Eczema - A Journey To Healing

[PaleoPhil]

If I had to bet, I would lay money on his gut bacteria being seriously disordered. Good luck trying to get a physician to prescribe a test, though. Some day bacterial testing and probiotic therapies will probably be common. We're not there yet.

[cherimoya_kid]

I agree on both counts, phil.

Has he tried high meat or fish? They definitely help my digestion.

[goodsamaritan]

What are you guys doing for carbs?  Liver flushing can drain livers of carbs.  The coffee enema protocols some have you eating 2 tablespoons of raw molasses before the coffee enema.

Running out of money and not able to eat sounds scary.

[Inger]

Maybe ditch the fruit. Sugar (fruit) might really be a bad idea
Jack Kruse have lots of stuff on Sleep Apnea.... you should search his blog/site.. EMF is a big thing

Maybe stop uropathy. Maybe he is cleaning out some bad stuff and for now this kind of therapy is not the right? Do lots of spring / RO water instead. No chlorine/fluoride

Do you live in a high EMF area? How does the work looks like? Have you tried high meat?

[Inger]

Fasting can be read bad if you are drained. Eat. Do you eat enuf? Raw seafood sounds great

Maybe too many enemas is no good for the gut flora. I would not mess with that.

[Inger]

Eat wild greens or carrots from the garden with some earth/dirt on them. Very good for the gut.

[Inger]

Have you tried to ease into raw? Maybe he get too much detox going fully raw too fast. What if he would do 1 meal / day gently cooked seafood? With some high meat to get bacteria in?

[CatTreats]

What are you guys doing for carbs?  Liver flushing can drain livers of carbs.  The coffee enema protocols some have you eating 2 tablespoons of raw molasses before the coffee enema.

Running out of money and not able to eat sounds scary.

Yes, it was not fun.

Carbs come from fruit, nuts, and honey.

Maybe ditch the fruit. Sugar (fruit) might really be a bad idea
Jack Kruse have lots of stuff on Sleep Apnea.... you should search his blog/site.. EMF is a big thing

Maybe stop uropathy. Maybe he is cleaning out some bad stuff and for now this kind of therapy is not the right? Do lots of spring / RO water instead. No chlorine/fluoride

Do you live in a high EMF area? How does the work looks like? Have you tried high meat?

Yes, it's somewhat of a city ... a rural city, but still a city. Just using the wifi search brings up like 20 different wifi sources. We're in an apartment complex.

I didn't think the fruit was bad because GS was giving his boy fresh fruit and seafood. And I didn't want him to be on nothing but seafood. Even that could be missing some nutrients. Plus we can't afford THAT much seafood.

On a side note, his food showed some clear areas for the first time this entire time. He also noted yesterday that he feels like he has more energy. I asked today and he said that he still feels like he's getting more energy as well as not being so cold sensitive.

[eveheart]

Carbs come from fruit, nuts, and honey.

Maybe you're a little high on the fructose side from the fruit and honey. The way I understand it, fructose toxicity should be a concern with gut and liver problems. Nuts don't have much carbs in a typical serving size. If you are eating carbs, don't avoid the starchy "glucose" kind.

[goodsamaritan]

I agree with Eve on checking the amount of honey you eat (fructose).  If you need to recharge your liver after liver flushes, or before coffee enemas, I would recommend 1 or 2 tbsp raw molasses. 

What kind of nuts are you getting? Raw?  Please specify.

If nuts are not fresh raw, they are fungus laden and may need to be heated in a toaster oven for 5 minutes to rid of the fungus.  Fungus is extremely weakening. Poisoning.

In my own raw / stored nut experiments I had experienced like Aajonus and others here that eating nuts interfered with animal food digestion.  I cannot eat nuts and eat animal food at the same time.

Thus I had concluded not to eat nuts as a staple.  I eat nuts maybe twice a month or less.  I teach these nut basics to my kids.  So yesterday I had a handful of pistacios.  That would be it for me.  I was not in the mood for animal food later on in the day and night.   I will probably eat nuts again in 2 weeks or a month.

And if your boyfriend was my boy with leaky gut, nuts are obviously in the BANNED list of foods.

Another hard to digest fruit is jack fruit.

Salad greens are hard to digest.  Juice them instead if you need green nutrition.

If you remove nuts from your diet, you will be able to absorb fish and egg nutrition much better.  And have a better chance at healing leaky gut.

[eveheart]

...I would recommend 1 or 2 tbsp raw molasses. 

Raw molasses? Teach me something new if I'm mistaken, but I don't think there can be such a thing as raw molasses.

[CatTreats]

Maybe you're a little high on the fructose side from the fruit and honey. The way I understand it, fructose toxicity should be a concern with gut and liver problems. Nuts don't have much carbs in a typical serving size. If you are eating carbs, don't avoid the starchy "glucose" kind.

He normally eats apples and pears, sometimes banana and berries. What "starch" would you recommend?

What kind of nuts are you getting? Raw?  Please specify.

If nuts are not fresh raw, they are fungus laden and may need to be heated in a toaster oven for 5 minutes to rid of the fungus.  Fungus is extremely weakening. Poisoning.

In my own raw / stored nut experiments I had experienced like Aajonus and others here that eating nuts interfered with animal food digestion.  I cannot eat nuts and eat animal food at the same time.

Thus I had concluded not to eat nuts as a staple.  I eat nuts maybe twice a month or less.  I teach these nut basics to my kids.  So yesterday I had a handful of pistacios.  That would be it for me.  I was not in the mood for animal food later on in the day and night.   I will probably eat nuts again in 2 weeks or a month.

We eat raw organic macadamia and pecan. But they might not be "fresh" raw. We only recently ate them more regularly because we both craved them and enjoyed them. I have not felt any negative effects myself, in fact sometimes I feel good when I eat them. I didn't think they would be a problem. Unless I eat a lot, I don't find that they interfere with my interest in animal foods.

It's difficult to remove everything from the diet and only eat seafood and eggs. It's expensive to get enough fresh seafood, on top of having to drive 30+ minutes to get to the shop. I would worry about lacking nutrients eating nothing but seafood and eggs.

I don't really know what qualifies as "wild greens" and neither of us enjoy the taste of greens, nor how they feel in the stomach.

I've never seen raw molasses.

[PaleoPhil]

Here are some starchy raw plant foods. The more raw or dried (concentrated) these foods are, the higher the resistant starch content.

Bananas, plantains
Chestnuts
Cashews
Water chestnuts
Sunflower seeds
Hearts of palm (aka sago, palm cabbage, ubod)
Raw new potatoes (young, small, lower in toxins, especially if peeled)
Horchata de chufa (raw tigernut drink)
Raw rice horchata
Calabash/morro horchata
Fermented raw or rolled oats
Breadfruit

Here are some foods containing animal starch. The more fresh and raw, the more starch.
liver
shellfish
eggs

Traditional raw Eskimo foods containing starch that are not easily available in modern societies:
seal liver
loche liver
walrus liver
Eskimo potato
muktuk
fermented walrus, stink flipper

[goodsamaritan]

if I were to choose between the digestibility of nuts vs beef... I'd choose beef.  And the fat in beef is more satisfying than sea food. The energy you get with beef saturated fat more steady long term.

Of course your mileage may vary so experiment.  Will beef or lamb be cheaper than the nuts?

[PaleoPhil]

I forgot to mention chuño (freeze dried potatoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu%C3%B1o).

[CatTreats]

Okay, I won't be getting nuts anymore. I might have some, but I won't share. 

We're doing the VCO fast today. Prepared the lemonade so it's ready while I'm gone at work. He has today off to relax and do the fast. I wonder if he can do it at work tomorrow ... but maybe too difficult.

[eveheart]

We eat raw organic macadamia and pecan. But they might not be "fresh" raw. We only recently ate them more regularly because we both craved them...

Glad you are going to give nuts a break. One problem with year-round nuts is mold, fungus, and rancidity because they store so well. Suppliers interpret good storage to mean that you can crowd them at any old temperature and humidity and still sell them as if they were fresh. If you do want fresh nuts, contact growers (easy in California) and find out when you can get the next fresh crop, then freeze them at home. There are some good online sellers, too, but I don't buy through them.

But the main problem with nuts is that you say you crave them. Having a food that you crave is a big ol' red flag that something is wrong with you eating that food. There are many reasons to crave a food, such as dips in blood sugar causing sugar cravings and empty opioid receptors signalling a craving for wheat. None of these are good. I think we do best with foods that we enjoy but do not crave.

[Alive]

Regarding saving money can you ask a butcher for free fat trimmings from his rubbish bin?

This could provide all your energy needs as well as heaps of fat soluble vitamins. It won't feed unhelpful micro overgrowth (candida etc), it will create ketones for improved brain function, makes some glucose for brain and immune system, and suppresses hunger so you don't need to eat very much or often.

Also resistant starch is very important as paleophil says. One to two heaped tablespoons of potato starch a day with a teaspoon of psyllium husks in a glass of water is very affordable.

Re enamas I am currently experimenting with colon flushing and direct repopulation with beneficial microbe cultures. Eating some fat trimmings, resistant starch, meats - hunger has gone energy up but still constipated. I will post my results in another week when things have settled down.

[CatTreats]

Glad you are going to give nuts a break. One problem with year-round nuts is mold, fungus, and rancidity because they store so well. Suppliers interpret good storage to mean that you can crowd them at any old temperature and humidity and still sell them as if they were fresh. If you do want fresh nuts, contact growers (easy in California) and find out when you can get the next fresh crop, then freeze them at home. There are some good online sellers, too, but I don't buy through them.

Good to know about the freezing!

But the main problem with nuts is that you say you crave them. Having a food that you crave is a big ol' red flag that something is wrong with you eating that food. There are many reasons to crave a food, such as dips in blood sugar causing sugar cravings and empty opioid receptors signalling a craving for wheat. None of these are good. I think we do best with foods that we enjoy but do not crave.

I think I use the term craving wrong because I get real cravings from meat and seafood too. Not cooked. I will be drooling at my keyboard looking at pictures of the raw meat I'm craving. This is the "craving" I get for nuts. It's like when you think about it and your stomach wants to growl. You look forward to getting to it eat. This happened earlier at work thinking about the tuna at home. It's not like sweets cravings where it's this desperate need to taste it ... that's how I would describe that craving. I'm not sure how to really explain the difference, though.

Regarding saving money can you ask a butcher for free fat trimmings from his rubbish bin?

This could provide all your energy needs as well as heaps of fat soluble vitamins. It won't feed unhelpful micro overgrowth (candida etc), it will create ketones for improved brain function, makes some glucose for brain and immune system, and suppresses hunger so you don't need to eat very much or often.

You would be surprised how upset people get when you ask! Whole Foods absolutely refuses. They said they don't want to give it away (basically they want profit, or to just toss it), and then sometimes they tell me it's a health hazard to eat that much fat and won't give it out. Really. Most places that are happy to give us fat just don't have much at all. There's rarely enough trimmings from grass-fed beef, at least our sources of it. We have one butcher that saves every scrap he can for us, and even then we only get a pack of it once every other week .. sometimes longer.

Re enamas I am currently experimenting with colon flushing and direct repopulation with beneficial microbe cultures. Eating some fat trimmings, resistant starch, meats - hunger has gone energy up but still constipated. I will post my results in another week when things have settled down.

I'd like to hear how it goes. Thank you.

[goodsamaritan]

i read your man has cold feelings problems?

try bone broths and fish broths

[Alive]

Since Kevin has a lot of gas that started after taking the probiotic I wonder if he has Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) that was actually caused by the probiotic inappropriately over-colonising the small intestine (which in turn could be caused by a high carb diet, poor digestion & limited immune functions).

"All dietary treatments strive to reduce the food sources for the bacteria.  They seek to feed the person but starve the bacteria. Bacteria primarily eat carbohydrates so all the recommended diets decrease carbohydrates to reduce the bacteria by limiting their food supply."  siboinfo.com

Looking at their site there are a number of diets used to treat this, but in my opinion they all still include rather high levels of carbs - maybe that is why their diets take 18 to 36 + months to be effective!

Personally I think that a fat based very low carb diet with >20g of resistant starch per day to feed beneficial microbes in the large intestine would be much better. For example 3 tablespoons of potato starch is around 36g and would give at least 24g resistant starch and under 12g digestable carbs => less than 40 carb calories => less than 2% of 2000 calorie diet from carbs => VLC.

Also regarding fat trimmings, are they available from common grain fed beef?
Looking at the macro issues first - that you need an affordable source of animal fat - I wonder if it would be OK to include grain fed sources?

I don't know anything about this as our beef and lamb is all grass fed, but as long as there wasn't a danger of infection through the poor animal welfare I expect Kevin could put up with the higher omega-6 content way better than alternative low-cost high-carb energy sources.

[CatTreats]

Since Kevin has a lot of gas that started after taking the probiotic I wonder if he has Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) that was actually caused by the probiotic inappropriately over-colonising the small intestine (which in turn could be caused by a high carb diet, poor digestion & limited immune functions).

"All dietary treatments strive to reduce the food sources for the bacteria.  They seek to feed the person but starve the bacteria. Bacteria primarily eat carbohydrates so all the recommended diets decrease carbohydrates to reduce the bacteria by limiting their food supply."  siboinfo.com

Looking at their site there are a number of diets used to treat this, but in my opinion they all still include rather high levels of carbs - maybe that is why their diets take 18 to 36 + months to be effective!

Personally I think that a fat based very low carb diet with >20g of resistant starch per day to feed beneficial microbes in the large intestine would be much better. For example 3 tablespoons of potato starch is around 36g and would give at least 24g resistant starch and under 12g digestable carbs => less than 40 carb calories => less than 2% of 2000 calorie diet from carbs => VLC.

I would agree with this but we tried doing a nearly zero-carb (all fat and meat) diet for about 2 weeks and there were no improvements. Not even a little. Unless you think it would take that much longer.

Also regarding fat trimmings, are they available from common grain fed beef?
Looking at the macro issues first - that you need an affordable source of animal fat - I wonder if it would be OK to include grain fed sources?

I don't know anything about this as our beef and lamb is all grass fed, but as long as there wasn't a danger of infection through the poor animal welfare I expect Kevin could put up with the higher omega-6 content way better than alternative low-cost high-carb energy sources.

I would worry about poor quality. We still get a lot of animal fats through the beef we eat and fatty fish we eat. We eat a ton of sardines (I save the meat closest to the skin - it's super oily - for him specifically because he needs it) and salmon which our fish supplier gets us extremely fatty cuts too. It might not be as good as eating straight fat, but it's not like he isn't getting a good amount of it.

We reduced his fruit consumption, removed nuts, and haven't had honey much. I imagine his carbs are a lot lower now than before. Sticking to as much fat and meat as possible. He also eats a lot of egg yolk.

He had the VCO fast yesterday and I noticed that the gas was lessened for once. I wonder if it's helping in that regard.

[van]

egg yolks can give gas. Try eating them separately from other foods with empty stomach. 

[eveheart]

I would agree with this but we tried doing a nearly zero-carb (all fat and meat) diet for about 2 weeks and there were no improvements. Not even a little. Unless you think it would take that much longer.

I know it's been said before, but two weeks is nothing more than a start. So then, what's the right length of time? I'd say that if you are well-based in some sort of science as your reason for trying a healing method, stick to it for as long as it takes - 3 months, 6 months, or more. If you change course before healing occurs, you may get rid of symptoms, but you'll still have the underlying cause. Things like the gut heal slowly.

[CatTreats]

egg yolks can give gas. Try eating them separately from other foods with empty stomach.

We abstained from eggs completely for a month without any change.

I know it's been said before, but two weeks is nothing more than a start. So then, what's the right length of time? I'd say that if you are well-based in some sort of science as your reason for trying a healing method, stick to it for as long as it takes - 3 months, 6 months, or more. If you change course before healing occurs, you may get rid of symptoms, but you'll still have the underlying cause. Things like the gut heal slowly.

Oh of course. I just didn't want to stay on a purely carnivorous diet for such a long time, risking nutrient deficiencies. Also GS suggested not going longer than 2 weeks on pure carnivore, so we didn't since we weren't seeing any changes.