My Story: Healing a Child with Eczema and Allergies

This story is the one that belongs to my daughter and I. I first wrote the article that became the basis for this blog post back in March 2012 when she was exactly one year old to share with other parents who are wanting to heal their children's allergies and associated symptoms from the inside out, but were being told - just like I was - that it just isn't possible. That all you can do is wait it out and hope for the best.

It was originally centered around my decision to remain breastfeeding her but I've added on more over the years. Many people asked why I would choose to this when there were 'easier' options so no, this process wasn't easy but I’m not sure anything truly worthwhile ever is.

Our girl was born in the autumn of 2011. We were both kiwis who had been living in Australia a few years, after many hours of labour that resulted in an emergency caesarean. On her second night, the night nurse at the Mater very clearly frustrated at my regular bell-ringing to attend to my crying baby since I couldn't get up to get her myself, gruffly suggested I give her formula to help her sleep since my milk hadn't yet come in. I told her I wanted to exclusively breastfeed for six months but after a while - exhausted, sore, vulnerable and not wanting to be too much bother – I tentatively gave my reluctant permission. The nurse showed me how to use a bottle, she hungrily guzzled 10mls of formula then promptly fell asleep. The next morning I gave her another 5mls, and then my milk came in so for the rest of our stay, nursing was encouraged to establish supply and help her jaundice clear.

After we bought her home, I realised how committed I was to breastfeeding. I loved watching her grow. While it wasn't straightforward, it took me ages to get the hang of latching and positioning her, and my right side hurt for several weeks, I persevered and grew more confident.

My husband and I noticed that her skin was very dry, especially on her torso and face. My midwife told me this was normal as her skin adjusted to being outside the womb. I tried different creams but nothing made a difference. Our daughter was alert and happy, and sleeping well so we didn't question it and waited for her to grow out of it. Except she didn’t. Her skin became even more dry, and then the areas on her cheeks started to crust and weep, and the creases behind her knees and elbows grew moist and red.

When she was four months old, we moved back to New Zealand and I took her to a Plunket clinic (New Zealand's largest mainstream provider of support for the development, health and well being of children under 5) to be weighed as it felt like she hadn’t grown very much. A month later I weighed her again and no change. The Plunket nurse was concerned and immediately told us to see a doctor. I made an appointment with a local GP who instantly prescribed a stronger steroid cream. I told her I strongly felt it may be a food issue that I read of many stories of children's skin and weight issues related to cow's milk and was firmly told not to be silly – that eczema was just something some babies had and they’ll grow out of it if or when they’re ready but the only thing they would help was steroids. I asked for allergy testing, and was told this was out of the question for one so young and that there was no relationship anyway…

Her words weren’t enough to shake the strong sense that my milk was somehow poisoning her. I listened to her dismiss everything I wanted because she was apparently the expert, and became upset. I was just trying to help my daughter, while she made me feel guilty for not just doing as I was told like a naughty schoolchild who couldn't possibly know my child more than she did. She said whatever I did, not to stop drinking dairy - that we need to for strong bones and that there was no relationship between eczema and diet. Just bad luck. I left the appointment frustrated, and the last words were a reminder she was now overdue for her second vaccinations.

We did her first vaccinations in Australia. I wasn't ecstatic about doing them but the doctors told me that if there was any dangers they wouldn't be allowed, so I proceeded because I was a "good parent" doing what "good parents" do. The day after her second vaccinations in NZ, she had a massive eczema flare which landed us at A&E late at night. Her body was covered in red hot lesions and she was extremely distressed but still the recommendation was for stronger steroid cream. My concerns of a link were instantly dismissed. Not even a second's contemplation. I looked around and realised this system was not going to help me. Not only did nobody make any sense, they only threw scripts at me when I was desperately asking for more.

I no longer got comments from strangers on how beautiful my daughter was. I was however the recipient of unsolicited advice about which magic cream to try next. Looking back at the few photos I took, I see a large head on a small frame, skinny legs and arms, swollen lymph nodes, cradle cap and weeping eczema on her cheeks. At a time other babies chubby legs and arms were being cooed over, I got comments like "wow, that looks painful the poor thing."

I wanted to get her tested for allergies so I asked friends if they knew of any open-minded GPs who would be compassionate and help me. That's when I came across Dr. Angela Konings. She listened to me, actually listened and cared, and immediately agreed to run the RAST blood tests which would identify and measure the levels of circulating IgE antibodies in my daughter's blood.

Her test results came through on the same day she was weighed for the third time at Plunket showing she was now losing weight. 400 grams. Something was wrong. She had dropped from the 25th to the 3rd percentile within 6 weeks and was deemed Failure to Thrive. The general vibe was now more of panic.

The tests showed that she was severely allergic to dairy, moderately allergic to eggs, peanuts, cats and dogs. A food allergy is when the immune system marks a protein as a threat to the body and activates a range of inflammatory chemicals within the bloodstream to remove it. Reactions can range from skin, respiratory, digestive and for some, anaphylaxis, a potentially fatal systemic shutdown of the body if not treated immediately with adrenaline but generally the medical system dismisses any relationship to chronic pathologies like eczema or asthma.

We paid to consult urgently with a private allergy specialist and very expensive. He wanted me to stop breastfeeding, to just accept the best thing would be to put her on the hypoallergenic formula Neocate to bring her weight up quickly. I didn’t like that idea, to which he said that I was likely in the 1% of women who just couldn’t produce sufficient quality breast milk. I said her nappies were fine, that the allergy test results clearly showed an issue that I was happy to remove those foods from my diet. He asked if my daughter was exclusively breastfed and I told him about her 15mls of formula in hospital - then he told me he had seen a pattern with his young eczema patients. I looked a little incredulous by now. He was telling me to put her on formula to help her, but also indicating formula was why we were now sitting in his office. I still didn't know much about eczema and allergies but I knew this didn't make sense.

He suggested that we consult with the allergy dietitian at his office that same day, so we did. Again I sat there while she heavily pushed hypoallergenic formula onto me, this time Elecare telling me I needed to get my daughter “hooked” on it and to add golden syrup to make it more palatable. She gave me a sponsored free chiller bag and a free tin to try, and told me this focus on using diet to heal was a fad. Her dietary plan was centered around processed allergy friendly foods. I couldn't believe that I was paying money for this. I stated I wanted to keep breastfeeding my baby for as long as possible, and that I could look at re-establishing breastfeeding later if I really wanted to (as though this is a very simple 'click your fingers' process) but that we just needed to get my daughter’s weight up first.

There was so much pressure and I began to crack. I left their clinic rooms that day with an agreement. I had two weeks to try it 'my way', and if by the end of the fortnight, my daughter hadn’t put on 700 grams, I would wean her completely onto Neocate.

Immediately I cut out her allergens from my diet and spent hours on the internet researching eczema and allergies while she napped reading everything I could to understand them so I could then focus on how to resolve them. Before I had my daughter, I had led a marketing and communications team. I didn't have a marketing degree or even a management one, I'd worked my way there from being a 17 year old receptionist because so I knew I could be resilient, hyper focused and committed to learning new concepts and problem solving when I was motivated to, and helping my daughter was the biggest motivation of my life. I decided that as well as eliminating her known allergies from my diet, I was also going to remove other foods known for being common irritants to reduce the risk my daughter would become sensitised to those also. Emails were sent to grandparents and I did what many allergy mums could relate to - I became preoccupied by the fear that food would harm my precious baby.

I started to read about gut healing and it sounded wonderful, but also extremely overwhelming. I now understood the theory behind it - how the gut was related to not just skin but also immunity and other systems and it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Except that the idea of eating fermented cabbage sounded disgusting, so I put it to the side as I got my head around the whole "living with allergies" thing. Because improvement from giving up dairy, gluten, nuts and eggs was not immediate, I got scared and decided to do what everyone had been telling me – give her Neocate top-ups but keep breastfeeding as well Everyone seemed relieved that I was finally listening instead of being stubborn, and she hungrily drank the bottles. My husband supported me no matter waht but was also enjoying having the opportunity to feed her too. I began to relax a little, this was the best of both worlds.

Over the next six weeks I started giving her more and more formula until she was up to three bottles a day. Our breastfeeds became quicker and shorter, but what happened next would change everything. I gave her a bottle of Neocate one morning, and she immediately developed hives on her forehead. Neocate is a hypoallergenic formula, it's very reason for existing is that children with cow's milk protein allergies can drink it safely. It was her first experience with hives, and would be her last bottle of Neocate. That experience triggered what I really had been looking for - a valid reason to dedicate myself to the only thing that actually made sense. She was 7.5 months old and I decided to go all in to try to heal her eczema and allergies from the inside out. My supply had decreased a lot so I replaced Neocate with bottles of with mineral-rich free range chicken broth for her to sip on while also nursing as much as possible as well as introducing solids. No Farex or rusks for us, my daughter's first meals were organic beef mince cooked in broth with broccoli and a few strands of sauerkraut.

I removed other foods known to contribute to gut and skin irritation even though she wasn't allergic (like wheat) but I also knew that I couldn't just take out foods, I'd also have to focus on how to maximise our nutrition on a restricted diet and that food, as important as it is, is still just one element. It wasn’t always easy but I loved the feeling of being proactive, especially as we were now seeing great results. Her skin was clearing, she was putting on weight, she loved to eat and she looked so well. My gut healing plan also included a number of different adjustments and supports outside of diet to help calm and support her immune system. We began to see the cumulative effects as an obvious transformation began to take place in front of our eyes. I saw the dietitian one more time but chose not to continue as I didn't see the value in paying to argue with someone whose advice was considerably out of alignment with my own. Instead of my old life of eating whatever I wanted without much thought, I now spent all my spare time researching skin health, gut health and the immune system between shopping for and preparing food.

Gut healing with allergies was a huge commitment. My cravings came secondary to her needs. A lot of people at that time were heavily focused on GAPS but I had issues with it for allergies and the high histamine content and I'm really glad that instead of following a set protocol, because I've seen since then over and over how it can keep people stuck for years.  I'd seen a few naturopaths but felt they were just throwing supplements at me, rather than educating me what was going on.

While we made clear improvements early on, it took a few months for my daughter’s skin to become super soft and supple, which was all the impetus I needed to keep going especially as I was barely using creams at all.

The reality of raising a child in today’s world where so much of our lives are based around convenience and profit, and the normalisation of eczema/allergies/colic/reflux etc, meant I was constantly trying to explain my choices to others - this was difficult and often lonely. A big part of me was angry I received little support from the medical system but also recognising my own personality - tell me I can't do something and I'll want you to show I can. I met some incredibly knowledgeable people along the way whose input and support I’ll be forever grateful for, and those who inadvertently taught me the importance of standing in my own truth.

By now my daughter was no longer failing to thrive. She was very obviously thriving. Her allergist knew I had stopped using Neocate and reserved his opinion other than to remind me there was no scientific research to show dietary interventions or gut health had any impact on allergies. At our last appointment a few months later, her extremely rapid allergy resolution, something he'd only seen once before in his decades of practice, resulted in his encouragement I should just keep doing what I was doing - so I did. Other than being referred to the pubic hospital outpatient system for testing, we were doing this on our own. At one years old, my daughter reached the 50th percentile in both height and weight. All her allergy scores had dropped by around 80% and she was eczema free.

At two years of age, her peanut RAST was at zero (the first food allergy to resolve), her egg RAST was almost at zero and she passed a baked egg challenge. Her cow's milk allergy score, originally the highest at 100+ had dropped by 90%. I weaned my daughter at 2.5 years old, a beautiful experience that ended naturally with no resistance, and I am grateful I fought for breastfeeding her as long as we did. I know of many babies who truly need hypoallergenic formula, but for us it wasn’t the right direction.

At three years of age, she was eating eggs and her dairy score was almost zero. We introduced butter after passing a baked milk challenge but refusing the push to put her on normal milk as we had zero interest in introducing that yet - an informed choice to help her gut continue to heal and flourish. Interestingly, she tested positive via Skin Prick Testing to both salmon and cashews around this time - we knew that salmon sometimes caused her issues with minor hives around her mouth sometimes after eating - something I now realise was a histamine sensitivity.

At four years of age, she was thriving with beautiful skin and sparkly eyes. The best news was that she had resolved all of her allergies. While still dairy free other than butter, gluten free, mostly grain free (other than white rice), junk free (as in no additives/preservatives/colours/flavours/HFCS), her first few years in building a strong nutrition and lifestyle foundation inspired my #raisedonrealfood philosophy. Eating out became so much easier as paleo cafes were all the rage then. Her favourite foods included sauerkraut, kombucha, organic chicken, avocado, and fruit. She loved her treats, especially chocolate. Deprived she was not. At this age, she knew she ate differently but didn't seem to mind, as long as when the other children were having something special, she got her own exciting alternative. Our friends were amazing and inclusive. At five, she was a happy wee healthy spark with a lot of energy and was well able to articulate thoughts on food and health and take on these concepts with ease. She still ate mostly the same way, loving her peanuts, almonds and cashews but definitely began to develop a sweet tooth. Starting school was interesting as she began to notice her food often looked different to others, preferring to not eat much at school but having a decent breakfast, after school snack and dinner. We also introduced cheese, raw milk and the odd ice-cream.

At nine years old, she tried McDonalds for the first time and wasn't impressed. I really wanted her to help her learn how to navigate her own relationship with food now we were no longer in active gut healing or maintenance. The goal was now to help her find balance through experimentation and observation. At ten we introduced gluten, although for a few more years I remained gluten free as I felt better that way.

At fourteen years old, she still has not been back to the doctors since being a baby diagnosed with eczema and allergies, for the simple reason there has not been any reason to. She has a great head on her shoulders and good relationship with food, knowing how to listen to her body Her mood, energy, sleep, digestion and skin are wonderful. For a period a few years back there was probably a little too many lollies and chips but once the excitement wore of, she reverted back to her nutrient dense foundation. She occasionally gets a bit sneezy around cats and chlorine pools. While the days of her asking for seconds of cod liver oil are long gone, she still loves drinking the chicken broth she has grown up with. A jar of sauerkraut is not safe in our fridge, she can demolish half easy. She googled me not long ago, and read this article - it was strange to her to see it written given she knows everything we did to help her, but to her this is just normal. She loves natural skin care from rosewater spray to emu oil, but to her it's fun and not a necessity.

I strongly believe that healing her allergies and eczema, especially as fast as we did, was not a coincidence. That once you start understand what's happening you can take strategic action - it's just knowing where to start and how all the dots connect. I know first hand watching your baby itch and be miserable is not a great space to be in, and the the best way to counter the fear and helplessness and sometimes also guilt, was to become empowered and educated. One of the weirdest things I experienced was after she began to heal, instead of being cheered on by my allergy coffee group we were shunned. The person who ran the group told me I was doing it wrong and my food looked terrible. I'll never forget how upset I was when I turned up at a morning tea, and nobody would even speak to us. It can be hard to find people who understand. So when my daughter was still only one, I decided to create an own online community where members could learn about and support each other through learning about the holistic approach to skin and gut health without being told how crazy they were. The Healing Tribe now has over 41,000 members from around the world.

In 2013, I studied and graduated as a Integrative Nutrition Health Coach with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition before launching my Raised on Real Food clinic. It's now been over 12 years working with families and individuals both in New Zealand and worldwide to provide tailored root-cause strategies for eczema, allergies, sensitivities and gut issues so they can stop chasing symptoms and reverse them instead. While I work across a wide range of skin and gut-related symptoms for all ages and stages and have even worked with nurses, doctors, athletes and naturopaths to support them, I have a special interest in pediatric eczema and gut health because I know first hand how overwhelming it can feel but also how the right foundational strategies can make a huge difference, not just now but for years to come. It's a topic very close to my heart. My daughter's diagnosis took me on an incredible journey. Through our journey I was driven to help my daughter find freedom and healing, and it's a privilege to help others do the same. Gut healing is now far more well known but now it's almost too overwhelming especially with the onslaught of contradictory information and magic promises/sprays leaving people more confused than ever before. I empower families to take control through their day to day choices and identify meaningful and sustainable adjustments while building a strong wellness foundation. This removes some of the guesswork, allowing them to better focus their energy, budget and time. ​While dealing with some of these challenges can feel very overwhelming, they are also incredible opportunities to live healthier and happier lives. Thank you for reading our story, and please know that if you're in that scared, hopeless and overwhelmed place right now, so was I once upon a time. It just takes a first step, but know many of us have taken those steps already. You are not alone in wanting to do things differently. Thanks for reading our story.

Love xx Maryana