What is Eczema?

Eczema is a skin condition that usually affects people who suffer from allergies. It is usually treated with corticosteroids and it often becomes a lifelong problem. I suffered from eczema as a child and teenager. I was treated for allergies with desensitizing injections. What a racket! If you want to be a doctor but you do not really want to practice medicine, then get into the desensitizing shot business. It really did not help me. I know if you have an immediate (IgE) type allergy it might help, but most of those patients are so heavily pharmaceutically treated that you don't what does or does not work. Most people who suffer from eczema have IgG4 or Delayed hypersensitivity type allergies, not IgE. I have treated eczema successfully for years in my practice. Initially I used the Elimination Diet to clean up the patients food supply because food can be a big factor in eczema. Then I learned Chinese medicine and started using acupuncture, Chinese herbs, Chinese dietary therapy and moxibustion. I had and continue to have great success in treating eczema this way. Moxibustion is the application of near infra-red to the skin by burning the herb artemesia or wormwood either in loose dried form or in a compact stick form. The herb prepared this way is called moxa. The moxa sticks are held approximately 1/2 inch away from the skin and used to heat an affected area. It increases blood circulation to the skin and that fits in nicely with the Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) explanation of eczema. In TCM, eczema is a condition where there is not enough blood to nourish the skin, so your therapies are meant to encourage blood circulation to the affected area.

Recently I have started using low-ph water sprayed upon the affected area.There is a handheld device used medically in Japan that is available here in the states. It works quicker and better than the TCM treatments and often works even though the patient does not make any dietary changes. To me it is almost cheating...smile.

The Principles of Naturopathic Medicine

The Healing Power of Nature Vis Medicatrix NaturaeNature acts powerfully through healing mechanisms in the body and mind to maintain and restore health. Naturopathic Physicians work to restore and support these inherent systems when they have broken down, by using methods, medicines and techniques that are in harmony with natural processes.

First Do No Harm Primum Non NocereNaturopathic Physicians prefer non-invasive treatments which minimize the risks of harmful side effects. They are trained to know which patients they can treat safely and which ones they need to refer to other health care practitioners.

Find the Cause Tolle CausamEvery illness has an underlying cause, often in aspects of the lifestyle, diet or habits of the individual. A Naturopathic Physician is trained to find and remove the underlying cause of a disease.

Treat the Whole Person.Health or disease comes from a complex interaction of physical, emotional, dietary, genetic, environmental, lifestyle and other factors. Naturopathic Physicians treat the whole person, taking these factors into account.

Preventive MedicineThe naturopathic approach to health care can prevent minor illnesses from developing into more serious or chronic degenerative diseases. Patients are taught the principles with which to live a healthy life and, by following these principles, they can prevent major illnesses.

WellnessEstablishing and maintaining optimum health and balance. Wellness is a state of being healthy, characterized by positive emotion, thought and action. Wellness is inherent in everyone, no matter what dis-ease(s) are being experienced. If wellness is really recognized and experienced by an individual, it will more quickly heal a given dis-ease than direct treatment of the dis-ease alone.

Doctor as Teacher DocereThe original meaning of the word "doctor" is teacher. A principle objective of naturopathic medicine is to educate the patient and emphasize self-responsibility for health. Naturopathic Physicians also recognize and employ the therapeutic potential of the doctor-patient relationship.

I am a Naturopathic Physician

I am a naturopathic physician. A Naturopathic doctor is someone who has made the comittment to train in medicine and use their knowledge to help people relieve their pain and suffering. The education a naturopath receives is essentially the same as an MD. There are six major schools of Naturopathic medicine in the North American continent. Naturopathic docttors have a different basic philosophy than do the MD's and Osteopathic doctors. This philospohy is called the Principles of Naturopathic Medicine. I will list them in a later entry. This philsohical difference might not seem to be important but it makes a significant difference in the way a patient is treated. You try as aNaturopathic Doctor to find the root cause of a person's illness versus just trying to make the symptoms go away. If you make one symptom disappear, the root cause will show up somewhere else. You had eczema and used cortisone to make it disppear, then you come down with ulcerative colitis later that year. The root cause has to be dealt with to prevent disease.
Unfortunately there are many people who view the rise of natural medicine over the last 30 years to be like a land rush to become a healer or a doctor without having to get into to school, take pre-med classes, struggle through school for 4-5 years, stay up late at night, dissect cadavers, do your residency, and take your exams to get your license. Did I forget to mention going into six figure debt? These people think they can slide in the back door by taking correspondence courses, weekend seminars, or become writers and therefore experts. They feel that if they are popular with the public then they are validated and their lack of comittment or medical knowledge is immaterial. A more insidious side of these people is their passive/aggressive attitude towards anyone with knowledge including Naturopaths, MDs, Osteopaths and Acupuncturists. The writers are the worst offenders in my view. They rely on trained professionals for their material, they need our research, writings and opinions but when trained professionals try to write about health we are tolerated to a degree but often kept out of the media club. These people who try to sneak into the profession are hoping to get grandfathered once the government wakes up. Lay practitoners are the Naturopathic Doctors biggest opponent to state licensure because every time the states look at licensure they accept the Naturopathic doctors credentials but exclude the lay practitioners.
You Need the patience of Christ or Buddha to put up with it everyday.

We have lost the concept of the comittment to being a healer

I learned the concept of comittment while attending Bastyr University in Seattle as a med student. It was while I was exploring spirituality in healing that I ran into a man named Goodhorse Nation. I was introduced to him by a wonderful doctor named Steven Hall. Steve and I would drive down to West Lynn,Oregon for Lakota sweat lodges and to learn about Lakota spirituality. While learning from Goddhorse I saw that he was not so much concerned with who you were or how much you knew, but he was more interested in your level of comittment. By level of comittment I mean how passionate were you towards learning how to help your fellow Man/Woman? How much were you willing to sacrifice? How much did you suffer? and when you did suffer, did it break you or make you stronger? In other words, were you a poor sufferer or a spiritual one? When you were not suffering did you enjoy life or take on new uneeded suffering?
In this country today there are many people who want to be doctors, or healers. They want to be knowledgeable persons whom others turn to in times of need , but they do not want to make a comittment to learning on a knowledge or spiritual basis what it takes to truly be one that can help people in need. They end up trying to behealers without studying physiology, Biochemistry pathology or the other healing sciences. They make up their own physiology and science. They end up taking up peoples time and money while they try to reinvent the wheel of healing. Do not get me wrong, I am up for original thinking and innovation but it is hard to be an innovator when you do not have the basic knowledge necessary to actually think in a beneficial way. I work with editors in the health industry who think they are knowledgeable about health and that they are experts in natural health, but they are minus the comittment and it is very frustrating to see them stifle creative medical people who are trying to teach the public how to stay healthy and instead turn to freelance writiers who know nothing about health and end up writing articles about subjects they do not even understand. The writers often end up quoting doctors who studied long and hard and went into debt to learn their trade.