Another great post from itchylittleworld.com – Natural remedies for eczema to soothe your itchy little world..
Last week, we received a truly incredible story from Renee, a long-time sufferer of eczema with a chronic allergic reaction to latex. She thought she had been avoiding latex for years, but discovered she’d unknowingly been exposing her body to latex in two hidden ways. Her story is quite shocking! See for yourself.
“I’m 60 years old. When I worked in an OB/GYN lab in my 20s, there were no nitrile gloves, only rubber. I became allergic to latex and so learned to stay away from rubber products, even supposedly latex-free elastics, and bromeliads (cross reactive with latex). In my early 40s I began to have joint pain and skin rashes. The joint pain was so bad. There were nights where I had to stop on the way to the restroom and just breathe, to try to let the pain ease a bit, before continuing on. Eventually, my breathing became an issue as well and I was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease and exercise-induced asthma. The joint pains were never definitively diagnosed and I went on the usual merry-go-round of diagnoses, e.g. lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. But then suddenly, in my early 50s, the problems disappeared. The joint pain left, the breathing was no longer a problem, and my skin improved. I didn’t understand why, but I was so grateful.
In my late 50s, my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor. 2016 was full of stress and sadness. My skin problems returned with a vengeance and I found I could not eat many foods that were rich in hevein and its cousins. Hevein is the protein responsible for latex allergy. If I ate coconut, palm oil, nuts, etc, the eczema patches flared and oozed. The itching was non-stop, in spite of a daily regimen of antihistamines. It was torture. Everyone said “Stress!” and I thought it was as well, until the symptoms got even worse after my husband passed. I was only able to eat 17 things and realized I had graduated to a full latex food allergy. Any other food made my eczema and itching flare. There were patches of infected skin all over my body.
A few weeks after the funeral, I had a molar pulled. The oral surgeon showed it to me, saying yes, there had been a hairline fracture just like a previous molar he had pulled when I was in my 50s. The tooth that he showed me had pink stuff in the root canals and I asked what it was. He said, “Oh, it’s a resin from a tree called gutta percha. It’s used to fill in the empty canals after the tooth’s roots are removed in a root canal job.” I looked at that gummy resin and asked if it might be related to the rubber tree? The oral surgeon suddenly looked really shaken and went to his computer. Sure enough, gutta percha is related to the rubber tree. I was being poisoned by my own tooth? Incredible.
So looking back, my first autoimmunity started after my first root canal and resolved after the tooth was pulled, and now my second bout of autoimmunity started after the second root canal and would resolve just as quickly? Sure enough, by that evening my inflamed skin and itching were about 1/2 of what they had been. But even so, my eczema did not fully resolve and I was not able to add any foods back. I thought okay there must be something else inside of me that is overstimulating my immune system. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected a trans-urethral mesh, the “Sparc sling” that had been put in during my hysterectomy in 2004. It’s the one you see on late-night TV, with lawyers asking if you’d like to join a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturers. I had also suffered some of the symptoms they said on TV but it was the suspected autoimmunity that bothered me the most.
So on October 9th of this year, during abdominal surgery, the surgeon removed the mesh. She was able to get it out totally, fortunately. The rest of my skin began to clear on the operating table – seriously. The head OR nurse had been watching the eczema patches on my arm and chest because of the fear of my reactivity to their tapes, adhesives, etc. Those things, especially the “inert ingredients” are all partially sourced from coconut and palm oils, and they were concerned of anaphylaxis. Since I had told them that the patches would flare bright red if I were reacting to something, they were using those patches as their ‘canary in the mine shaft’. After they wheeled me into PACU and I came out of anesthesia, the head nurse said, “Mrs. McMurray, look at your arm!” It was totally clear.
The next day, a hospital official came to my room and asked to see the arm and my chest. Both were totally clear. Then the surgeon sent her Nurse Practitioner the day after that – it was still clear. Everyone said the same thing – that in all of their years of working on patients, they had never seen an allergic reaction, especially something as tenacious as eczema, clear so quickly.
I am home now, three weeks later, and am a little bit red. No eczema, but just a tinge of redness and a small amount of itching. This is due to the corset I must wear. Try as I might, I can’t stop the elastic bits from touching my skin. But let’s put this in perspective – when that mesh and gutta percha were in my body, elastic sent me into absolute misery. My skin would become red and weepy. The sores itched like crazy, usually for 24 hours per day. At night I’d wake up in respiratory distress because the swelling would reach my neck. I slept with a rescue kit. A little bit of redness and mild itching is nothing. I am so, so happy. I have to wear this corset for two more weeks and then I can take it off for good. Then, after a few months, maybe I will start to experiment with slowly adding foods back.
I feel like I have a future now. Frankly, when I was in the middle of the misery, I could not see me lasting 30 more years like that. I did not want to live with that misery. Life is good. There is hope.”
Today, Renee’s skin is clear and healthy. She’s working every day to introduce foods back into her diet, but still experiences hives here and there from negative reactions. Although a nuisance, as she states, they are in no way as intolerable as her chronic eczema was. She also does not need to take as many antihistamines as she used to. By sharing her story, Renee hopes that she can help someone else suffering from a latex allergy.
For ideas to soothe your skin, start here for eczema relief!
Do you suffer from eczema as an allergic reaction to latex? We want to hear from you in the comments below!
One Woman’s Incredible Story of a Chronic Allergic Reaction to Latex appeared first on itchylittleworld.com. Come read more about natural remedies for eczema!
Jasper very clearly had dry skin since birth which was treated with olive oil as advised by health professionals. It wasn’t until around two months old that I noticed the coin sized patches were not going away, even after he moved on to stronger medications. 
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Starting school introduced a whole new batch of issues for Jasper and I believe the biggest one was how his eczema affected him emotionally. Children pointed and stared for a while, but I taught my son to explain that it was eczema and as children do, their minds moved on. The adults in the playground were a different story, with one man declaring in front of Jasper and I that his skin looked like road rash.
7 months after starting detergent removal, I was invited on a snowshoeing trip in the mountains. The trip was in an area in which I used to cross-country ski frequently a number of years ago, and so my body was generally familiar with the terrain, conditions and weather. Back when I was cross-country skiing regularly, I was exceptionally fit and this seemed to also help mitigate the asthma, raising the threshold of physical exertion before wheezing. However, I always got asthma while skiing, and I always had to stop and take a puff or two of my short-acting inhaler, typically within 5 minutes of starting to cross-country ski, and often again later on in my 4-6 hour workout. At the time of the snowshoeing trip, I had every reason to expect to be wheezy. Not only had I become relatively out of shape, but at this point I hadn’t taken any inhalers for at least 6 months.
I brought my inhaler along just in case, but I was really curious to see whether I’d be asthmatic or not. After the initial steps, getting into the groove, I listened to my body, tentatively, half expecting to need my inhaler. No wheezing, not too much tightness in the chest. So far so good. I kept on. And on. And on. 2.5 hours into the trip, I suddenly realized, that despite climbing up and down a canyon, breaking through undisturbed snow at times, and talking while walking, I hadn’t needed my inhaler.
At the point of my no-asthma discovery, everyone on the trip was tired, but I had lots of energy because I was so excited! I wanted to try to “incite” the asthma by pushing myself to the limits of physical exertion. I didn’t think I would have many other chances to “test” the condition of my asthma. I nearly ran up a 90 foot incline to the top of a dam, so fast that it was a few minutes before anyone else in our party caught up to me after I stopped. I experienced no wheezing! I could not remember the last time I exercised hard, started breathing hard, and did not feel the familiar tightening of my chest and wheezing coming on. I was elated!