If you have followed my blog in the past 2 years, you would have at some point or another read about our battle against allergies, mostly in the form of eczema rashes and the failure and success we have had with various creams, treatments and diets. Some of us also battle with congested nasal passages.
It is still an on-going battle. Sometimes we win. sometimes we lose, and it is a frustrating issue. And yes, we have been praying daily for complete and total victory. And before you recommend one more product to us, please read, Another one bites the dust.
Just before our family vacation, Anna, the 5 year old had a sudden flare on her usual spots plus her face and even eyelids! It was weird. The only thing I could think of as triggering the flare was the bout of common cold that hit her before the break. I know that every time our immune system is hit, the flares come on fast and furious. So that could be it, coupled with me falling sick shortly after which resulted in everyone eating more takeaways than home cooked, from scratch food. But these are only guesses.
Anyway, it was bad and she was back to screaming and crying whenever she had to shower. It was heartbreaking. Even with a strictly controlled diet her skin remained red, raw, itchy and painful. Her usual go-to antihistamine, Zyrtec, also chose to stop working for her at that point. So I was concerned over how she would feel and react when we went for our family vacation at Club Med as that meant there would be lots of time spent in the water. And water, be it chlorinated or seawater, on broken and inflammed skin is PAINFUL! So we prayed and just left it.
On the first day at the beach she didn’t scream but she complained that it hurt and itched when the seawater touched her skin and when sand clung and irritated her wet skin. Everyone told me that seawater was good for eczema skin. Sorry but pfft! It was not – for us! More about that later.
I quickly brought her to the pool and she said it didn’t sting or hurt except in the beginning. Very quickly she was happily playing in the pool water. This pattern continued the next 3 days. In other words, she spent 3 whole days in the sun, soaking in the chlorinated pool. She would have nothing to do with the sea.
We did not control her diet. She ate bread, pancakes, waffles, noodles, ice creams besides the meats that I insisted she had to have. I think she ate enough grains to make up for the past 2 years of grain deprivation! Lol!
The first two days her skin was red and rashy. By the third day, a lot of dead skin had peeled or flaked off and her skin looked a lot better than it had a for a long while. She was no more or less itchy than back in Singapore. It just makes me wonder : what was it that is helping her skin? Was it spending the whole day outdoors in the sun? Soaking in the pool, albeit filled with chlorinated water? The much reduced city pollutants? What???? Or perhaps the combination of the reduction in air pollution + spending time in the sun and pool mitigated the junk food we were eating???
When we returned to Singapore her skin went back to being red, painful, itchy and it started to flake off again. Sigh. So we are back on a “clean” diet of no grains, no refined sugars and no dairy. Eating mostly meats, vegetables, limited fruits and nuts.
Weird, huh? Goes against all I had believed about eating “clean”. Makes me just wanna go out and eat all the junk food out there! Lol!
Oh! About the soaking in seawater claim? It’s like the claim that gargling with saltwater will heal a sore throat. It works for some but usually doesn’t work for most. It merely resulted in my skin being red, dry and slightly swollen! And it’s not just me. The 7 year old also had a similar reaction. Thankfully, hers was not swollen. And the stinging feeling? Did NOT go away even after soaking for 30 minutes. Soaking in the chlorinated water however, seems to help a lot more.
What to make of it? I have NO idea! Just glad that the Lord allowed us to have a fabulous time eating and playing.