Skin problems?

[rawnora]

I just read the thread about acne and thought it was worth starting a new one because there are some very simple ideas that should be kept in mind if a person wants to persevere through acne and other skin breakouts.

When we first overwhelm our bodies with more junk than they can eliminate via the primary channels, they sometimes (determined by our diathesis or inherited tendencies) enlist the skin. In a lot of people, this happens in the early teens as there does seem to be a hormonal component. In creating acne or other eruptions, the body self-digests a channel that leads from the bloodstream to the surface of the skin through which to send out the waste. It sacrifices the millions of cells this takes, plus the energy to build the channel, to get stuff out that threatens to jeopardize function if it stays put.

Now don't you feel like an ingrate for not appreciating your body's wisdom when you get a breakout? Yeah, me neither. I don't want my waste to be eliminated on my face! I've never had acne -- my body's favorite face-defacing disposal method is cold sores. :(

Why does this happen when we're cleaning up our diets? Well, in the same way that you walk or cross your legs or do any other habituated body movement in a particular way, your body becomes habituated at using certain mechanisms that it has used in the past. The acne channels may close up and heal after the body has used them to decrease its toxic load, but the tendency and habit of the body to create more such pathways is always there and will be triggered whenever the bloodstream carries too much waste.

Waste in the bloodstream can increase when we start cleaning up our diets, especially if we've been VERY bad in the past and our bodies have a lot of stored waste to be disposed of. The waste enters the bloodstream and those same habits that your body formed when it was being overwhelmed come into play.

So, eating very cleanly (low fat, high fruit) can sometimes cause breakouts, but it is typically very temporary. Fasting would no doubt be the quickest way to resolve the problem. Some people note that eating nuts or other fatty or difficult to digest foods can cause breakouts. When we say "difficult to digest", what we mean is that these foods don't get broken down all the way, even in very healthy digestive systems, and what is left after the attempt is a lot of waste that the body must eliminate. Waste that ends up in the bloodstream, possibly necessitating vicarious elimination through the skin.

It seems pretty clear that the best thing to do if you have acne is decrease your body's burden by eating lightly and cleanly. Even though this may lead to more waste entering the bloodstream, allowing it to come out is the wisest choice. Doing things that make it stay put, like taking steambaths or applying toxic topical preparations, really works against the body. Having said that, I was so sick of looking like a leper during my transition that I did resort on occasion to icing a developing cold sore (gasp). At least I found a rather innocuous way to subvert my body. :)

It can take many years on a raw diet for the body to lose its previous symptom habits. Right now as I sit here, I can feel a cold sore developing on my lower lip as a result of the fattier foods I've been eating lately. The good news is that these days my cold sores never develop to the point where they're visible. That's my reward for persevering!

Gratefully,
Nora
www.RawSchool.comSkin problems?

[solarliving]

I have been eating Sea vegetables every day, last night I added a bit of cayenne. I also have been using coconut oil on my face. My Skin definately seems clearer and the bags under my eyes have seemed to improve. Just wanted to share.

[ShelShel]

Thank you for starting this thread. This is exactly how my body is getting rid of waste...and I haven't liked it one bit. I've tried everything...and just this morning resigned myself to living with the acne until I've healed. I hope it clears soon. After 9 months...I've gotten more tolerant...but it really bothers me. I won't eliminate certain foods just yet to see if that helps...because I might be tempted to break raw if I couldn't eat them. So, for now...I will live with it. :o

[sungoddess]

Thank you for addressing this issue! Your knowledge and insight are very much appreciated!

[Raine]

I'm on day 17 of my juice fast and I can vouch that my skin has improved. It's become very smooth and soft and the ocassional blemish is not happening.

If you are like me and spend a lot of times outdoors, it's important to stay hydrated and keep the face clean. Today I got in from riding almost 200 miles and even though my face looked fine (yes, I do wear make up), when I washed it with Dr. Bronner's almond soap, there was all this black grime from my forehead. After cleaning that off, I used my Rose Thayer's Rose Water Witch Hazel (which I swear by).

Later tonite, I'll combine 1/4 teaspoon coconut oil with sea salt to exfoliate and then put on my Papaya Enzyme mask.

All this stuff can be bought at Whole Foods.

IF it does get to the point to where you think you have a blemish about to occur, a great trick for me is to soak a Qtip in hydrogen peroxide and rub that over the quasi-blemish area until the skin turns white - which signifies the bacteria is being attacked.

[sungoddess]

with me we are talking about a face full of an uncountable number of huge clogged pores and many many blemishes :(

I everntually want to juice fast to speed this up. but I have classes everyday where I have to perform and such!

[Azianbee]

Hi Solarliving,

how bad were your eye bags to begin with?

[Raine]

Sungoddess - as soon as you feel you need to juice fast -- do it. Just plan on days 3-5 needing a decent amount of sleep.

I appreciate you are in school -- I'm it the midst of pre-production for a motorcycle travel series dealing with people in every time zone from LA to London, overseeing the media relations and sponsors, travel logistics, content for each episode, etc....the joys of being a producer.

I've got 110% energy and a non-stop life. The timing will never be perfect for a juice fast ...you just have to do it.

Good luck!!

[spicyfull]

Thanks for Sharing...............

[rawfigure]

I had occassional break outs pre Raw. I have not had one in over a year now, even when I have my cycle :D so as Nora says, time raw !!!

[rawscal]

Spicyfull, the thing about using the same water Moses used gave me chills :) I never thought about water that way. I just want to say everyones' pictures are beautiful. Acne is an absolute pain and I myself have broken down and slathered on the BP (always a desperate last measure). I don't have cystice acne and actually the acne itself isn't so horrible, it's the scars! I must admit it's been getting a lot better lately. I have been washing with Ivory, followed by salicylic acid followed by EVOO in the morning. Nighttime its Ivory again, BP and pure vitamin E oil as an eye cream(it's like the BP creeps up towards that area and dries it out even though I make a point of avoiding the eye area). So far this has been working for me and helping the scars fade quicker. I know the BP isn't exactly great for the skin but I'll do it in intervals until it's under control. I am about to embark on a juice fast as of tomorrow. Sea vegs are essential for wound/scar healing I've learned so sometimes I throw a tbsp. of dulse flakes in a veggie juice. I'm looking forward to the day when I can trash the BP altogether.

[faith4u]

Nora,

I have had psoriasis really bad since going raw. It started a few months after going raw and has gotten bad. I have never had this before.

When I went back to eating some cooked food in the evening (healthy not junk) it started to get better immediately and felt so much better.

At first I thought it was the fruit that I was eating but I have since then wondered if it was a detox. BUT it wasn't getting better in fact after a year was worse.

I talked to one expert that felt that I should do a liver cleanse as it was probably a sign of a congested liver.

What do you think? Your post really got me thinking about it.

[Shmoopie]

Faith4U, there is a lot of reading out there that implicates the liver in psoriasis as well as eczema. Also, a lack of amino acids. I was on a diet that had me eating mostly raw, but also drinking water with half a lemon squeezed in for juice, and two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil every morning. The purpose of the oil was to slowly purge the gallbladder and the liver, and by the 4th day on the diet, my psoriasis had gotten noticably lighter and less irritated. It looked like it was going away. Also, having the oil in the water made me feel much more hydrated. It was like it coated my throat? I don't know what it was, but it made me feel great.

There's also a 24 hour liver/gallbladder flush that I have the ingredients to if you want it. It's kinda nasty; you have to drink some really gross things during the course of this cleanse. It works though. At the end of it, you'll see nothing but gallstones and "gravel" in the toilet. If you're interested, let me know.

[rawnora]

Nora,
I have had psoriasis really bad since going raw. It started a few months after going raw and has gotten bad. I have never had this before.

When I went back to eating some cooked food in the evening (healthy not junk) it started to get better immediately and felt so much better.

At first I thought it was the fruit that I was eating but I have since then wondered if it was a detox. BUT it wasn't getting better in fact after a year was worse.

I talked to one expert that felt that I should do a liver cleanse as it was probably a sign of a congested liver.

What do you think? Your post really got me thinking about it.

It's always interesting when a person experiences an entirely new symptom after going raw. When long-stored chemicals are released into the bloodstream and combine with others there, along with natural chemicals in the body, symptoms can manifest in all kinds of crazy and unpredictable ways.

To answer your question properly I'd need to know what you've been doing exactly over the period of time you were presumably improving your diet. If I took a look I'm sure I'd be able to spot the mistakes that might be leading to the problem not clearing up. Fasting would, of course, clear it up the quickest.

Sometimes eating cooked foods takes a symptom away and sometimes it makes it worse. It's a risk to eat cooked foods, take drugs, apply lotions, do so-called liver 'cleanses', consume oils and other harmful substances to try and stop or slow down the symptoms of cleansing, including the exudation of wastes through the skin, which is the cause of psoriasis. However, these things can all be employed if a person gets to such a desperate state that s/he will accept the compromise that they represent for the sake of being symptom-free temporarily. It's important to realize that the compromise is a huge one, because the body will be forced to retain wastes that it would otherwise discard and that threaten to interfere with vital body functions if they are not expelled. In effect, by utilizing these and other remedies, a person is adding to the body's burden so much that it must stop dealing with the old problem and work on the new one. Eating simply or fasting through a symptom is the quickest and most predictably effective way to deal with it.

I'm copying an article about skin conditions below that may help your understanding. I don't agree with the author that skin brushing is a good idea, but other than that it has good information.

Best wishes,
Nora



Article #1: Skin Diseases by William Howard Hay, M.D.

Like diseases of every other sort, those of the skin are traceable to toxic states of the body. The skin, being wholly visible, is merely the covering of the body, and blends with the mucous membranes, lining the exits and entrances to the body, so that these orifices are merely inversions of the skin. Thus the skin is a most valuable index of internal body condition, when we know how to read its appearance.

Of the emunciories whose duty it is to keep the internal body clear of accumulations, the skin stands in importance. It is therefore mighty important that this organ which covers the body and at the same time takes care of certain of the chemical wastes of the body should be kept as healthy as possible, in order to function properly.

It is not enough that the skin be kept clean in the ordinary sense, for no matter if it is washed thoroughly three times every day, scrubbed with a brush, rinsed thoroughly after a soap bath, it is still in far too many cases a dirty skin, because through it is continually passing all sorts of chemical debris from a body that is throwing off poisonous materials, which, if retained, would cause death in five hours or less.

It is the passage of an extraordinary amount of toxic material through the skin that sets up the irritations and inflammations that we have classified and named through these many years of medical study and research. Seldom do the so-called diseases of the skin arise from outside irritations.

As the toxic material accumulates in the body it must have an outlet or we would soon perish, and it is in seeking such an outlet that the body uses all means available, including acute fevers and colds, indigestion and chills, and tonsiliuses and eruptions of the covering membrane, our external organ, the skin.

Without internal congestion due to intoxications there would never be evidences of the condition visible on the skin.

We so often see eczema alternating with such internal conditions as neuritis or rheumatism, or asthma, and while the skin is broken out, the internal condition is not in evidence, but when the skin ceases to throw off the accumulating debris then it again is manifested in the internal condition. It is a realization of this fact that makes the specialist say that eczema and asthma are merely expressions of the same internal conditions, the one manifesting on the skin and the other through the bronchial mucous membrane. This is all that disease is, one thing, a toxic state of the entire body, and such toxic states do find expression through many and varied symptom complexes or syndromes.

If one doubts this, then use the skin as an index of internal conditions, and no matter what the particular skin disease presents, detoxicate the whole body, keep the laws of nature in the matter of nourishment, and bring the lazy colon up to date and keep it there, and observe that every one of the many and varied skin diseases will disappear as readily as will any other condition that we attribute to internal uncleanliness.

It is the fine delicate skins that are the most subject to eruptions, as we have always known, and when the internal condition is brought back to anything like a normal balance the skin will again be as clear and fine as before it was affected, if you are a victim of eczema or psoriasis, two of the commoner forms of skin eruption, you can very easily prove to yourself that what has before been said is all loo true, and that when your internal chemistry is approximately normal so will your skin be. Ichthyosis, or fish skin disease, is a condition of dryness and harshness of the skin that is congenital. The victims of this condition are never handed any encouragement or hope of ultimate recovery, and their health is impaired to the extent to which their skin is deficient in function.

Yet the one case of this condition that has come under direct treatment by this system improved in four weeks to such an extent that normal perspiration was easily obtained through either the hot air bath or exercise, and in six weeks the skin returned to a normal softness and fineness with complete absence of the usual dryness and harshness and continual scaling...

In the nearly thirty years of application of the principles of natural treatment of disease I have seen no case of psoriasis or eczema that did not recover, even though both conditions had failed to improve under the most "scientific" treatment of many prominent skin specialists.

Acne vulgarus is the commonest of the skin blemishes met with, especially in the young, and every case of acne is merely an expression of an internal condition that is all wrong, and means that the lungs, skin, kidneys, and bowels are among them unable to keep the body clear of its own irritating acid debris. Every boil or pimple means the same thing: every carbuncle, eruptions of whatever nature, except the few caused directly by external irritants such as poison ivy or nettles or the bites of various insects or snakes or the application of chemical irritants to the skin.

Skin allergies, by which we mean those very sensitive skins that will break out with a sort of eczema whenever brought into contact with the primrose or other vegetable irritants, are merely evidences of the internal condition of the body that makes these particular pollens irritating to these particular skins, and "allergies" of every sort will disappear when the body is again in proper chemical balance.

This applies also to foods, arid if certain foods are "allergic" today, it does not follow that the same food will disagree next year, even though the so-called "allergy" has been life-long. ...In every case these "allergies" will disappear when the wrong body chemistry has been corrected, and the food that was formerly "allergic" may then become the favorite food and agree better than other common foods that had been the chief items of daily use.

If you have had years of eczema or psoriasis, you can correct the skin irritation in a few weeks or a very few months by detoxicating the body, and with such correction of the dietary habit as will stop the excessive, formation of these irritating acid end products of digestion and metabolism. But when the whole manifestation is fully corrected, this does not mean that your skin will become as resistant as that of someone who has been born with a strong organ instead of a weak one, and it does mean that if you again let yourself get far out of chemical balance you may expect a similar manifestation, for your skin is your weakest organ and its resistance will break down first.

Women consider the skin chiefly from the standpoint of cosmetics, yet mention a woman's skin and its relation to health and you excite her interest almost immediately. The sallow and dry skin lacks the normal elasticity that smooths out all wrinkles. The skin has so much to do with health that next to breathing pure air our second duty in keeping right inside revolves about the function of the skin. Julius Caesar attributed the health of his very efficient army to the fact that every man had to sweat at least once every day. To keep the skin active it should be given the advantage of one real sweat every day, not artificially induced sweating, but the sort that comes from sufficient activity to compel free sweating.

When the pores are thus opened, it gives opportunity for the skin to unload freely the chemical waste matter that is carried in every body, the result of its combustion of fuels, the death of its cells, and the metabolism of food materials taken in every day.

These all produce waste matter of great diversity, and those chemicals that cannot pass out through lungs, kidneys, or bowels must be taken care of by the skin. To accomplish this fully this organ must have the proper cleanliness and exercise, through activity sufficient to produce sweating, aided very materially by a brisk brushing with a bristle skin brush.