Greening My Insides #5

The Green Your Insides Challenge is about greening your home, and paying attention to what you put on your body, in your body, and around your body.






What caused my dermatitis?
For nearly 20 years I have believed chemicals were the cause. The dermatitis began under my wedding ring while I was working in a take away food shop, and then crept over my fingers, across my hands and up my arms. My duties at work included preparing foods for the day (slicing lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cold meats, etc. for sandwiches & hamburgers), serving customers during the lunch rush, then cleaning the shop and kitchen. Saturday was the day I cleaned our house from top to toe.... and Sundays was family day.
I did all the cleaning at the shop and at home without gloves, so it's easy to assume the chemicals in the various cleansers were the initial cause…. and other things irritate it.

What irritates my dermatitis?
Friction - doing housework, driving the car, gardening, etc.
Heat - hot weather, driving into the sun, exercise.
Various things I come in contact with, often unknown.
The juice from vegetables makes my hands itchy if I don't wear gloves while slicing, dicing, etc.

What triggers a major breakout?
Most the time I can’t pinpoint the cause of a breakout, but on a couple of occasions the offender has been obvious.
A certain brand of shampoo/conditioner caused the worst reaction I’ve had (see Greening My Insides #1). Their advert says “it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen”…. believe me, it happened overnight! Within 30 minutes my face was itching and by the next morning a stranger was looking back at me from the mirror!
Touching lettuce triggers a breakout that lasts around two weeks. I discovered this a few years back when I was preparing a salad and forgot to put gloves on while I shredded the lettuce. Usually eating lettuce doesn’t cause a problem, but recently I prepared what I thought was a healthy lunch... shredded lettuce, grated carrot & beetroot fresh from my veggie patch, grated cheese, sliced boiled egg and ham. Within 30 minutes I felt a burning sensation in my top lip, which was followed by peeling for the next two weeks.

Last week I was thinking about my reaction to lettuce so I went to Google and typed - lettuce dermatitis – into the search box. I found an interesting article at DermNetnz.org which said - Lettuce is an occasional cause of allergic contact dermatitis particularly in food handlers, chefs and market gardeners. It tends to cause hand dermatitis, which spreads up the forearms.

My mind went racing back to the first chore of the day at work.... slicing a full box of lettuce.
Is the humble lettuce the cause of my dermatitis?
I will never be certain what the initial cause was, but it was food for thought, so I printed the page and put it in my handbag.

During my visit to the naturopath last week I read out what I had learned about lettuce while he was giving me the low level laser therapy. I asked his opinion on RAST blood tests and prick tests for allergies. He informed me he could test me with Kinesiology Allergy Tests. He felt he could eliminate many things to reduce the amount of testing via conventional methods if I wanted to follow up further. He tested me for lettuce, carrot & beetroot that day to show me how it worked. I reacted to the lettuce, but not to the other two.

During my visit yesterday we did more testing, and will continue to work our way through a few more during each of my future appointments. I am only going once a week now so this could be a slow process.

So far I have the following lists....

OK LIST
Food: beetroot, carrots, cashews, rice, rye, seafood, soya
Environment: flower pollen, grass, mould

OK BUT AVOIDING LIST
Avoiding for now because I am on a cleansing diet, or the food is acidy.
chocolate, strawberries

AVOID LIST
Food: lettuce, sweet potato, wheat
Environment: parasites

Lettuce was obvious, and I suspected wheat, so no surprises there.
Sweet potato was a shock, and to think I was about to start eating more of it!
"Parasites! Do you mean fleas and things like that?" I asked.
"No" says the naturopath "The ones in your body"

Ok, they're curable so I can deal with that.... but now I keep imagining big fat juicy worms and other nasty parasites crawling around inside me!
There's no point worming one person in the family so look out hubby, teen son, dog and cat, you're all about to get a dose of worm medication :-)

I researched the symptoms of parasite infestation and was suprised to see Skin Conditions listed when I read Classic Symptoms of Parasitic Infections . According to this site intestinal worms can cause hives, rashes, weeping eczema, and other allergic-type skin reactions. Cutaneous ulcers, swellings and sores, popular lesions, and itchy dermatitis can all result from protozoan invasion.
Further reading informed me that parasites can infect virtually every part of the human body including the abdomen, blood, buttocks, chest, diaphragm, digestive tract, respiratory tract, feet, hands, genitals, liver, muscles, skin and upper arms..... and humans can play host to over 100 kinds of parasites.... oh my goodness, big fat juicy ones, long skinny slimy ones, itsy bitsy fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Do You KNOW WHAT'S INSIDE You? is also an interesting read.

Ok, I have learned more about parasites than I have ever wanted to know!
Be diligent people.... worm your family and animals regularly.

--
BevB