(Part 2) Top products from r/eczema

You need to acquire a kombucha scoby first. You can buy it online or grow one from a bottle. For me, what I did was get a bottle of original GT (the silver and blue bottle, it's unflavored. You must use original/unflavored) and pour everything out into a quart-sized jar. When purchasing, look for a bottle with the most amount of yeast strands inside. They are on the bottom of the bottle. The bigger the clump of strands, the better it is for brewing kombucha. Some people say you cannot brew kombucha with a regular bottle of GT since they changed the formulation a few years ago, but I did in Februrary. I like to think it's because I grabbed the one with the biggest/most yeast strands LOL. When growing the scoby, you can use a smaller cup than a quart-sized jar, but be mindful that the scoby will grow on the top so if you use a small cup, the scoby will be small. I kept it on the counter, covered with a tightly-woven cloth and rubber band for until it grew about 1/4" thick. Here's a video in case anyone is more visual

You will need a 1 gallon jar (or two gallon, but standard is 1 gallon), tea, and sugar. I use only plain green tea (no flavors since flavored might induce mold) and white sugar. Some people highly recommend organic sugar. RecipeMake sure the tea is COMPLETELY cool before adding it into the jar. If it is hot, it may kill your scoby. All tea + sugar that touches the scoby must be room temperature.

Keep the kombucha covered with a tightly-woven cloth (no lid) with rubber band and in the dark preferably away from chemicals. It takes about 10-15 days or longer to brew usually, but it can be as short as 5 days or as long as 3 weeks. It all depends on how strong the scoby is. If you want to taste it, get a straw and put it in to take a sip underneath the scoby. Don't be alarmed if the scoby falls down if you do this (it acts like a barrier) because it will either rise up again OR form a new scoby on top. If the brew tastes too sweet, it needs to ferment longer. If it tastes very watery, don't fret, it sometimes goes through a weird VERY watery stage during fermentation....it simply needs to ferment more.

The reason why I recommend a 2 gallon jar is if you intend to brew seriously (more than 6 months) as you brew, the scoby will get thicker and thicker. Each new batch will also lead to a formation of a new scoby on top. After a lot of research, I decided that it wouldn't be good for me to touch the scobies in fear of contamination so I leave all the scobies inside of the jar. As you can imagine, it takes up a sizable amount of room after a while (1/4 of my 1-gallon jar is scobies!). I do need to repot at least 1 in a scoby hotel in case anything happens, but that's just a backup if my kombucha gets moldy (very rare due to acidity levels).

I bought an auto-siphon for bottling. I highly recommend it. It keeps everything much more sanitary when bottling and is easy. For my first batch, I tried to pour the kombucha in my 1-gallon jar into a bottle using a funnel. It was a REAL pain. Would never do it again. Here's a link to the auto-siphon and a video so you can see how amazing it is. Autosiphon However.... if you want to save money and buy the exact SAME thing for slightly cheaper ($16.95 currently with free shipping), buy it here. You want to get the Size: Mini 3/8", No Clamp, and "Add 5." The Add 5 is 5 feet of tubing so when you get it, I recommend cutting it in half to be 2-2.5 feet of tubing.

For the 2nd fermentation to create carbonation, which isn't necessary but some prefer it, I buy swing-top bottles. I bought mines at TJ Maxx for about $2 each (1 Liter since that's all they had). It might seem difficult to open if you don't know how to, but once you know how, it's super easy.

Sorry if this seems a bit out of order, but I hope I explained a lot. Kombucha Kamp is a great resource and I do believe in not refrigerating scobies. If you take a break from brewing, just add some fresh tea + sugar (same ratio as making kombucha) and let it sit, checking up on it every so often to make sure it doesn't evaporate. I've done it personally for about 2 months and my kombucha was fine (took about 5 days longer to brew, but its fine). I wouldn't refrigerate the scoby because I heard it can grow mold if you do. By the way, mold is fuzzy, green, or black. If you have any concerns about it being moldy, please look at pictures online of kombucha scobies before throwing a batch out. When I first started, the early formations of scoby (blotchy on the surface) made me think it was molded, but it wasn't :)

You may get a dud batch or two taste-wise. If this happens, just remove about 50-75% of the liquid and put new tea+sugar water. Practice makes perfect, yet sometimes humidity/temperature levels can cause a dud (strong sulfur taste... thankfully it was just one batch).

I hope this helps! There are so many resources online and once you get it started, it's as easy as just refilling the 1 gallon (or 2 gallon) jar with more tea+sugar water and waiting for it to ferment.

---**edited to replace cheesecloth with tightly-woven cloth. Personally, I use a tea towel. A cheesecloth may have holes big enough to allow fruit flies to come in. Also added that all tea (tea+ sugar) that will be contact with the kombucha scoby must be cooled down to room temperature or it may kill the scoby.

Thanks a million for your comment, /u/slowbrofl. I read a lot of the posts to this subreddit the night before posting my own, and stumbled upon these comments of yours from five months ago.

I subscribe to such subreddits as /r/GetDisciplined in an attempt to live a lifestyle such as yours, and not because of my eczema. To think that it may improve my eczema is additional motivation.

I'm not going to reply to every point in your comment individually because there are so many. Rather, I wish to tell you that I'm extremely grateful for your having included so many, and for having taken the time to try to help me.

You seem like a psychonaut, so it seems fitting to tell you about this book: Shedding the Layers: How Ayahuasca Saved More Than My Skin. I've yet to read it, but it's about a fellow who uses ayahuasca to treat his eczema.

Again, thanks a million for your comment, /u/slowbrofl. I wish you the very best.

Allow me to hopefully assist you since I've had this exact problem in the past (and not just on my hands). I'm by no means a doctor, but for the past few months after I started my homeopathic treatment my condition has improved drastically. Education and diet is your best weapon.

I feel you, this is by far one of the worst eczema symptoms possible. I have had this type of severe eczema on my hands for years. It intensifies during the summer and with periods of stress. Steroid creams rarely help on your hands, but I will show you in point 2 which ones have helped me in the past. Proper treatment consists of looking for triggers and helping the problem resolve itself naturally. Eczema is an indicator that something is wrong inside of your body. The problem won't go away overnight so don't expect a miracle cure in this post. I will however give you some valuable suggestions:

1. Look at what has changed in your diet and life. A period of stress? Find a way to fix this on the long term. Meditation and sleep helps me a lot. Now look at your diet. You said yourself that the blisters come from underneath. Have you been eating certain foods more often than usual? I am a firm believer that diet plays one of the biggest roles in eczema. Take a look at this book (I obtained a pdf online). To summarize, you must find out what foods trigger your eczema, and take them out of your diet. It takes up to 4 days for your digestive system to clear, so you need to work carefully to spot your problem foods. The most common foods tend to be wheat, eggs, tomato, milk, potatoes, alcohol, and chocolate. Depending on how serious you are about treating your condition, start cutting those foods out of your diet to start fixing the problem from the inside. You will notice a difference. Get an allergy test, if you haven't already. While it's not 100% accurate, it still might give you a more accurate guideline than the foods I've listed.
   
   
2. Moisturize. If you have recently changed shampoo and soaps in the house, switch back to whatever worked for you. Don't let your skin dry out, so find a moisturizer that works for you. When my condition was bad, I would use various Aveeno baby products (less flour base in the baby variants). You can also take a look at CeraVe and Cetaphil. The steroid creams will offer you a quick fix but these damage your skin and thin it out. Second, when your body absorbs the cortisone it will start to crave it like a drug and you will need to apply higher doses. The creams that have worked the best for this purpose on my part are Clobetasol and Betaderm 0.5%~1%. Dangerous stuff. I recommend you find a natural cream that works best for you. I know that means experimenting. I currently apply a bit of coconut oil to my hands if they get dry after a shower or bath.
   
   
3. Baths and more stuff. See what works for you. Many people report sea salt baths reduce inflammation. I currently take tea tree oil baths. I don't feel like retyping a lot of information so if you're more interested on the matter check my previous post. Hopefully that should get you started.
   
   
4. I have started taking more oil supplements, and it seems to help even more. Moisturizing from the inside out is the best way to combat dry skin. 2 tablespoons of Fish Oil in the morning and 2 Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil tablespoons in the evening. I am also taking 2x Olive Leaf extract capsules daily. I read that PH levels are linked to eczema activity so I drink 2 cups of a apple cider vinegar mixture (morning and night) which consist of 1 tablespoon vinegar and one teaspoon of natural raw honey dissolved in water. The taste sucks so I plug my nose and chase it with filtered water.
   
   Right now I do everything I can (refer to my previous post if you haven't looked already) so feel free to copy any of my methods and see what works for you. Change your diet right away, and if you don't see immediate relief in a week PM me to say I'm a fool. Do try everything else though, you should see changes. I know this subreddit isn't a wealth of information but hopefully my input with the help of other redditors can give you advice that works for you. There is no "one cure" that if effective for everyone. There is a deficiency or toxicity issue in your body which is causing the eczema. I am always looking out for new information on here and in my literature so PM me anytime if you need help. Living with eczema is tough, and after 20 years of suffering I only decided recently to start taking it seriously. There is no "cure" but you can definitely reduce or eliminate some or all of your symptoms. Listen to what your body is telling you and don't forget to drink lots of water!
   
   Best of luck to you.

There's a Vice documentary and also the Wim Hof book Becoming the Iceman. Both are decent resources but lean a bit towards inspiration / self-help more than the specific method; I found both pretty useful. Wim Hof has also done quite a few interviews which aren't hard to find. The Joe Rogan show did a good interview. There's also a decent subreddit /r/becomingtheiceman but it's not too active.

If you're just interested in the technique, this video does a decent job explaining the breathing method. There's also a decent explanation on Wim's website here.

For me, I went semi-paleo. I hike at least once a week (each one minimum 8 miles roundtrip), so on those days, there's absolutely no way to avoid eating carbs (or else I'd collapse halfway through the hike).

Aside from the hiking days where I load up on breakfast burritos and sandwiches, my meals are typically:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Guacamole. Decaf coffee with blackstrap molasses as the sweetener.
Lunch: Chicken or Beef with a huge serving of Broccoli sautéed with onions and mushrooms
Dinner: Huge serving of sautéed spinach and smoked salmon (or salmon sashimi)
Snacks: Sunflower Seeds. Pistachos. Carrots. Cucumbers. Hummus. Roasted yams/sweet potatoes.

A few notes:
It's not coffee itself that will flare up the eczema, it's caffeine. Coffee is wonderfully nutritious, so just grab the decaf. If you exercise 4-5 days out of the week, your energy levels will be just fine and you won't need caffeinated beverages to keep you awake.

I typically will bbq the chicken or beef, and I'll switch between a simple dry rub (salt, pepper, cayenne) and coating it in sunflower oil. When I'm lazy, I'll grab the rotisserie whole chicken from Costco for $5 and split it up into 2-3 meals.

Spinach shrinks like no other when it's cooked, so I usually sauté those pre-washed 1lbs bags, which is just enough for one serving. For the broccoli, the 1 lbs bags are usually good for 2-3 servings.

I've spent alot of time figuring out what I can and shouldn't eat. When I first started my new diet, my first week consisted of roasted chicken or some kind of fish with broccoli or spinach. Breakfast, lunch, dinner was just some combination of those 4 items. Then I threw in decaf coffee. Ok, solid, nothing bad after a few days. Threw in green tea. Again, nothing bad after a few days. Eggs - cool. Then I just kept adding things and played the elimination game until I had general categories of what I could eat fine and what I could eat that would cause flare-ups.

Although, I will admit, I do cheat ALOT (cheesecake, for example, is my kryptonite even though the dairy and excess sugar flare me up pretty bad). And my typical menu looks limited, but it's really because I'm cheap and lazy. I also love going to all you can eat Indian buffets where I'll load up on the spinach daal, curried cauliflower and carrots, and the tandoori chicken -- no flare ups, and I can pig out on the cheap!

You'll also want to look up "black strap molasses" and how naturally nutritious it is. Acne and Eczema sufferers have reported some good results, and I'm happy to say that it hasn't had any negative side effects for me. I also have gone a bit hippie and drink Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar everyday (plenty of blogs and threads here on Reddit about that).

Edit: Another thing, I'm so lazy when it comes to cooking. I use this pan, and the lid is perfect for steaming/sautéing the veggies. Then throw in half of the store-bought rotisserie chicken, and I've got the lazy man's lunch/dinner. I like paying a bit more for sashimi-grade salmon/ahi tuna because I can eat it raw and not have to cook it! Eggs are also really fast to cook, and I buy the pre-made guac.

You'll have to try a few things to see what works and what you (your body) likes. Here's what I've done in the past when I've had a whole body issue. #1 Get the flare down and #2 Eliminate any itch causers.

1. Bath. I soak my body in water and do some sort of oat bath like this http://www.amazon.com/Aveeno-Soothing-Treatment-Count-1-5oz/dp/B000UEAARO
   
   
2. Cream. I also find many creams tend to burn my skin when it's flared up, but I've stuck to this one for the one I use right out of the shower. So pat dry and lotion up with this http://www.amazon.com/Cetaphil-Moisturizing-Cream-Fragrance-Free/dp/B000052YMQ. If that doesn't work for you, try to find a lotion that works for you. Plain old nivea lotion also worked for me but it's a bit oily.
   
   
3. Steroid. If you okay with them, you should hit this hard with something for a week (2 x per day), then back off to once a day.
   
   
4. Sheets. Use clean sheets as much as possible. Even iron them with the steam on high (including pillow case). Use a smell free detergent if possible.
   
   
5. Keep you bed and floor area clean and vacuum. Dust mites could be an issue.
   
   
6. Chill out in bed a lot, relax, but on a good TV show. This will reduce stress.
   
   
7. Drink lots of water to stay hydrated
   
   
8. Take an allergy medicine to reduce itch
   
   Okay, that's all I can think of now.
   

Ok I know this doesn't really solve the money problem but I do occasionally use Aloe Vera. But I drink it. This is what I use. I know it's a little pricey, but it comes in a big bottle & I only drink a little at a time (and not even every day). I think it helps, not a life-changer, but it has definitely provided me some relief.

As for an aloe vera gel... I have used it occasionally, and with some brands it makes my skin feel worse. Other times it helps a little but the moisture doesn't stay as long compared to vaseline etc. I'd say stick to a more natural brand, or pure aloe vera gel.

Fasting for 3-4 days likely won't cure eczema.

According to Fasting and Eating for Health by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, most auto-immune issues (including eczema) would take about 2-3 weeks of fasting to resolve. Check out r/fasting/ if you're interested in learning more.

I almost totally cleared up my own hand eczema through dietary changes (eliminating dairy and reducing sugar), and adding in lots of probiotics. I also have been doing intermittent fasting now for a few months. The only remnants of eczema left are some minor dry patches on my hands.

There are different types of moisturizers and they perform differently. CeraVe is fine as a sensitive skin moisturizer, but may not be accomplishing what you need it to do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SkincareAddiction/comments/15ya22/classes_of_moisturizers_explained/

Typically I pair a humectant/hydrator with an occlusive (occlusive goes on top to 'trap' moisture in). However, lots of people with eczema have lipid barriers that don't perform properly, so I use Mustela Stelatopia which claims to help rebuild the barrier. Whether it does or not, I can't prove, but damn did it help me.

When my eczema was at its worst. I would shower, then immediately apply any steroid cream I was using, then humectant/hydrator moisturizer, then occlusive to trap it all in. Aquaphor was usually my occlusive goop of choice, but a lot of people like Vaseline for this.

Best of luck in finding a combo that works for you! It can be so hard.

I really wanted to love the the CeraVe sunscreen but it has: Methylparaben and Propylparaben. I now use the Vanicream sunscreen and the Neutrogena Sheer Zinc . They don't burn/irritate my skin. Hope this helps!

Here’s the one I’m using:

Blue-Emu Super Strength Emu Oil, 4 Oz https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00027C9DM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uyWoDb80D9BKE

Thanks I really appreciate the advice. I've got my shower routine down to a science. I'm gonna go see a dermatologist if this continues but I'm starting to think its allergy related. I've got some Allegra-D and I wanna see if that helps first. I'm also trying this https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0001O6EAA/ref=pd_aw_fbt_194_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AVH5HD94BMH07PPBCHTX and it seems to help keep it contained and stop the dryness.

I bought them at Whole Foods, but any health food store should have them. If not http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Factors-Vinegar-Capsules-180-Count/dp/B0001KFDEC/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1396471353&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=vingear+capsiles

Not sure if you live anywhere where it's warm right now or not, but the sun is supposed to really help for eczema also

I experience this and have come to the conclusion that it is more than likely due to allergies. I think what is happening is maybe the pollen levels or some other allergen has higher levels at your home than where you normally live and you are reacting to that. I will link what I use to treat my own allergies. It is a bit on the pricey side but I would swear my life by it. It works extremely well! Shiseido Protective Lip Conditioner, The Skincare, 0.14 Ounce https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000186XM0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_r-O0DbJ31S3RN

Do they have Vanicream? It's actually better then Cerave. There is also Vaseline cream (https://www.amazon.com/Vaseline-Petroleum-Moisture-Creamy-Formula/dp/B0000537JL?th=1). The reason the lotion stings (in my opinion) is due to the amount of alcohol in the lotion.

Hey I'm using the Culligan shower head filter:
https://www.amazon.com/Culligan-WSH-C125-Wall-Mount-Capacity-Showerhead/dp/B0006VVN1S

Health food stores, or online.

I guess it's the same kind of thing? This is the one I'm following https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eczema-Diet-Karen-Fischer/dp/1921966467

The powder in marigolds irritated my hands so these were a good alternative (still doesn't stop me from hating doing the dishes though ;) )

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0000CFXSL?pc_redir=1405541575&robot_redir=1

One thing that really keeps my nipple eczema calm is always keeping non-stick gauze pads in my bra. I change them at least every morning. I just bought a big box of them.
If they are super bad, like weeping bad, I just put on a bit of 1% hydrocortisone for a day or two. I find that keeping them too moisturized keeps the eczema coming back for me. I had one nipple that was weeping for over a year before I realized that I was trying to keep it too moisturized with creams and vaseline. Since I just started placing those dry pads in my bras or forgoing bras altogether I've seen a huge improvement. I also take a Benadryl every night to discourage night scratches