What are the dangers of diagnosing your own skin problem?
Well, the first one is you may get the wrong diagnosis. You might be trying to link it up to some picture on the Internet or something you saw in a book. And just be off a bit and you might as a result have some condition that gets worse before it has its chance to be taken care of properly.
The second one is that when a dermatologist looks at the skin condition, they think there are a number of different possibilities and it may be one of the possibilities that is lower on the list that you might miss when you’re looking online.
There’s always the possibility that this skin condition might partake of more than one actual diagnosis and may have something in between. Finally, it’s possible that there are underlying problems that are involved that you will miss when you just come across the name of a condition. This is something where somebody who takes a more integrative dermatology or holistic viewpoint can be very helpful.
There are a number of different disorders that occur with the skin, which can be addressed with functional dermatology. For example, some patients with skin that is more stretchy than normal, hyper-elastic has a defect of the elastic tissue that also can involve the elastic tissue in their arteries. So they can even blow out a great vessel, and checking that out properly can be a way to keep an eye on it and prevent the possible rupture of the aorta which leads to immediate death.
So, if you have a condition on your skin, a rash that doesn’t go away, or something that doesn’t quite make sense, get it checked out by a dermatologist to be sure that it’s not something that is telling us about a condition that could be really detrimental to your health–or your life. Consider getting support with functional dermatology.
Paleo has become a real popular diet. How does it relate to natural skincare?
One good thing about a Paleo diet is that it avoids a lot of the kinds of prepared foods and chemicals that bring things into us that our bodies may not be able to deal with.
Another good thing about the Paleo diet is that it tends to be one which avoids grains as there are a number of people who are sensitive to not only gluten, but to a lesser extent whole grains. Avoiding that can be very helpful for those people.
Eating a lot of vegetables is a very healthy thing. For many people having a Paleo diet with meat and vegetables is a healthy way to go. But it’s not the only answer and for each individual there are usually specific sensitivities that also have to be addressed. If simplifying your diet by taking away many of the major aggregators makes a difference, if going Paleo takes the sugar out of your diet and makes a difference that way, you’re going to do better.
But if there are also other allergens, you need to have a closer look at that. Either watch what’s going on once you’ve gone to the Paleo diet and see what else is causing you to react or you need to go further in terms of finding out what your specific sensitivities are that are related to the problems that you’re having.
Hi for some people the wrong diet can cause a lot more than just inflammation of the skin or of the other organs. For those people various substances that come from the food and get out into the system can cause neurological and psychological problems as well. It’s known that one of the end molecules from gluten that is, the component of bread that gives the thickness and stickiness can cause a variety of problems.
And in some people it can even cause psychological and behavioral issues. Besides gluten sensitivity, there are some individuals who are sensitive to a whole variety of different grains. This was pointed out in a few different books by Dr. Allaine Gutshrack who was the one who came with what is called the specific carbohydrate diet. She found that there were some individuals who had to remove all grains from their diet. Not just gluten containing grains in order to get better, in order to have their psychological issues, their ADHD, even their schizophrenia or their autism improved.
So since that time, and she has passed on a few years ago, there have been a number of people who have taken up her specific carbohydrate diet and made various modifications and given it different names, including the GAPS Diet. The Paleo Diet is similar in some ways. And whatever name you call it, removal of grains is important for a certain sub-group of people. Those people have symptoms that have been going on for a long time that may also include inflammatory symptoms as well as the in emotional or neurological condition. And they do very well once an elimination occurs. In some cases they need other things eliminated further such as the GAPS diet. A gluten-free elimination diet is good for some people and other people need to take out other grains as well.
Let’s talk about the sign of too much sugar in your diet. One of them is reaction to the sugar, so you get a boost when you eat the sugar and then you crash shortly afterwards which we call reactive hypoglycemia. Another one is of course pre-diabetes. This is where various changes occurring in your body and reflected in blood test showing elevated blood sugar and also elevated sugars, bound to different molecules in the body.
Now how can you look at that? There is a test called hemoglobin A1C or glycocilated hemoglobin. Now those big words mean that the hemoglobin which is a protein has sugar that stuck on to it, and the blood cells stick around for about 3 months so this gives you a picture of what’s going on in your body over a window of time of 3 months. If there’s too much sugar over that 3 months you’re going to have more of that glycocylated hemoglobin or hemoglobin A1C.
That’s the blood test your doctor can do if they suspect that you may have sugar overload. Now, of course let’s go on other signs: cavities in the teeth can be a sign of sugar overload. Also, various kinds of reaction, after you eat sugar–craving of sugar can be a sign of repeated cycle of too much sugar, with the crash requiring more and more afterwards. And finally if you get so fat that your arm can’t reach out and touch the refrigerator door to get more that’s a sign of too much sugar.
I’ve spoken about sugar in the past and so you probably wondering what kind of sugar substitutes I would recommend. Well for people who don’t have diabetes or problems in that direction but want to cut back on their sugar and use something else as a sugar substitute or sweetener. I have another suggestion, and that is to consider using ribose. Ribose is a sugar that’s part of the molecule of information that makes up our genetic material. Ribonucleic acid and the sugar in ribonucleic acid is ribose.
Ribose seems to be a very useful product for people who have issues with the heart. It’s one of the different ingredients that can be very helpful for the heart, so it’s one thing to use on occasion. On the other side of the argument for ribose, is it’s a very sticky sugar. So for people who have problems with too much sugar and too much stickiness in their bodies and their cells and their molecules too much glycation, I would not use huge amount of ribose. But keep it in mind it’s something that supportive of the heart and also sweetens your food.
I also like stevia, monkfruit, xylitol, and in small amounts, maple syrup, or honey.
Looking for natural skincare support? Gluten has a number of different activities including as a lectin punching holes in cell membranes and enabling things to get into cells or enabling things to escape from the intestinal track that shouldn’t be escaping. Since it’s so high on the list of likely allergens, it is one of the things that can make a difference in people’s health or having various kinds of manifestations of allergic or unknown conditions.
On the other hand, going gluten-free makes it very difficult to eat in restaurants or to eat anything that you don’t prepare yourself from scratch. If you truly have a gluten sensitivity or you truly are celiac, which is a gluten sensitivity plus certain genetic markers. Then it may also be worth identifying that before you go gluten free because it’s easier to do so while you’re still eating gluten and if you really are a celiac, even a tiny, tiny bit of gluten can set you back significantly and it’s good to know that. So going gluten free is a reasonable experiment to do.
Going gluten-free may be helpful, but it may not be sufficient. Furthermore, there are a number of people who have multiple allergies. Just stopping one thing is not going to make them all better any more than if you’re sitting on three thumbtacks, removing one of them is going to solve all the pain you’re having in your bottom.
Interviewer: What common problems in your holistic dermatology practice that affect people’s health the most and where do you think these were coming from?
Dr. Dattner: It’s interesting, there are a lot of things I call the social disease. We are eating 140 pounds of sugar per person per year in this country. That wasn’t always. We’re exposed to a tremendous number of pesticides of hormone disrupter in the plastics, and chemicals in the things that we put on our face. We are exposed to maybe different ultraviolet light than I was as a boy because of the breaking down of the ozone. There are so many things that are societal. A lot of us watch television on a regular basis so we get less exercise. Our whole way of living has shifted and it’s very different than it was 50 or a100 years ago. And these things all have their cost, and so a lot of what I am doing is just working against those damages. And it’s a social thing, at some point I hope that we begin to look a little bit more carefully at some of these things and say, is there a better way to do these things? Can we make our population healthier, more vibrant, more able to enjoy life more, produce more.
Interviewer: Yeah for sure, I’m on board for that. I mean the introductions of cell phones and computers, we are going in one direction and we are trying to pull in the other direction, where the world is thinking wellness, and the world is thinking, let’s prevent everything. And we come out with all of these things, it’s such a crazy world.
Dr. Dattner: Well it’s true, and we have to constantly be looking to figure out how to do that better.
Interviewer:Yeah, got to get a balance there.
Dr. Dattner: Exactly
Interviewer: Okay doctor, do you have any last comment before we wind up here?
Dr. Dattner: Well I just wanted to remind people about radiant skin from inside out, because even when I see somebody for an hour, it’s hard to tell them everything that I have in a 300 page book. I think this would be very helpful for anybody who is interested in skin problems or inflammation in general. And I hope people will begin to find ways to really lead a healthier lifestyle and be more vibrant. And I think a lot of aging is just accumulation of damage that can be reversed. So change your attitude and take your life in your hands and improve it.
Interviewer:Take charge, that was wonderful, thank you for being on the show.
What Does Inflammation have to Do with My Rash? Best Natural Skincare
If you have an immediate hypersensitivity, you can break out with hives right after having contact with something that you are allergic to even in mints. Poison ivy causes a delayed hypersensitivity and usually takes at least 48 hours before you break out in a full rash of blisters.
Cirrhosis is a very different kind of inflammation, also involved in lymphocytes causing a cascade of events that create a rapid division of the cells and a thickening and scaliness of the cells. Scaliness and itching can occur in atopic dermatitis caused by a variety of factors including inflammation from within.
There are blistering diseases that have very specific targets in the skin such that there appears to be an attack at the attachment points between the cells in the upper level of the skin in the epidermis that get broken and those broken attachments lead to the formation of blisters in the skin, and sometimes in the mucous membranes of the digestive track such as in the mouth and the esophagus.
So there are many different kinds of mechanisms that can lead to many different kinds of inflammatory disorders of the skin. And it’s important to figure out what is going on and how to calm it don and what are the causal factors so that you can keep the disorder from coming back, rather than simply poisoning to stop the reaction.
Stopping the reaction maybe vital for comfort or even for saving life. But we always try to find the safest method for getting skin condition under control, and the best method and safest method to do it for the long run. So identify with the help of an expert the inflammation that is going on, and get their help in getting rid of the causes whether they are direct stimuli, or cross reactive stimuli that are causing the attack on your skin. And that’s the best natural skincare.
