Where’s the off button on this thing?

When my middle daughter was very young, she began to develop eczema on her skin, on the usual places to begin with, the creases of the elbows and behind the knees. Around this time she was learning to walk, beginning to speak and was full of beans! She had never slept well, not once through the night and she seemed to have a never ending supply of energy. We used to say she was the Duracell powered child. As she grew a little more, her skin became worse and it was really distressing her, she also reacted to certain foods as we discovered when she had a slice of cake with some icing at a little tea party one day. Weals appeared on her wrists and she became even more agitated than usual. 

As a Mum I could see the connection between her skin condition and her emotions. When she was upset about something, her skin would then flare up and she seemed to be stuck in a vicious circle. She would become hot, red, her skin would burn and would be even worse after a bath, she was on fire! At the age of the terrible two’s (in her case more like 18 months) this was difficult to stop. We had already changed her milk and were looking at what she was eating closely. She was developing her sense of what she wanted and did not want and was attempting to make her point of view heard by the big people around her, in a fairly demonstrative way. She was testing the boundaries at a very young age. I’m sure the older generation in our family thought she was a right handful, but we were getting along with it as best we could.

One day when I was at the doctors with her and we were discussing her skin, again, and being offered more steroid creams and a bandaging regime, I told him that her moods altered with her skin flare ups and that I wasn’t sure which came first, the moods, or the skin, and that she was stuck in this never ending cycle. The doctor told me that that was a ridiculous notion and that body and mind were not connected. Well! What could I say? I knew differently. My own upbringing had taught me that the mind and body are very much connected and influence one another to a great extent. So I left that office and decided that I would not be taking her back there as it was not helping and there was no listening or understanding. 

What seemed like weeks later, a new clinic appeared close to where we were living called a homeopathic clinic. I was intrigued, I didn’t think that I had heard of homeopathy before and so I decided to go and have a look. It was a really inviting shop with healthy skin care ranges, so it was the perfect reason to go in and chat to the people there. Long story short, I booked an appointment with the homeopath there and began treatment for my daughter. I did not really understand the process at the time but I got one basic message and that was that the medicines I had been using were suppressing the skin condition and pushing it deeper into the body. Not only that, they were only addressing the symptoms and not even considering the root cause of the problem…why it was happening in the first place, what was out of balance in her little body. That was a new concept I had not really considered until then. It was a true eureka moment for me!

Over the following few months I learned lot about how the body works, and heals and soon enough, her skin was clear and her moods were stable. It was an incredible turn around. There was no more need for treatment, no dependency on creams, she was completely clear and free of the discomfort. Of course the treatment did not change her personality and she is still full of beans today, however she no longer throws her toys at my head and screams like a wailing banshee (well not often anyway… she is 22 now!). Her skin has remained clear ever since.

This is what propelled me into becoming a homeopath and I continue to learn every day. Each person who comes to see me is an individual with their own story and their own dis-ease and I am so happy for them that they have discovered a new way to truly heal themselves naturally.

I thought I would share this short testimonial with you to end this blog:

'Pompholyx or Dyshidrotic Eczema affects hands and feet. It causes small, intensely itchy blisters on the edges of fingers, toes, palms and soles of feet. As the blisters dry, they can cause skin cracks and make the skin thick and spongy.

Even writing this makes me feel anxious- I suffered (a word chosen carefully and without exaggeration) with pompholyx throughout my childhood, from the age of about 6 until my mid-twenties. 

At times I couldn’t walk. At times I couldn’t move my hands without every crease splitting and bleeding. I lost jobs in my late teens because of the look of my hands.

The bleeding and pain were nothing though in comparison to the itching. The itching that kept me awake, that I would scratch till it bled as the pain was preferable. This was despite numerous doctors, skin specialist, nurses and repeated hospital visits, creams, ointments, foot soaks, bandages, sleeping with cream filled carrier bags on my feet and gloves on my hands. All that modern medicine could and would offer was a rotating list of steroid creams, ultimately thinning the skin on my hands and feet but not curing the condition. Attempting to manage the symptoms whilst not addressing the why!

It wasn’t until in my early twenties that by chance I was living in a flat above a shop where a Homeopathic Clinic was due to open. I can honestly say, for my skin and wellbeing, crossing the threshold of that clinic was life changing. I think that is an overused and under appreciated phrase, but after around 15 years of extreme eczema, the relief that homeopathy brought was overwhelming.

It was not a quick process, but with each session changes occurred, remedies changes, and I changed. With each session and change in symptoms, the layers of the illness were peeled away. After 15 years of pain and embarrassment regarding my skin, my eczema was firmly on the mend. 

Other than the few and far between flare ups, where I had a ‘top up’ consultation, I have now been clear of eczema for over twenty years, for which Polly has been my Homeopath for all but one! 

I am incredibly lucky to have continued access to a fantastic homeopath over the twenty plus years.

My understanding of the intricacies and the minutiae of reasons why one remedy is chosen over another is fascinating, it never fails to amaze me how few people are lucky enough to experience the individualised healthcare that homeopathy brings. We are not all the same . Each illness or disease affects every person in a wholly unique way, why shouldn’t our healthcare?

Thank goodness for Homeopathy.’