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comment from another post on LYL from a friend up north
Note- he has another update pending as eczema has improved massively in last few months.
I was lucky enough to have some of my most debilitating issues (severe sacroiliitis) greatly improve almost immediately when I started the program. But I'm in year 3 now and I'm still having things change for the better at a pretty steady clip. Recently my vision blurriness/disorientation with heavy exercise or heat is starting to fade and I've have that for 10+ years. Niacin did something powerful to my body (that I couldn't undo even if I stop niacin) and I started pouring out toxins through the skin on my hands (severe eczema), but I can tell this won't be forever and it is improving. I can feel that niacin has greatly sped up the rate that my most nagging chronic problems are fading. I wish I would have known about it from the beginning! Though it is probably too much for some people. I've settled at around 2500mg-5000mg/day (about a teaspoon) and my flushing is pretty minor, if I get it at all.
More updates incoming. Pictures not included. With permission from author.
UPDATE 6/27: several weeks now of no big flareups. Eczema is clearing up and all the damage is healing, though skin is still pretty dry in places. Looks like this chapter of detox is closed.
Crazy retracing thing going on. Recently my hands broke out in a full on poison ivy rash lasting several weeks. I have a history of having many exposure and severe reactions to poison ivy in high school and college, so maybe related to that.
But, as the dust settles on that terrible reaction though, I now have lingering spots on each hand, basically between the first and second metacarpals, perfectly oval/round. I realized they have the exact qualities of a strange rash I had on my left arm back in college for 1 or 2 solid years.
It's not Lyme or any kind of toxic exposure, I haven't been outside much at all in a couple of months. It doesn't look like diseased tissue, it seems more like a purposeful "portal" my body is weeping out fluid through regularly. When I had the same thing on my arm in college, I had it biopsied and they didn't know what it was, gave me an anti fungal cream and said good luck (it never helped).
I'm keeping charcoal poultices on it. Seems to be getting better but starts weeping fresh fluid a few times throughout the day. NA seems to activate it somewhat. I cut back for a bit for a while after the new year when there were some crazy solar events and I was feeling rough all around, but now I've worked back up to 250-500 a couple times a day now. I can live with this, I just try to keep it bandaged and out of sight, out of mind.
What I hope this might mean is that I'm "retraced" back to the time I had this on my arm in college, somewhere around 2008-10.
Meanwhile, still having small incremental improvements in health and generally feeling pretty good.
I'll share pics below. Curious if anyone has had or seen anything like this before?
Updated Thu, June 27
more updates from comments on the post.
I have a fairly long history of skin issues of varying character on my hands. What's interesting is I've gone big stretches since starting LYL where I've had absolutely zero signs of any skin problems for many months at a time. The last time I had a long stretch of nothing was immediately preceded by a similar flare up, not quite like this one, this current one has been far worse. So I feel like maybe this is the big retracing event where I'll have nothing for a very long time again after.
more updated from comments
Still going strong I guess. Finding the best way to deal with it is to massage the skin a couple times a day, let them weep like crazy, then they dry up and heal for a while. I just bandage it when I go to work. My bandaid game is on point lol. Taking NA seems to get it weeping more and helps. I am going to try Kelsey's zinc nicotinate cream.
It seems this has become my body's preferred detox pathway for now. Probably futile to try go to war with it.
another update from comments
Update: Trying higher doses of lactoferrin, 4 capsules/day. Seems to be reducing the continued flaring of the rash. I think whatever I'm detoxing lately (I suspect copper), it's giving me a lot of intrahepatic cholestasis, and the extra LF is getting things flowing better. I don't seem to have bad reactions to LF like many do.
I hope to report soon that things are healed up.
more updates via comments on post
joe joe 7mo
Member
Have you read Grant Genereux's books on ggenereux.blog yet?
One of his books shows molecular diagram of urushiol next to the diagram of retinoic acid. They are too identical. Is it possible you have had a poison ivy exposure in February? Is it contagious? Have you scratched one place and had it show up in another place that you touched with that hand?
I have a bad urushiol history. Episodes bad enough to miss work and slow kidney's down to miserable crawl. Painful arthritis, muscle aches, the works. Ironically I was immune to exposures all through high school. I landscaped the stuff 8 hour days. In college I ate eggs, bacon, sausage daily. Liver ever time the dorm served it. It was a vA copper rich diet. At the end of first year got horrific poison ivy. Real problem since then.
Last year as I cleared isotretinoin induced sacroiliitis, my ankles ripped up ferocious itch, flake, ooze, bleed. Had to keep them wrapped. Identical to urushiol in every way except that it did not spread. The fluid that oozed out did not spread the itch to surrounding areas. In all my poison ivy episodes, every rash spread to any other area that I allowed to touch any part of the rash. Not the case with these rashes. So I think that is the only difference between retinoic acid and urushiol.
Topical charcoal was a savior. Topical zinc oxide was huge too. I learned to use
to keep poultices moist and working longer. And less messy. I read more from Grant I gathered that eczema is retnoic acid coming out (and being reabsorbed in the skin if not adsorbed by charcoal). I read years ago that urushiol is tiny fat molecule that loves bonding with any protein molecules it can - skin. Then our immune system perceives the new proteo-lipid molecule that results as invader and attacks.
Do these rashes itch and burn? How does the hot water feel running over it?
Here is our latest favorite zinc oxide.
Baby Butz was the first zinc we tried. Worked well. The titanium dioxide gets all over and looks funny. Baby Butz is good for keeping the rash from drying out and itching though. Petroleum and titanium dioxide sounded suspect though.
Urban ReLeaf Zinc Oxide Salve ! Gently Soothe & Heal Damaged, Injured & Dry Skin! First Aid, Burns, Rashes, Scrapes! Deeply Hydrating Protection. 100% Natural! Safe for Delicate Skin of All Ages.
Urban ReLeaf Zinc Oxide Salve ! Gently Soothe & Heal Damaged, Injured & Dry Skin! First Aid, Burns, Rashes, Scrapes! Deeply Hydrating Protection. 100% Natural! Safe for Delicate Skin of All Ages.
Urban ReLeaf Zinc Oxide Healing Salve! Gently Soothe and Heal Damaged, Injured and Dry Skin! First Aid for Burns, Rashes, and Scrapes! Deeply Hydrating Protection. 100% Natural! Safe for delicate skin of all ages. Warm a small amount in your palm, then apply gently. Cover with bandage if needed. ...
Amazon
Amazon
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· Reply
7mo
Member
Hot water on it is almost euphoric, once it touches I have the irresistible urge to keep turning the water as hot as possible. Just like poison ivy. But it's only in my hands, and it flares up 2-3x a day and sometimes in the middle of the night, whenever I get a bile dump.
It itches like crazy when it re-flares and it's like I can feel it deep in my arms all the way up through my elbows.
I tried large doses of lactoferrin, like 6 pills in a day, and initially it helped dramatically, stopped flaring for a day or so and it was healing up fast, but it's back even if I continue that pace of LF.
I stopped charcoal for a bit, assuming this was 100% intrahepatic cholestasis just going right into the blood, and don't really get any signs of gut irritation, but I might restart it to see if that works. The rashes are really my only symptom right now, other than this I feel pretty good.
I tried zinc oxide cream, and recently got a zinc nicotinate salve from Kelsey, which I really like. The best, though, is getting my wife to drop some breast milk on it!
I think I might be at my "liver cracking open" moment 2 years in. Seems even cutting NA down didn't help much so I have just kept up with 3-5g/day hoping I can just push through this phase faster. It's been going on since about new years.
more updates from comments on post
joe joe 7mo
Member
You are going to love this comment.
You can and will use that hot water. About 25 years ago I realized that hot baths felt great on the rash but made it worse and spread it fast. That is the urushiol rash. Experience this last year is that hot baths do not spread the eczema rash. I am more convinced daily that this is the only difference between them.
25 years ago, I bought a pulsating shower head with option for very directed spray. I thought about using pressure washer. Do not try it. They cut skin. It feels good but like a hot bath with urushiol it spreads it far, wide and deeper.
I am all too familiar with itch, burn and pain serious pain to the bone (and joint). I bought a hot water heater twice the size this house needs and turned it up way hotter than is safe. We do not let kids turn on water unsupervised in this house.
So turn up the water heater. Build up a good supply. Get the waterpik type shower head and take a shower. Get the water as warm as you can stand under it steady on any spot that does not itch. Then turn it up a notch. Just hot enough so that you can pass the spray over your whole body and still stand the burn as long as you do not hold spray more than a few seconds in one spot. Where you do hold the spray on a non-itchy spot it turns it red from the burn within about 10 seconds.
Now pass spray over whole body. You will find a spot where it does not burn at all. If bad enough, you will not even feel the heat in that spot. Hold the spray there steady. For as long as you like. If you need to turn up the heat a bit more try another notch. Just be careful because your normal non-itchy skin will not tolerate even the splash from this spray.
Hold it there. Within 5 to 10 seconds, welcome to euphoria. As described to my neighbor, you will know you got it when the eyes roll back in your head and you moan loud enough to get your spouse asking you what is wrong. Mine only makes comments now. Though I go so hot I mostly grind teeth and growl. She makes comment less now that she had poison ivy and it helped her.
You can hold it there as long as you like. It is important to find all the spots and heat them well. When done you will notice all the itchy spots do not itch and the skin is normal colored. The normal skin around all the itchy spots will probably be red from the burn.
My homeopath at the time and still today told me that this is a natural method for antihistamine. It uniformly gets me eight hours of complete itch relief. I bandage or wrap or salve the itchy areas and go about my day. The wrap is to keep rash wound or whatever from drying out. Drying equals itch. As it wears off, itch will be obvious. Time for another shower.
Since finding this I have learned that when you get 8 hours of sleep (with out scratching yourself awake) urushiol goes away in a day or two. Without this relief it can go weeks and even spread to last longer. Eczema does not go away as fast as urushiol. But relief works the same way.
Now. Cautions: this also works well on bites from fleas, chicken mites and others. Absolutely DO NOT USE THIS on bee or wasp stings. At least not until they are at the almost completely gone stage where they start to itch and you are sure there is not stinger left in there. This came close to putting me in shock once. That homeopath explained that heating wasp and bee stings makes it infinitely worse. Very dangerous. Can be fatal. Ice works well on bee and wasp stings. We keep full hot water bottles in freezer just for that.
The problems with using it on insect bites where it feels good and helps is that the bites are small and the normal skin between the bites can not stand that kind of heat. It is hard to get the relief from the scald without hurting the surrounding skin.
I have used this to uniform success for 25 years. 12 of those years I was phlebotomist at blood center. Every blood donor goes through mini-physical exam with questions. Active poison ivy precludes donating blood. For the people I screened out of donating during this process, I took them aside and gave them this story. Probably 20 times in 12 years. At least 10 of those people came back months or years later to donate, recognized me and told me their results. All of them loved it used it and passed it on to others. It is a real thing. It probably only matters to those of us who can relate. Everyone else treats me like I exaggerate the problem. Until they get it and lose sleep.
When I told this to my neighbor in a small group of us, everyone laughed at me and made fun. Next day we were all out walking kids and dogs and she recounted how it worked. She did the eyes roll back and moaning thing so well everyone laughed again but not at me. I looked at my friend her husband while she recounted. His look was all "Man, you did this to me." Hilarious.
So please do let me know how this goes. I still think we need to start an urushiol / retenoic acid section on LYL.
Oh and my sister taught me about tegaderm - transparent bandages.
Even if you do not put zinc oxide on under it, these bandages help to keep it moist. They come in various sizes and the glue that keeps them on tears up the skin far less than normal bandaids.
Good luck and see you around.
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joe joe
joe joe 7mo
Member
joe joe BTW, this hot spray method works for finding urushiol rashes before they rash out and break skin. If during the shower you find a euphoric spot with skin apparently in tact, use the heat. You can probably prevent the rash. If nothing else it gets 24 hours earlier warning. And much more effective relief.
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· Reply
7mo
Member
joe joe so far doing a small amount of charcoal every couple hours I'm managing to go the whole day with no re-flare, taking LF and NA at my normal doses. I had a really bad flare last night that did some major damage to my right hand, but when I can prevent flares it does heal quite fast.
Putting hot water on the flared spots seems a much better solution than scratching the skin, does less severe damage and heals quicker. I'm very familiar with this, I've had several past waves of detox that ended in a retinoic acid-y phase like this with lots of itching. Good to know the heat is helpful and doesn't seem to do more damage from burns than it's worth for the relief.
more updates from another comment on the post.
joe joe actually I'm realizing charcoal might not be making any difference for this. I'm starting to theorize it's not cholestasis but actually stored retinoids moving from the fat pads, moving through the lymphatic system back toward the liver. NA is probably massively speeding that process along and I wonder if I got deficient in it since early in detox, when I seemed to have a lot more of these kind of things going on.
I will try an approach based on that assumption. Hot water will be a big part of my strategy as the heat probably speeds up transport through the lymph, and it does ease the urge to scratch. Indeed the weeping increases right after but quickly dries up. Once they dry up I'm putting on zinc salve, I like Kelsey's nicotinate one. When it's flaring at all and weeping a lot, I will use the nicotinate spray/liquid and just dab away any weeping liquid
another update from comments further down.
Looking/feeling the best it has in a long time. Hoping my body is just about done cleaning out whatever has been stored in my hands. I guess it makes sense my body would load up this tissue since as an under I have very little capacity to store it elsewhere.
Also, I took about 25g of NA yesterday and I think taking a lot is helping it heal faster
another update from comments on same post.
Updated pic of my right hand. It's expanded really far out. Check out how the perimeter of the "drainage field" is so visible. Deep red color. Both hands are similar. Flares up pretty bad 2-3x throughout the course of the day, usually worse at night.
The last couple days I've stopped all supps and have been juicing a few lemons a day trying to let this thing heal up. Not sure if I'm getting it to slow down much yet. The character has changed, and there seems to be more healthy skin that wants to grow back in between flare ups, though it quickly dries up and flakes off. When it flares up the itch goes deep, I often have to stop what I'm doing and hit it with really hot water. I get itchy all over my body the last few weeks, like cholestatic itching. I have taken to really hot showers a couple times a day to ease the itching.