On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Kathryn M Przywara wrote:
>
>I know we've hypothesized about this before.  Just out of curiosity, is
>your psoriasis any better now that you are drinking much less milk and
>dairy products?

I've never had psoriasis, but I DID have an extremely bad case of eczema
which did not respond to traditional treatments from a slew of
dermatologists I'd gone to....

I'd finally given up on the idea of ever finding a 'cure', and thought it
was something I'd just have to live with...indeed, it progressed to the
point where my hands where cracked and bleeding, constanly peeling
skin...

At this point I had a medical checkup at an institute devoted to
environmental medicine, which was affiliated with Yale University (it's
no longer in operation, at least for adult patients)...I'd gone for a
general checkup, not just my hands, but the doctor I saw had originally
trained in pediatrics, and knew that eczema was a common allergic
reaction to milk protein...so she put me on a diet completely devoid of
milk protein, plus prescribed a cream for me to use to help my hands
heal...

Well, two weeks later my hands were in the best condition I'd ever
remembered them...but was it the elimination of milk protein, or the
cream doing the trick?  Then I noticed that both my elbows and the soles
of my feet were very soft, much softer than 'usual'...and I wasn't using
the cream on either area, so it seemed as if the elimination of milk
protein WAS what was doing it...

I later noticed that my chronic dandruff problem also disappeared...

After a month, just before I was due to go back to the doctor for a
followup, I was at a friend's house, and we decided to get a pizza...
I'd been really strict in eliminating all cow's milk products from my
diet, and figured "What can one slice of pizza hurt?"

Well, half an hour after eating the one slice, I noticed that I'd started
scratching the back of one hand, almost without thinking (it had become
such a habit before)...and when I looked, sure enough, there were the
telltale little itchy pustules signalling an eczema eruption....

So I've avoided milk protein since then...I still get occasional
eruptions (I must admit to 'cheating' on occasion, but I suspect many
times I'm getting milk via an unknown and not obvious source), but it's
never been as bad as it was before my 'milk allergy' was diagnosed.


June ;-)

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