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My crazy diet experiments (3+ years)
You say its a marathon but Grant who started all of this literally healed his severe eczema in 5 weeks.
And from what Ive read Grant was a lot sicker than me and also a lot older. I feel healthy as long as I eat a good diet, I just have this annoying skin problem.
Quote from salt on September 8, 2021, 10:03 amIf you cant digest grains and want something similair to potato but without the allergenic solanine, you could try cassava, yams, and maybe white sweet potato.
Skin is the last and final thing I'd expect to get cured on a low VA diet, as a lot of the VA is detoxified through the skin so the skin will be constantly exposed to VA as you perspire it. Mucous also sounds like a detoxification symptom. It sounds like you may have been detoxing, and then you started eating more carotenoids (fruits) and then detoxifcation stopped and your skin and mucous got better. This is only one out of multiple possible explanations though.
By the way, honey can have quite a bit of carotenoids.
Skin was the first thing that healed for Grant. He just needed 5 weeks to cure his severe eczema. I doubt that the mucous from white rice (or any other grain) is detox. Because I get this from the first white rice meal I eat. I get it instantly and it stops the next day when I dont eat white rice again. Also it doesnt feel like detox at all, I feel great with white rice but I cant ignore the mucous and worse skin.
In my opinion the body definetely detoxes on a water fast. I did one for 20 days, not once I had this mucous reaction.
@ggenereux2014 Max is saying your eczema was gone in 5 weeks. But when I have read through your blogs it seems the eczema actually persisted longer than that. Can you please clarify?
Hi @kathy55wood,
Yes, both statements are correct. When I first started with my diet it took about 5 weeks to completely clear my eczema condition. However, I did go into a relapse the following winter. For the next three years I had smaller and shorter episodes of relapse. Sometimes it was just down to the size of a mosquito bite and would heal in a day or two. But, still, it was clearly a tiny eczema blister.
I do now consider myself fully “cured” from that scourge, and have not had any sign of it in about the last 4 years.
I forget, have you done any food sensitivity testing? If you're reacting to a number of grains, it sounds like you might have issues with lectins.
I've long had the feeling that a lot of folks here have incorrectly faulted Vitamin A for their skin problems. Many versions of low Vitamin A simultaneously eliminate a lot of other plant compounds. Paul Saladino may not have everything exactly right, but I feel like he is a perfect example of someone who eats a ton of Vitamin A and yet has no skin problems as long as he steers clear of certain plant foods.
I can't help but wonder if Grant's eczema also was the result of other plant compounds, directly or indirectly. To have resolved it almost entirely in 5 weeks of a low Vitamin A diet seems way too fast for it to have been the result of Vitamin A toxicity.
Also, bear in mind that you may not get the same results when going back to a diet you had a while ago because (1) you may have used up certain nutrients in the process, which I think is involved in my own symptom progression (I used up a lot of zinc since starting low VA and can't seem to get back to the sweet spot I found a few months into the diet), and (2) you may have acquired new food sensitivities.
Something to keep in mind with carbohydrates is the glycemic load. Which is not to be confused with glycemic index.
Glycemic Load of White Rice Portion of 150 g
= GI X Carbohydrate / 100
White rice = 23
That's high...if you take the glycemic load of an apple(120 g) it's 6. If you don't react well to starches that's probably why, among other things. I will aquiesce that legumes are low GL, but most grains aren't. And processed grains are insanely high.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on September 8, 2021, 2:12 pmI forget, have you done any food sensitivity testing? If you're reacting to a number of grains, it sounds like you might have issues with lectins.
I've long had the feeling that a lot of folks here have incorrectly faulted Vitamin A for their skin problems. Many versions of low Vitamin A simultaneously eliminate a lot of other plant compounds. Paul Saladino may not have everything exactly right, but I feel like he is a perfect example of someone who eats a ton of Vitamin A and yet has no skin problems as long as he steers clear of certain plant foods.
I can't help but wonder if Grant's eczema also was the result of other plant compounds, directly or indirectly. To have resolved it almost entirely in 5 weeks of a low Vitamin A diet seems way too fast for it to have been the result of Vitamin A toxicity.
Also, bear in mind that you may not get the same results when going back to a diet you had a while ago because (1) you may have used up certain nutrients in the process, which I think is involved in my own symptom progression (I used up a lot of zinc since starting low VA and can't seem to get back to the sweet spot I found a few months into the diet), and (2) you may have acquired new food sensitivities.
I have done a scratch test. I was allergic to nothing but dust mites. From my own testing I know I have problems with lactose, milk just destroys me. Doesnt matter if its organic grass fed raw dairy. Butter and cheese I have no clear reaction but I thought they maybe hinder me from healing completely so I avoid all dairy now.
And with grains ... I avoided them nearly completely for almost 2 years now. I still dont heal completely. Thats my problem. Ive done everything but nothing heals my skin 100%.
And the thing with my diet: It was like this: I did fruit + lean meat for 1,5 months and had really good skin. Then I got back on white rice instead of fruit for 2 weeks and got worse skin again. Then I switched back to fruit + lean meat again but for some reason this time my skin doesnt get as good, even though Im on this diet for 1,5 months again. Really confusing, I think it might just be ohter factors like sleep, stress, sun exposure.
@zerocool Yes Im familiar with the glycemic load. For me it does only matter for acne, not for sebderm. And I dont get acne regardless of the GL as long as I keep the fats low.
Well, there's always the unfortunate possibility you have both food sensitivities and Vitamin A problems...
Keep experimenting, keep taking notes. Hopefully, with good record keeping, one day something will click and you'll make sense of it all.
I spent a decade trying to figure out my chronic IBS-D. I was at an all-time low when I stumbled across the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, stopped eating the one thing I had made my staple food because it seemed to minimize my symptoms (starch, primarily from white rice at that point), and within a few days my diarrhea stopped. At the time, it was the biggest epiphany of my life. Unfortunately, I replaced the starch with a ton of vegetables that led me into a different disaster of oxalates and carotenoids, but one piece at a time the puzzle comes together if you keep plugging away at it.
Yes I think this is the case. But first I got the vitamin A problem and then the food sensitivities followed.
Ever since the criminal pharma industry poisoned me with accutane at 18 years old I couldnt eat whatever I want anymore.
Actually I have new hope now. I will leave Germany at the end of this year to run my business out of Cyprus. Maybe the sea wether and ocean baths will finally clear this fucking skin condition.
Natural iodine is carried within the droplets through the air near oceans. This helped some people to clear their dandruff and sebderm without any diet change.