Functional Medicine: A Natural Cure for Eczema (and Pretty Much Everything Else)

In my youth, I was a poster child for allopathic remedies. If it didn’t involve lab-brewed drugs, I wasn’t interested.

Nowadays, I’m all about functional medicine. Here’s how Dr Mark Hyman describes it.

Functional medicine seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease, and views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties. It treats the whole system, not just the symptoms.

Sporty and I are of the opinion that pretty much everything can be fixed naturally, by eating right, exercising, minimising stress, getting enough sleep and dipping into nature’s medicine cabinet when we need a little extra help.

As it happens, Dr Hyman believes the same. 

Great minds and all that.

I was rooting about on the Interwebs in search of a natural cure for skin ailments when I came across his article outlining 7 strategies to eliminate eczema. While I’m fortunate not to be plagued with eczema, I was prone to skin allergies in the past.

I haven’t had an outbreak in many years, since my diet and lifestyle are so vastly different from what it used to be. But at least I’m better equipped to deal with it if were to ever reappear.

If only I could time-travel back to my younger self and give her some advice. Then again, she’d probably just roll her eyes at me as she lit a cigarette and took a swig of her sugar and milk-laden instant coffee.

Functional Medicine is (Mostly) Common Sense  

I say it’s mostly common sense because when you’re stuck in the allopathic way of thinking like I was, it can be hard to see beyond the obvious. The obvious in this case being your painful skin condition.

But once you take a step back, as Dr Hyman’s 60-year-old patient did, you’ll notice that there’s more to the problem than meets the eye. 

Maybe your diet is also high in sugar. Perhaps you too have been ignoring your allergic reaction to dairy in favour of that double-cheese pizza. It might be that you’ve been taking too many antibiotics.

Sometimes things are obvious only in hindsight.

Of course, that doesn’t explain eczema in babies. Not having offspring of my own, I’m not in a position to weigh in on the subject. 

I was curious though, and did some digging to see what causes eczema in babies. This article suggests it could be linked to gut issues, while WebMD says it could be hereditary, stress-related or caused by certain foods.

I can only imagine how hard it must be for both parent and child to deal with something so painful. These scratch sleeves won’t alleviate the problem, but at least they’ll stop baby from scratching herself raw in frustration.

Is Intermittent Fasting a Miracle Cure?

I’m late to the intermittent fasting party. But that’s only because I love food and hate the thought of having to eat less. I’m a proper gannet and I can’t even blame a tortured childhood at boarding school.

Although she too loves snacking, Sporty is always up for a challenge. When we learnt about fasting she was all in on the 16/8 regime from the get-go. If we ate at seven or eight in the evening, she’d happily defer breakfast until close to lunchtime.

Whaaaaat!?

The thing is, the benefits are all over the Internet. So much so that even I can’t ignore the fact that it makes sense. People are claiming that intermittent fasting cures eczema and helps them to not only lose weight, but keep it off.

Dr. Jason Fung says it can reverse fatty liver and he also claims it can be used to effectively treat diabetes. With so much evidence telling me to stop my late-night snacking, I guess it’s time to give it a try. 

Starting Monday.

I’m kidding, I actually started yesterday and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I anticipated. Plus, I slept better because my body didn’t have a stomach full of food to digest during the night. It’s early days, I know, but I think there’s something to it.

Whether you suffer from eczema, diabetes, high blood pressure or any other health condition you’d love to get rid of, functional medicine is the smart approach.

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