How I Healed My Chronic Eczema Without Steroids or Prescriptions
Photo by Jean Giroux on Unsplash
I’ve been obsessed with water for a while now. Waterfall meditations, infusing water with herbs and, most obsessively, using it as a way of immersing myself in minerals and sea salt.
I had noticed my chronic eczema always cleared up on holiday. I assumed this was to do with relaxation and stress release. It didn’t occur to me it might be to do with the mineral rich water I was swimming in every day.
Back in my new mum days I was at the end of my tether because my chronic eczema was flaring up again, and on it’s way to covering both my arms. People thought I’d been burnt. The steroid creams from my GP seemed to be doing more harm than good.
Every big event in my life to that point had been marked by an eczema flare, GCSE exams, A levels. Even happy events, I remember holding my breath as my best friend and maid of honour carefully applied body foundation all over my scarred arms, trying not to get any brown liquid on my white wedding dress. The birth of my children brought more eczema patches and scarred skin.
In desperation I turned to Google and in my search I found a blog by a medical doctor who also works as a naturopath, Doctor Carolyn Dean. Dr Dean was extolling the virtues of magnesium for everything from skin problems to diabetes and heart issues. Her book The Magnesium Miracle, which I downloaded immediately, listed almost medical condition I could think of as a possible result of a magnesium deficiency.
Dr Dean said that eczema was often the result of a magnesium deficiency and suggested transdermal magnesium, when active ingredients are delivered through the skin. Her advice was simple and economical, have a strong magnesium bath or foot soak three or four times each week or use a magnesium spray mixed with a body cream.
Photo by Curtis Adams
I bought a couple of bags of magnesium flakes from my local chemist, threw some into a hot bath and almost cried with relief. One, yes, one, bath and my skin had calmed down and softened. Two weeks and my lifelong eczema was pretty much gone. Better still, problems I didn’t even know were linked to a magnesium deficiency were disappearing. Magnesium is responsible for carrying all the other nutrients around the body so it’s no wonder.
Medical doctors receive very little training in nutrition and supplementation and they can’t prescribe what they don’t know about, but the few that are aware are shouting loudly about how so many conditions they prescribe medication for could simply be treated with magnesium.
Apparently, a conservative estimate is that at least half of us are deficient. Unless you eat a diet similar to the Japanese, high in seaweed and dark leafy greens, the chances are you are probably one of them.
Doctors usually order blood tests to check magnesium levels but a magnesium deficiency isn’t likely to show up in these tests because the vast majority of it is stored in our bones and tissue. In fact when we are most deficient our bodies take the little we have and put it into our blood so that it can be circulated. This means blood tests can actually be misleading. There are other ways to test that involve checking the bones but this is more invasive and involved and isn’t commonly available.
Magnesium carries other nutrients around the body and is involved in over four hundred enzyme functions, so if you have been feeling run down why not try a magnesium bath a few times a week and see how you feel?
Photo by Lisa from Pexels
There are such a range of magnesium pills available that adding a supplement to your regime might seem a straightforward way of topping up your levels. The problem with this though is that most oral supplements are less than 50% absorbable with the rest going down the pan, literally, and taxing your kidneys on the way. Dr Dean has produced an oral liquid supplement that is 100% absorbable on a cellular level but otherwise she advises transdermal magnesium therapy ie using a magnesium spray or putting magnesium flakes in the bath as it absorbs well through the skin. If you have a beach holiday coming up make the most of swimming in the mineral rich sea, otherwise you can find magnesium flakes at a health food shop or chemist. Many supermarkets stock it too. Look for magnesium chloride rather than Epsom Salts which is magnesium sulphite and is still helpful but doesn’t absorb quite as well.
Remember to eat a magnesium rich diet too. Unfortunately, though diet alone won’t suffice because our soil is so depleted it is difficult to get sufficient magnesium through food. Dark chocolate is one of the highest dietary sources of magnesium, pumpkin seeds, seaweed and leafy greens are also rich sources.
It’s been over ten years now since I took that first magnesium bath, ten years of life’s ups and downs. I’m now on the roller coaster that is perimenopause but my eczema has stayed away. I haven’t had a single flare up or itchy patch return. I don’t religiously have three magnesium baths each week anymore, but I’ll have one at least, and if I’m feeling run down, I’ll up it to two or three. I’ve spread the word over the years and so many people have also experienced their eczema or their children’s skin clearing up just with transdermal magnesium. If someone had told me at the beginning of my health journey that the path to health would involve swimming in the sea, hot baths and chocolate I would have been so much happier to embark.
