Ray Of Hope... I Hope

I have a serious qualm with doctors these days. I used to be so naive to anything medicinal. If a doctor told me to take this, I would; if he said this was happening because of this, I believed him. Not so much anymore. I go to the doctor's office with my game face on. When they start talking about this or that I sit quietly and nod, all the while thinking, "Yup. Uh-huh. Suuuure." When they prescribe me something, I've often just left the prescription paper on my kitchen table or I'll research it first and see what the hidden side effects are.

I've come a long way in my quest for true health. I'm so intrigued with the human anatomy, especially women's bodies and hormones and why things happen the way they do. I blindly started taking birth control pills a few months before I got married, only to find out a year later about the negative things associated with them that my doctor failed to mention to me. Since then, I've read SO many books and learned so much about myself that I've come to fully trust my own body and am still learning to listen to it when it's trying to tell me something.

Needless to say, I'm not impressed with Western Medicine these days and how everything is treated as a medical issue (especially childbirth, but that's not what I want to get into today.)

I took my daughter to a Naturopath today in hopes of finally curing her eczema, or at least making it a little bit better. We started taking my daughter to the doctor for her skin when she was less than 6 months old. She's had eczema pretty much since she was born. Since that first visit to the clinic, she's seen about 5 or 6 different doctors, including a, supposedly, very reputable dermatologist. Some just glanced at her skin and said to use Aveeno lotion. Yeah, what a joke. The rest prescribed her a 2.5% Hydro Cortisone cream, in the teeniest little bottle. Did they not see that her eczema covers her ENTIRE body??? That one little container of cream would last a week or 2, if we used it as much as they wanted us to. Every once in a while we even have to use a Fucidin cream that has antibiotics in it because her skin will get so inflamed and infected. (Is your heart breaking with mine yet?)

So, at 2:00pm today we arrived at the Naturopath's office and went through the general first time visitor info and tour. When we get in to meet the Naturopath I'm instantly at ease. She was genuine and had seen this kind of case before and was encouraging and confident that she could help us.

Here's the best part... When I told her all the creams that we were putting on Cheyenne she looked a little stunned. She couldn't believe that these doctors had been prescribing so much hydro cortisone cream, especially such a strong dosage! Then she tells me this- "Did you know that Hydro Cortisone cream stunts developmental growth in children?" WHAT?? No, I did NOT know that! She said that she's had some patients that bring their children in when they're about 8 years old or so to treat their kid for eczema for the first time and their parents mention that their child is lagging developmentally. Apparently, if you ask a neurologist about it, he'll confirm that this cream does indeed stunt developmental growth.

Of all the doctors we've seen and that have prescribed this cream to us, how is it that NOT ONE of them has had the decency to mention this fact? Not ONE! I am quite upset about this. And thankful that I went to see this Naturopath when I did.

Anyway, she went on to explain the cause of eczema (which not even the dermatologist did for us, aside from saying that it's usually genetic and is more likely to show up if the child's parents have allergies or asthma). So, what happens is that there's toxins in the baby's body, under their skin, that needs to get out so it comes out of the skin and causes the irritation and dryness. Yeah, I never knew that. But, she also said that it has a lot to do with the mom. She made sure I knew that she wasn't trying to say it was my fault or anything, she was really good about that. The thing is, we have toxins in our bodies and when you're pregnant your body knows that this foreign object will only be around for 9 months and then it'll leave your body. So your body throws all the extra toxins it's trying to get rid of into your baby so that the baby will take the toxins out of your body when it enters the world.

So, the Naturopath said that we can avoid our next child having eczema. Sweet! How?? Well, this would require a Detox on my part, pre-conception. Yes, eczema is genetic but apparently you can turn off that gene switch by clearing your body of toxins. I would have to take some liver herbs or something and go to their infrared sauna to rid my body of these toxins. That sounds do-able, I thought. Not cheap, but do-able. So I asked how long this detox would take. That's the downside. It would take way longer than I'd like. That puts me in a bit of a predicament. I could stop the detox if I got pregnant before it was over, but it wouldn't be long enough to fully rid myself of all the toxins. I just don't want to feel guilty if I get pregnant before the detox was done, and then my next baby gets eczema too.

Anyway, after about 25 minutes with the Naturopath, a bag full of drops and creams for Cheyenne, and a crap load of money on my MasterCard, we have a ray of hope. The drops she gave us are to help get rid of the toxins in Cheyenne's body. If this doesn't work I will cry. I would give anything to take this eczema from my daughter and give it to myself if it meant that she wouldn't have to suffer from it anymore.

Wow, that was long. But I wanted to get that out, even if just for me to look back on one day and remember what we went through to try to heal Cheyenne. If you, or someone you know, have had a baby with eczema, how did you deal with it?

Thanks for reading! Hope you're having a great week!