The Eczema Diet: Discover How to Stop and Prevent The Itch of Eczema Through Diet and Nutrition Paperback – August 1, 2013

I thought I'd write a review for this book, seeing as how there weren't a lot of clear, concise reviews on it. I'm a female in late thirties, who suddenly developed a case of eczema on my ankles 4 months ago. It progressively got worse, eventually spreading to my feet, calves, neck, face and scalp. I was miserable!! I am not the type of person to suffer in silence or to just sit back and accept my fate. So of course my first line of defense was to visit my dermatologist, who of course prescribed topical steroid (the strongest you can get, I'll add)..needless to say I was concerned. I knew the steroids were only going to be a "band aid" and I wanted to figure out the root cause of this! I found it very odd that I just woke up this way one day, well into my adult life. I'd never had eczema as a child, and no known allergies. Although bad skin and seasonal allergies do run in my family, with both parents. I was determined to solve this problem! I went crazy perusing the internet for hours on end, I visited 2 more dermatologists who both told me the same thing.."no one really knows the cause, it's chronic, you'll have it for the rest of your life. Food bears no influence on it, eat whatever you want." And of course..prescribed more steroids. Which I did not take. I then started spending 100's of dollars on various ointments, creams, shampoos and soaps. I covered myself in Aquaphor at night, and hated the sticky feeling, getting all of my clothes stained. I tried bleach baths and wet wraps. Although these things gave me temporary relief, and it would seem to get better, a couple of days later without fail it would always come back with a vengeance! During this whole time I'd been seeing things online about diet and eczema..and I always brushed it off as some "hippie dippie" propaganda. Not to mention I LOVE food and I was adamantly refusing to even entertain the notion of eliminating certain things from my diet. A couple of reasons for this were 1: I'm a very petite woman to begin with at only about 105lbs, I was very scared to reduce my diet and risk losing weight. 2: I felt I already ate fairly well to begin with. I NEVER ate fast food, haven't drank soda in a few years, tried to limit red meat most times and made sure to eat tons of fruit everyday! So I had the attitude of "I already eat well compared to most people, and there's nothing a special diet will do for me!" and I kept eating my normal foods..and I kept itching...then it turned into headaches everyday, on top of the itching. That's when I said "enough is enough" and went down the one last avenue I had been refusing to go down. I ordered this book with a VERY skeptical attitude toward it. But I was sooo surprised! It turns out I was eating a lot of the wrong foods everyday! Even though a lot of those foods are very nutritious, such as spinach, avacado, berries and almonds, they are loaded with a natural chemical called "salicylates" which some people can develop a sensitivity over time. I said to myself "pish posh, I don't have a salicylate senstivity! I've been eating these same foods for years and never had a skin issue!" But low and behold, the moment I cut all of those things out and followed the diet and recipes in this book, I stopped itching and had no headaches within 2 days!!! I am now on the 7th day of this diet and I have to say I am very impressed and grateful! I have not itched in almost a week, and my skin is clearing up before my eyes. I know a lot of people say this diet plan is strict. And it definitely is...don't get me wrong I am certainly craving a giant burger right now or a huge piece of chocolate cake, haha, but the fact that I'm not itching is so much more important to me right now. And she says in the book quite clearly that you can alter her diet to suit your own nutritional situation. For example, for adults w/ eczema she recommends a "3 day cleanse" before the diet where you essentially drink nothing but veggie broth for 3 days straight. She advised that children and pregnant women skip this part. I feel I'm the size of a large child anyway, lol, and couldn't risk losing weight, so I skipped that 3 day cleanse and just went right into the diet. Also, a side note, she has 2 different diet/menu plans for adults and children. I borrowed a lot of the menu ideas from the kid's menu...such as oatmeal w/ bananas (which I'd already been eating anyway), and incorporated a lot of the "adult" meals at dinner time. What I love about this book are the recipes and daily menu plans. She lays the menu plans out in a calendar format so you can get a very clear idea of what you need to buy at the grocery store, and different meals to fill your day, so you're not starving at all. In fact I've tried a few new things that I never thought I'd like. Such as carob powder (replacement for chocolate) and rice milk (turns out it's quite tasty!)...also I've made several of her recipes (pear muffins, chickpea casserole, roasted chicken) and even my fiance had second helpings. So they're not completely bland and tasteless meals. Of course it's a very mild diet in the way that you're cutting out about 95% sugar, gluten (there are a ton of delicious gluten free breads on the market these days though and they're allowed in this diet), cow's milk/cheese. The main thing it taught me was the level of salicylates in different fruits/vegetables. Once I cut out those specific foods, I have not had a headache, or itched for close to one week. I am VERY hopeful at this point! This is the ONLY thing that has worked for me thus far!! And she even says that it does not mean we can never eat these "normal" foods again. She mentioned typically within 8 weeks you've given your liver enough of a chance to rest and heal and at that point you can slowly introduce your old foods again..and in a few months you should be at the point where you're eating a full "normal" diet. I went into this diet kicking and screaming and I have completely changed my viewpoint. I feel physically better in general. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is suffering with itchy skin right now!! It will be worth it!Update: May 2nd, 2016....This book includes raw, unsalted cashews into its diet plan. I absolutely loved this because I've always been a huge fan of almonds, cashews, pistachios, etc and I was thrilled to learn I could still snack on nuts for a quick fix. During the month and a half of doing this diet my eczema did get a lot better...but never went away totally. Finally, a week ago, I went back to the food diary I'd given up on a few weeks ago and decided to re-read it, per my doctor's instruction. I was starting to get really cranky being on this restricted diet and watching my rash get better, then worse, then better again :( After reading the food diary again I realized there was one constant throughout my entire diet...and that was I'd been eating some various form of nut through the whole thing. I also noticed that every time I ate nuts, I recorded that was very itchy a day or two later. Why I never made the correlation I have no idea. But within 5 days of quitting all nuts cold turkey, the rash started rapidly fading!! It has now been 7 days and it is about 95% gone. I only wish I would've known this 6 months ago when the whole nightmare began!! This diet book is based upon a low salicylate diet...which is great..if you're sensitive to salicylates. I think maybe I was a tad bit, because my itching went from about a 10 down to a 1 or 2 on this diet. However, it never completely went away and every night the irritating itch (although not nearly as intense as before) would come back to haunt me....like I said, she includes raw cashews in her diet plan. Not her fault, as she does mention (unless you have a nut sensitivity)..turns out I did and I just didn't know it. I am about 95% better after not eating nuts...I realize everyone is different. What this diet plan did for me though was to narrow my choices of foods down so much that it helped me pick out the culprit that much easier. Since I had already cut out so many other things like dairy, wheat, most fruits, almonds, peanuts, caffeine, alcohol, etc...it wasn't that hard to pin down the thing that could be making my eczema worse. It was simply a matter of cutting out 1 more food..which I have to say was extremely difficult given my love of cashews..but I am very happy to see the eczema so rapidly going away!! I will attempt to add nuts back into my diet in a few months and see what happens. I will provide another update at that time. Good luck everyone!!

Packed with USEFUL information that was so helpful in resolving so many of my eczema problems. I have suffered from severe atopic dermatitis ALL my life. Karen Fischer's "Eczema Diet" book has changed my life. Sadly; the medical professionals were always treating the symptoms with drugs and topical steroid creams which did not get to the root of the problem. Being lethally allergic to nuts and seafood since birth it was a no brainer to check for food allergies and we did. I'm an identical twin and the doctor actually told my mother not to feed both babies the same thing, so if one baby died of an allergic reaction she'd still have the other one! Skin prick and blood test's picked up countless allergies, but NO ONE mentioned CHEMICAL SENSITIVITIES particularly to SALICYLATES until Karen Fischer! Outlining what foods have high contents and should initially be avoided until the liver can keep up to detoxifying the body. Then flares can be avoided while the body heals. She also tells you how to reduce blood Histamine levels and how to detox your liver. So KEY if you want to get eczema under control. At one point 95 percent of my body was covered. When my son died unexpectedly and my husband was diagnosed with a rare terminal disease my stress level went off the chain. STRESS exacerbates eczema. Karen offers information on what to AVOID as well as what to eat. She covers SUPPLEMENTS needed as well as a list of foods that are healthy and eczema friendly. She gives recipes and shares first hand advice that worked for her. I'm so grateful for her Extensive research and knowledge. I'm going to order additional copies of this book and send them to my loved ones who also suffer. Praise the Lord and thank you Jesus for Karen Fischer's book!She also covers acid versus alkaline foods very well, and so much better then other book I bought.

I would like to say I have been struggling with eczema my whole life, and most recently (the past year) it went from just my elbows, to over my whole body. Dr's did nothing but prescribe stronger and stronger corticosteroids, they don't ever try to pinpoint the "why" which is very frustrating. I didn't even bother with the stronger corticosteroids, due to the effects. I tried this book as the last hope and after a few weeks, my eczema stopped itching, flaring up, and eventually started clearing up. I'M SO THANKFUL FOR THIS BOOK! There were SO MANY POTENTIAL TRIGGERS THAT I HAD NO CLUE ABOUT! I think identifying triggers that I would've never otherwise realized is the biggest take-away for me. There are a lot more things besides gluten and diary that can cause eczema flare-ups. I personally realized that most of what I'm drinking (coffee, tea, kombucha, wine) was actually contributing greatly to my flare-ups, as I drank two out of three of those things every day before 11am and probably all 4 by 7pm. While I have eased a little on the diet as I'm dealing with the stress of Corona & quarantine, I still cook the soup regularly and have integrated many of the fruits and vitamins that it recommends into my everyday life. My eczema rarely flares up now and if it does it's directly related to something I'm eating or drinking. I am not 100% eczema free just yet and my skin is still healing, but this book gave me hope that one day I will be. (NO I didn't get paid for this review; just a life-time eczema sufferer that is happy for some relief).