I have always thought that my eczema must be caused by something either food allergy related or environmentally related. I was allergic to cow’s milk as a child so I always thought that must be a trigger. I’ve cut it out several times during my adulthood so far with limited results.
In my quest for answers, I turned to a lovely local Naturopath. This type of holistic approach to body healing really makes sense to me. I also enjoy that I am paying for the service (although I get reimbursed by my benefits) so the service I get is amazing. My first “intake” appointment was on Sept 13, 2010, it was almost 2 hours of chatting about my medical history, problems to address, ect. I felt fabulous after.
Two weeks later I went back for a review of my “case”, it was essentially her analysis of my health and goals on how to achieve optimum health through the incorporation of naturopathy concepts. As far as my eczema was concerned, she suggest we start with some IgG antibody testing or just an allergy blood test (see: Rocky Mountain Analytical) . This was just what I wanted so I followed her instructions to eat as many of the food on the list they gave her twice in a two week period prior to testing. The premise of course is that you might get a false negative to an allergen if you do not consume it within two weeks of the test. The test was easy and involved pricking my finger and placing blood on three little sample strips. I did it at home and put it in the mail, as directed by my naturopath.
So 3 weeks after this come the results; I am allergic to everything I love but surprisingly not overly to dairy. Here is the little wallet card print out of my results:
My IgG Gllergy Test Results - October 2010
So, essentially the Class IV and greater are to be eliminated (Yup, good bye eggs) and the class III are to be only consumed maximum once every 4 days.
In desperation to help my eczema I started this elimination diet….