Diet taboos for eczema

There is no 100% universal list of dietary taboos for eczema. The core principle of all taboos is to "avoid foods that you are personally intolerant to." The high-risk foods that have been clinically and clinically verified by a large number of patients and need to be prioritized for investigation are mainly concentrated in the three categories of high histamines, allergenic high-protein foods, and highly irritating foods. Do not follow the trend and cut off all so-called "fat foods" in one fell swoop. On the contrary, it is easy to weaken immunity and make eczema heal more slowly.

I previously followed up a 12-year-old patient. The parents heard from relatives that he should avoid eggs and milk for eczema, so they forced the child to stop eating eggs and milk for half a year. As a result, the eczema did not improve. During the physical examination, he was 3 centimeters shorter than children of the same age, and he was also deficient in vitamin D. Later, I did a food intolerance test and discovered that his real triggers were mango and wheat gluten. Eggs and milk were no problem at all. After two months of returning to a normal diet, he regained 1 centimeter in height and the frequency of eczema attacks was reduced by more than half.

Regarding the dietary taboos for eczema, the judgment logic of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine is actually different. There is no need to argue about who is right and who is wrong. Traditional Chinese medicine often mentions "hair-producing foods", such as seafood, beef and mutton, leeks, and lychees. The essence of these foods is that they are warm and dry and can easily induce inflammatory stress reactions in the skin. Many patients will indeed aggravate itching and erythema after eating them, which has real clinical reference significance. ； Modern evidence-based medicine is more inclined to make quantitative judgments. Either it is an IgE/IgG positive food detected in an allergen test, or it is a food that significantly worsens eczema within 24 to 72 hours after you eat it. As long as it does not test positive and there are no abnormal reactions after eating it, you can eat it even if it is on everyone's taboo list.

Among them, high-histamine foods are the most easily ignored triggers. Many people say that they suddenly broke out in rash after eating nothing. When you think about it, did you eat two-day-old cooked crayfish the day before, or drank half a glass of red wine at a dinner party with friends, or even ate two pieces of fermented bean curd with white porridge for breakfast? Histamine itself is one of the core inflammatory mediators that induces skin itching and blood vessel dilation. Especially for patients in the acute stage of eczema, the histamine receptors in their skin are much more active than ordinary people. At this time, eating high histamine foods is basically equivalent to pouring gasoline on a smoking fire. Of course, there are exceptions. I have seen many patients with stable chronic eczema who can drink homemade yogurt every day without any problems. In the final analysis, it all depends on your personal tolerance.

Speaking of the most familiar high-protein foods that are allergenic, many people first stop eating all seafood when they get eczema. In fact, it is really unnecessary. If you have been eating shrimps and crabs since you were a child, you will be fine. When you suffer from eczema, you will not feel the itching worse after eating it. There is no need to eat it. On the contrary, high-quality protein can help you repair the damaged skin barrier and heal faster. But if the corners of your mouth turn red every time you eat mango, or if you get wheals immediately after taking two bites of cashew nuts, then you should stay away from such foods regardless of whether you have eczema or not.

I have also seen extremely extreme patients who gave up soy sauce and vinegar in order to cure eczema, and ate white rice and boiled vegetables every day. Their faces turned sallow, but the eczema still recurred. After a checkup, I found out that his eczema had nothing to do with his diet. He was allergic to dust mites at home. He changed his mite remover, dried his quilt every week, and applied ointment, and he was almost healed in half a month.

There are also highly irritating foods that don’t need to be generalized. A patient from Chongqing asked me if I could still eat hot pot if I had eczema. I asked her directly, after eating it, do you feel so itchy that you can't sleep for half the night? If you can't bear even a mildly spicy meal, you must endure it for two months first. If you don't have any reaction after eating it, you won't be disappointed if you eat it once in a while. After all, capsaicin will accelerate blood circulation and aggravate the redness, swelling and itching of inflammatory areas. Everyone's tolerance is far different. You can't ask all Sichuan and Chongqing friends to just switch to eating boiled vegetables if they have eczema, right?

Oh, by the way, I would like to remind everyone that taboos are always only an auxiliary means of regulating eczema, not a treatment. If the itching becomes unbearable, go to a dermatologist to prescribe medication first. Don't just rely on oral prescriptions to treat the disease.

To put it bluntly, the dietary taboos for eczema are really not that mysterious. You might as well take a small notebook and jot it down. Every time your eczema worsens after eating something, and it occurs two or three times in a row, then avoid it temporarily for 3 to 6 months, and then try a small amount. If there is no reaction, you can eat normally. After all, eating well and drinking well to keep your immunity up is the key to getting better quickly.