturally since March 2016, I’ve seen an amazing difference in my skin! My rashes are barely noticeable, still improving, and I’m over the moon about all I’ve learned.
What I Ate To Heal My Leaky Gut
Our bodies are masterfully created and anything that is going on is telling us something. Anything that is seemingly without explanation, definitely has one or many for that matter, maybe even a chain reaction of explanations! We, as the deciding factors of how our bodies function, should not settle for a humdrum life of mediocre health with the choices we make. We should be thriving and aiming to be our most radiant selves. This only comes with greater knowledge of self and the ability to consciously make better choices for our lives.