In the interest of being of very open and transparent, I have really been fighting with myself whether to share this or not. I felt like a fraud basing my success on healing my son’s very bad eczema naturally as a baby, and for it never to be seen again until mid last year.
Checking in again with my purpose, vision and passion for what I do, it was to inspire, support and empower as many families on similar journeys to make lasting nutritional & wellness changes to lead a healthy happy life.
With that in mind, I decided it was only right to share my recent experience. After all, living optimally is journey and not a destination and definitely not linear.
You would have thought I’d be all calm and relaxed about this seeing we had been through all this before, but instead I was blubbering mess when the penny dropped as to what was happening.
In fact I freaked out (that is putting it mildly) and so did my husband. It was pure and utter FEAR, as a storm of unpleasant feelings and memories came flooding back. It was a place I NEVER wanted to visit again.
The crazy thing about it, was that the eczema was no where near as bad as he previously had it and it was very localised.
No amount of logic and rationalisation could remove the fear and utter devastation I was feeling. I just kept on thinking “I can’t do this again”. As he is older now and could understand more, his view was “Mum, you fixed this before when I was a baby, you can do it again”, but deep down I thought what if I can’t.
He contracted the molascum virus which is common and ordinarily harmless, however it triggered eczema again.
After wallowing in my own self-pity, I decided to pull up my big girl pants and start the healing process AGAIN. As always, it was a multi-faceted approach.
I sort help from a qualified health practitioner to assist with supplementation as it was obvious his immune system needed some help to fight this virus.
During the healing process we focused on all 4 key foundations of health and these were the steps that I took:
Nutrition:
Undertaking the GAPS protocol a few years ago, he was already base-lined so I did not feel the need to put him on another cycle again. Instead I took the principles and put them to work. One week a month for 4 months we completed a mini healing protocol, i.e his diet consisted of all soft easy to digest foods such stews, casseroles, soups and plenty of broth, meat and well cooked vegetables. The remaining time the focus was on quality wholefoods with plenty of vegetables, quality protein, quality fats, minimal grains, gluten free and healing foods such as broth and fermented foods on a daily basis
Microbiome
This time I stool tested him and identified that he was particularly low on a specific strain of beneficial bacteria and we supplemented him on a single strain for a period of 3 months.I also ensured his diet contained plenty of PREBIOTIC fibre to help the current beneficial flora to flourish.
Toxicity
By default with what we were doing, we were allowing the body to naturally detoxify itself. Some supplements were also added to assist with this. See below. He also bathed daily in either epsom salts or bi-carb soda to further assist the detoxification process. We are typically a low tox house, so that side of things have always been taken care of.
Emotional Well-being
This was a biggy, more for me than him. It was probably the area that had the greatest impact on his recovery......much to my surprise and a concept I was really RESISTING.
When I consulted the book “The Secret Language of Your Body” Eczema was seen as a result of anger, resentment and frustration. Given his nature of being so grounded and pleasant, I could not understand how he could be experiencing these emotions. After digging some more, I became to understand that this was energetically being fed off me........say WHAT!! I was in fact experiencing these trapped emotions and I was the one who needed to work on my emotions. I used the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) along with a few other strategies to shift this and I saw dramatic results in his skin within 24 hours. I was GOBSMACKED. This was months after working on all of the other aspects above which were yielding results, however actively working on this foundational pillar just really sped up the healing.
I no longer could ignore the impact and connection our inner being had to our physical well-being AND that of our children.
Supplements we found useful and their purpose
- Colostrum for immune support
- Saccharomeycess Boulardii – to promote growth of beneficial bacteria and yeasts
- Activated B – to assist with methylation & detoxification
- Liver Support – further aid detoxification
- Single strain & broad spectrum probiotics – promote beneficial bacteria growth
- Fulvic Minerals – supplementation of trace minerals
- Essential fatty acid Fish Oil. – good for skin health
- Vitamin C – Immune and collagen
Other Treatments we undertook
- Homeopathy to further support healing and he really responds well to it
- Cranial osteopathic adjustments
- EFT to support his emotional well-being during the healing process
Please note, I provide this list for informational purposes ONLY and everything listed has been prescribed by a qualified health practitioner purely based on my little man.
Please consult a health care provider before deciding to consume any supplements for health benefits
My takeaway lessons from this experience:
- Health is not a destination - it's a journey and you need to be aware, flexible and adaptable
- Knowledge is power and empowering. It doesn't matter how many times you need to press the RESET button, you have the tools and knowledge to be able to it
- Do not underestimate the power of emotional well-being and it's impact on physical health, i.e. FIRSTLY for ourselves as mums AND then teaching our children how to be emotionally intelligent.
- You need work on EACH of the 4 foundations to resolve any health condition long term.
I am pleased to report that his eczema healed beautifully once again, and in fact he so much more stronger and resilient because of it, as we did not try to suppress the condition or the virus, but instead worked at the root causes, supported and allowed the body to heal itself.
I now actually have gratitude for this experience as it has brought a whole new understanding of what it means to be truly HEALTHY and with an innate knowing that you CANNOT just focus on nutrition, EACH of the 4 foundations needs to be actively addressed which I do in my signature 1:1 Healing with Wholefood Program.
If you are stuck on your healing journey, either for yourself or your child, get in contact with me for a 30 minute FREE Health Mapping Session to see how best to move you forward.
Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach that specialises in helping stressed and overwhelmed mums heal their children with wholefoods using a personalised wholistic step by step approach.