Herbal Health

Before any dietary investigation is started, however, the possible role of airborne and contact allergens should be considered. This involves a certain amount of detective work, thinking over times when the child is better, or much worse, and looking for clues as to what is causing these changes. Bear in mind that eczema is likely to fluctuate considerably anyway, and not every change will be in response to a change in the allergen load. What you should be looking for are major changes that occur regularly in response to a particular event – a marked improvement during holidays for example, or a deterioration when staying in a particular house.

If you feel that some airborne or contact allergen might be contributing to the eczema, then take whatever steps you can to eliminate it before embarking on dietary investigations. Reducing dust, damp and moulds in the house, keeping wool off the skin, avoiding low-temperature washing powders and rinsing clothes thoroughly after washing are basic measures that anyone with an eczematous child should try. If there are pets, then removing them temporarily, or keeping them away from the child, should be added to this list.

Non-specific irritants may be even more important than allergens, and these too should be eliminated. Simple measures include putting pure cotton clothing next to the skin, not using too much soap, and avoiding contact with chemical preparations as much as possible. Keeping a child’s fingernails short reduces the damage done by scratching, and not allowing the house to get too hot is also helpful – heat aggravates the itchiness in the skin. Special cotton clothing, and mitten-pyjamas, which alleviate the effects of scratching, can be bought by mail-order.

All these measures may take a little while to have any effect and you should allow several months to elapse before coming to any conclusions. If the eczema is still troublesome, it may be worth trying an elimination diet.

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Related Posts:

• DIET FOR APPENDIX V: MILK
• TIMING GUIDELINES FOR PLANNING THE ELIMINATION DIET
• WHAT CAUSES FOOD INTOLERANCE? HOW ‘EATING CELLS’ WORK
• ANOTHER MAN’S POISON: WHAT IS FOOD ALLERGY?
• ALLERGIES: WAYS TO CONQUER THE ITCH
• ALLERGY: PREVENTION IS THE BEST MEDICINE
• ALLERGY: AVOIDING A BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE
• UNDERSTANDING ALLERGY: MOULDS AND MILDEW
• NO-ALLERGY DIET: LABEL READING FOR ALLERGY RELIEF

Tags: Allergies

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Allergies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.