What Your Skin Reveals

Skin is so revealing!

Our skin is the largest organ of the body, performing multiple tasks. Skin:

• Protects us from our environment
• Regulates our body temperature
• Warns of etanger
• Prevents infection
• Senses the world around us
• Reveals what is going on inside our bodies

When I was in medical school we had a dermatology class by a professor in his 80s, Dr. Newcomer. He was hilarious. He would never touch the skin of the patients. Instead, he would have them show him what their rash or skin lesion looked like. He would often say, “Yuck-a-roo! You’ve got a rash there!” He would then turn to us and give us the diagnosis of what kind of rash. Whether it was eczema, seborrhea, psoriasis, or urticaria, he told us the symptoms of each skin condition.

But these skin rash names and symptoms did not denote the cause. Thus, we were only taught how to treat the symptoms of skin problems. Over the years, I have found that the skin reveals what is going on inside the body. Using the old system of diagnosing symptoms wasn’t helpful to find the cause, nor to relieve the condition.

One man, John Kortum, who is not a doctor or practitioner, has written a book in which he describes how he can diagnose internal illness simply by looking at the face. He can tell by the texture of the skin in certain locations on the face if a person has thyroid, adrenal, cancer, or other problems.

There may be no end to using the skin for diagnosis, but it’s not easy. The specific skin lesions may reveal that something is wrong, but do not tell us what specifically. We still need to dig to find the underlying cause of the illness.

The skin tells us there is a problem, but doesn’t say what is causing it because it is only one symptom. All symptoms do is tell us that there is a problem. If you have pain, then something is wrong. The pain may tell you where, but not what the problem is. Likewise a rash, or other skin lesion, may indicate that there is a problem, but not what or where the problem is.

Flush Food Sensitivities and Relieve Rosacea

I find food sensitivities to be a common cause of skin problems. One skin ailment I frequently see is rosacea, an inflammation in the skin of the face that causes:

• Pimples
• Enlargement of blood vessels
• And sometimes a bulbous tip of the nose

Dermatologists recommend antibiotics or anti-inflammatories in pills, creams, or gels to try to relieve the symptoms. However, I find that going to the source is much more helpful to prevent permanent skin damage.

Rosacea seems to stem from poorly digested proteins in the digestive tract. Click to Tweet.

The cause may be a lack of acid in the stomach to open-up proteins so the enzymes can break them down, or even a lack of enzymes themselves. We can test for stomach acid and enzymes, but an easy way to treat rosacea without having to test is to take Betaine HCL with pepsin and trypsin. This is an acid and enzyme supplement to aid the digestion.

We have people take one capsule with every meal, increasing by one with each meal until they get burning in the stomach. Then they go back to the previous level, taking that many with meals until the problems clears up. This will usually be around 4 capsules with every meal.

The long-term treatment for rosacea is to fast periodically for one to four days. Some need a monthly fast, others need a weekly fast. One patient of mine does very well on a weekly one-day fast. She eats a regular dinner on Sunday evening, drinks only water on Monday, and then eats a regular breakfast on Tuesday morning. This keeps her stomach and pancreas working well. I have others who fast for two days with water only once a month. Fasting resets the stomach, allowing it to produce acid and enzymes in a normal manner.

What Foods to Avoid When You Suffer From Psoriasis

Food sensitivities can cause other skin problems as well. Arturo was a young man barely out of high school. His parents brought him to me because he had been suffering with psoriasis for several years. He had been to multiple dermatologists, all of whom gave him skin creams that lessened some of the rash. But if he stopped using the creams, psoriasis would all return. He had red patches with white scale all over his hands, arms and upper body. He was embarrassed to be in public, especially in contact with others, because people would be afraid he was contagious. He felt like an outcast.

The first thing we tried was an elimination diet, which severely restricts what he could eat. We limited him to bone broth soup and green vegetables. Over the next four weeks the skin lesions cleared-up so we began adding in foods one at a time. When he got to milk products, the rash returned the next day. No other food seemed to affect his rash so we took him off of all milk products with good results. No more lesions showed-up and his skin healed nicely.

He did fine for several months until he was at a friend’s house where they were eating pizza. He was hungry, and there was nothing else to eat so he had a slice. The next day, the psoriasis lesions began to return. His parents brought him into the office for my advice. After a few questions, we discovered his dietary indiscretion and discussed the need to be absolutely dairy-free. It was a good lesson for him.

Skin Can Show First Signs of Some Cancers

Sometimes the skin can reveal an internal cancer. Maria came to me with a rash on her hand, across the back of her left thumb. It was annoying her, and she had been living with it for over a year. She had used all kinds of cortisone skin creams, gels, and fungal creams, none of which helped to remove it. I have noticed that these kinds of rashes on the hands most often come from the intestines so we did a bowel cleanse and an elimination diet. Over time, this seemed to help a little, but it didn’t go away.

She mentioned the rash to her acupuncturist, who told her that this location indicated a problem in the colon, and she should have a colonoscopy. She was hesitant at first because she was young and had no bowel symptoms. Finally, we were able to get the procedure and an early colon cancer was found. After surgery to remove the cancer, the rash on her hand went away and never returned.

We are more susceptible to cancers when we have inflammation in the body, including skin cancer. My client David had skin lesion on his nose, which a biopsy revealed to be a basal cell carcinoma – a common skin cancer. The dermatologist told him he needed to have it removed, but David wasn’t interested in having surgery on his face.

He knew that this type of cancer didn’t spread anywhere else, that it just spread locally so he could watch and see if it was getting worse or better. He looked into other options and decided to change his diet. He chose a low-inflammation diet rich in greens, avoiding sugars, starches and grains. He took fish oil, and cod liver oil.

Though he put nothing directly on the skin lesion, over a period of about a year, it cleared-up entirely because of his diet. Click to Tweet.

Skin Can Warn of Genetic Mutations

A young mother brought in Daisy, a beautiful, bright, five-year-old girl who had been suffering with a dry skin dermatitis rash since infancy. All of her skin was covered is a red, scaly, and sometimes weepy rash. She had been to multiple dermatologists each of whom gave her cortisone skin creams of various types. They helped a little, but didn’t make the rash go away. They also affected her adrenal glands, and stunted her growth so Daisy’s mother hated to use them.

Daisy’s mom had tried all sorts of baths, lotions, skin creams, oils and emollients, none of which worked. Daisy was itching constantly so she was taking anti-histamines, which made her drowsy all the time. It was a terrible situation. We did some testing, and found that Daisy had a rare genetic mutation of an enzyme that activated vitamin B6. Taking the vitamin actually made her worse because she couldn’t use it properly. We had to change the entire “methylation pathway” with diet and supplements before the rash cleared, and she became normal. No more rash. No more itching. No creams, lotions, or baths. Her mom said it was like a miracle!

Healing skin problems that have been there for years can be miraculous. Many people can hardly believe that their skin could return to normal with no scaring or marks. The only way I have found to really restore the skin is to find the cause of the problem and remove it. The skin can be an important window to reveal what is going on inside the body.

Healing the body heals the skin. Click to Tweet.

Instead of the standard treatment of symptoms, the benefits of this method are much more than just skin-deep.