P has struggled with eczema all his life. After 20 years of applying topical steroids prescribed by his doctors he decided he’d had enough and stopped them cold turkey. Bad idea.
That little stunt put him in hospital, fighting for his life and the first thing they had to do was put him back on the steroids. Coming off them after all that time is not something you can do without medical supervision – weaning off them slowly and building up the immune system at the same time is the safest way to go, UNDER MEDICAL SUPERVISION.
When P came in to see me initially we had a very long discussion about what had happened when he tried to come off the steroids before and what he was doing to manage it this time. He was referred to me by his homeopath Debbie Rayfield (http://www.fountaincentre.com.au/). I have a good working relationship with Debbie, her clinic is downstairs from mine and I am registered to practice there as she’s on the ground floor and some of my clients just can’t make it up the stairs to my clinic. So we were able to have a good chat about P’s case afterwards.
P had started his supervised withdrawal six weeks prior and was seeing Debbie as well as an integrative doctor at Your Health (http://www.yourhealth.com.au) in Manly. He was taking numerous supplements and using natural creams on his skin, ate no meat (though still had some fish in his diet) and did not drink alcohol.
When I first saw him he was purple. And he looked sore. And a bit scary. His skin was peeling off and was very dry, particularly on his stomach. He hadn’t been able to work during that phase as he is a musician and as he looked and felt so awful he went into a depression and didn’t leave the house for some time.
photo courtesy of eczemasource.com, copied from google images
It was actually a month before I worked with him. In the first treatment I mainly did some craniosacral work to help with his stress levels. At the end of the session I spent ten minutes clearing his main collections of nodes and his stomach (he was able to tolerate both deep and superficial work) using manual lymphatic drainage.
P is a very spiritual person and is able to tune into what is going on in his body on an energetic level which always makes it interesting working with him. I could be working on something physical and he’d say something like “yes, that’s an old hurt from childhood that I’ve been holding on to”. Great! If you can consciously release things on an energetic level while having your physical body worked on then the whole treatment is more effective. Each time he came we’d use a different combination of therapies, depending on what he presented with. If he had some aches and pains, we’d throw in some Emmett Technique releases. If he was feeling run down, more lymphatic drainage. While doing craniosacral work he’d have all sorts of releases – there’d be smiling or laughing, burping, coughing and overwhelming thoughts of what affirmations he needed to say or things he needed to bring into his life (to name a few).
I’ve been seeing P for nearly eighteen months now, off and on. Our last three sessions have all been remedial massage! I use coconut oil as I know his body can tolerate it without a flare up. Remedial massage is the thing he’s missed the most during his recovery and he’s thrilled he can now have some.
Because he is compliant (that is, he takes his vitamins/herbs/creams regularly) he is well on his way to a full recovery. He’s been told it could take two to three years for his skin to become normal again and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get himself there. What a long way he’s come already.