A Deeper Look At Eczema From Infancy To Adulthood
Episode 166
This week on Integrative Wellness Radio we're discussing skin conditions but specifically Eczema. Atopic dermatitis or commonly known as Eczema is a condition that makes your skin red and itchy. It's common in children but can occur at any age. Join Dr. Nicole as she briefs us in-depth on why Eczema is developing at such a young age that it is now being referred to as Baby-Eczema and how this can persist as problematic all the way into adulthood. She walks us through some of the key points why infants are more vulnerable to it and how it affects them in the first place. Tune in to the full episode to learn more about the proper diagnosis, right testing, and prevention when it comes to skin diseases. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 02:39 Skin conditions at young ages aren’t normal 05:25 It’s not your fault that your baby has Eczema 09:32 The location of birth matters when it comes to skin conditions 13:43 A 2-month-old baby’s case study 17:41 Toxins found in amniotic fluid 21:45 Are skin conditions affected by birth? 25:06 Ingredients matter in a vaccine 31:06 Antibiotics are made from the mold 36:12 Very rarely do things look like the textbook 41:30 No one test is the gold standard
Topics: eczema, skin, conditions, unknown, adulthood, nicole, learn, healthcare
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## A Deeper Look At Eczema From Infancy To Adulthood
- Infant eczema is on the rise, and understanding its origins is key to effective management.
- Eczema isn't a reflection of parental fault but rather a complex interplay of factors.
- Environmental influences, including the location of birth, can play a significant role in skin health.
- The development of eczema can be linked to prenatal exposures and the birthing process itself.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
So really just fresh out of the gate, um, just a little bit about myself and the background and why I do what I do is, uh, I've always really questioned what I've been taught.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on my own. Hey, everyone. So I am Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole. We are back. Uh, so today, we are talking all about skin conditions. But today in particular, we are specifically focusing on eczema and really helping people to understand more about eczema because this is becoming such an increasingly more common condition, and it's happening at such a young age, uh, to the capacity that we are now calling it baby eczema or infant eczema.
**Unknown:** And there's definitely a lot of key reasons why our young children right out of the womb could potentially be dealing with eczema, and how this can actually persist into being problematic later down the line, all the way into adulthood, and even specifically causing, uh, issues that could be like psoriasis. So we're gonna be talking a lot about all of the different misconceptions around eczema, some of the root causes associated with it, and really the limitations with understanding all of the body systems and how they work together specifically in order to allow us to understand these skin conditions altogether. So really just fresh out of the gate, um, just a little bit about myself and the background and why I do what I do is, uh, I've always really questioned what I've been taught. Uh, not necessarily because I'm super stubborn, but primarily because when it comes to, uh, healthcare and a lot of the things that we are all told to be normal didn't always make a ton of sense to me.
**Unknown:** And I really always challenged, you know, what was something that really seemed to make sense and things that didn't seem to make sense. And I've really carried those principles over into my practice and really just kept challenging things, but also trying to grow and evolve my approach. And we've really opted to almost act as detectives in someone's healthcare journey to really help to uncover what is the root cause to what's causing them to not be well. But even, you know, really uncovering what's the root cause to why so many children are having issues.
**Unknown:** Why is eczema and other types of skin conditions, why are they developing younger and younger? There is definitely a moment in time that we really have to stand up and be like, "This doesn't seem right. This doesn't seem normal." And, you know, I know that even myself being in my mid-thirties, like, I don't remember having, uh, friends when I was going through middle school, high school, having autoimmune conditions, having food allergies. There was no special table for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
**Unknown:** And we have so many different childhood illnesses. Eczema is thought to be super benign, and eczema is not necessarily always a huge problem, but I think it's more important to understand why. Why is it there? Because the skin is a reflection of the internal environment, and I think that we often don't think about it that way.
**Unknown:** We don't think that the makeup that we put on or the lotions that we put on or the perfume we spray on our body, we don't think that that is absorbing into our system. We don't really think that things that go on the skin will affect us internally, and we definitely don't think things going on internally are affecting our skin. You know, when we have a breakout, all we're doing is, you know, buying new, uh, facial cleansers or face masks, and we're trying to deal with it from a topical perspective when really there is so much more to be said. I was just in Utah, and I was sitting next to a girl at a coffee shop, and she started talking to me and said that she was from out of town.
**Unknown:** I said I was from out of town, and she asked, you know, what I was doing here, and I told her I was there for a health conference. So then she started to pick my brain. She's like, "Yeah." She's like, "I really got into the holistic train because I wa-- I had really bad skin issues, and I was doing all of these different types of therapies, and nothing was working." And I was like, "Oh, did you have a lot of strep as a kid?" And she's like, looked at me like, "Yeah, I did. How did you know that?" And I was like, "And I'm assuming you took a lot of antibiotics." And she's like, "Yes." And I was like, "And I'm assuming you probably have had bloating in your gut and maybe even yeast infections." And she's like, "Yes." So it's such a trickle-down effect that happens is that, you know, you're dealing with either ear infections or sore throats as a kid.
**Unknown:** You're taking antibiotics to deal with it. Most of those infections are due to strep, but unfortunately, the antibiotics cause fungal overgrowth, and then, you know, you start to have more systemic problems down the line. But really, at the end of the day, you're trying to treat the skin issue by killing bacteria, but you're causing a completely different problem. So the point is, is that there's a lot of different things that are connected, and we have to deal with the internal environment if we want to resolve skin issues.
**Unknown:** So before we go there, first and foremost, I want you to understand that it is not your fault that your baby has baby eczema. It is not your fault that your teenager has eczema, and you don't know what to do with that-- about it. It's not your fault that you had eczema that eventually turned into psoriasis or some other type of skin condition, and you don't know what to do about it. There is a lot of information out there.
**Unknown:** There is a lot of mixed information out there. You know, like I said, you might have read, oh, give up gluten, gliv-- give up dairy, and you went on the hardcore elimination diet for six months, and you didn't get any better. So I understand that that gets frustrating, it gets overwhelming, and then it causes us to give up.But there is always going to be a way to leverage better information, and there is always going to be a strategy about what you need, you to get better. Because what you need and what I need and what Sally needs is completely different.
**Unknown:** We all have eczema, but we all need a different approach. And we need to start understanding that because we're all looking for the cure-all or the one magic lotion or the one steroid, and it's just not how it works. It's not how the human body works. And when we really look at the big picture of medicine and why you're not getting this information that I'm gonna give you tonight by your average physician, is because it's not their fault, it's really just the foundation of how our healthcare system is built.
**Unknown:** Our healthcare system is built on specialties and subspecialties. So we have the heart doctor is the cardiologist, the gut doctor is the gastroenterologist, the kidney doctor is the nephrologist. We have all of these separ-separate physicians that are pretty much taking these systems and acting like they are completely separate entities, and that these systems are not necessarily communicating with each other. And really, by us segregating out these different systems, this is really bad physiology or lack of understanding physiology.
**Unknown:** Because when we use the very, very simple example that ninety to ninety-five percent of your serotonin is made in your gut, AKA your feel-good hormone, then if you are dealing with, say, irritable bowel syndrome or maybe a little indigestion, maybe a little bloating, but then in addition to that, you're also dealing with depression, you might be treated for your depression through antidepressants, but really at the end of the day, the root cause to your problem actually has to do with your gut. So we really need to get back to the basics of understanding how everything is communicating with each other, and how we can utilize the knowledge of physiology, and how we can actually help the body heal altogether. So another big part of this too is that when we segregate out all of the systems, this is when we start to lose track of the root cause, or we actually never figure out the root cause because we expect that, you know, the gut works independently of the brain, and the brain works independently of the heart, et cetera. So we need to understand that everything is communicating with each other all the time.
**Unknown:** And one of the biggest systems that is working hand in hand with your skin is your gut and your lymphatic system. And I will explain more in depth about what that even means in the first place. So first and foremost, the biggest thing that usually blows people's mind is that skin conditions can start in the womb. They can start in the womb because this is reflective of the health of the amniotic fluid that that baby is being developed in.
**Unknown:** And I'm gonna go a little bit more in depth with this, but the amniotic fluid in a variety of test subjects, as the women were pregnant, they did an extraction of the amniotic fluid, and they tested for toxicity. And in the average female, they found a hundred and seventy-two toxins. So when your amniotic fluid, AKA where your baby is being developed, has toxicity in it, that is definitely going to play a significant role in the development of your child, number one. It's also going to play a significant role in their immune system and their skin.
**Unknown:** Another big thing too is that the location of your birth has so much to do with skin conditions. So when it comes to are you having birth at the hospital versus a home birth, there is a lot of hospital bacteria in a hospital. There is a lot of different exposures that can happen just from the nurse or the doctors touching your baby. So that's not always bad.
**Unknown:** I'm not def-- I'm definitely not deterring people from get-- having, uh, birth in the hospital. But it becomes more of an issue when that baby is a C-section, and that baby did not go through the birth canal, and that birth canal is where all that good bacteria is. It's where their immune system is actually s- first starts to develop. So when you have a C-section baby being pulled out by the hands of doctors and nurses with a bunch of hospital bacteria on them, and they have zero exposure to the good bacteria in mom's vaginal tract, that's when we get into trouble.
**Unknown:** And then in addition to that, if mom was diagnosed with Group B Strep at the time of birth, then you're-- they're giving mom antibiotics, which is then starting to provide antibiotics to the baby, and then those antibiotics are actually wiping out all of the good bacteria for the baby fresh out of the womb, which then makes them more susceptible to the bad bacteria. So there is a lot of opportunity from literally the womb to the birthing process that can contribute to skin issues. So if this baby now has had a dose of antibiotics 'cause mom had Group B Strep, the baby is also C-section, now they have an overgrowth of the bad bacteria, and they have an underdevelopment of the good bacteria. So now the baby has gut issues.
**Unknown:** So now the gut issues, we need to go on a special formula, and the special formula is like Gerber Soothe or Gentle or whatever. And now there's going to be a boatload of corn and soy and hydrolyzed maltodextrin, AKA carcinogenic properties in the baby formula. So now we're feeding the bad bacteria, further compromising the ability to gain the good bacteria. And then in addition to that, we also have the role of vaccinations, which is going to challenge an immature immune system.
**Unknown:** So before we even go there, I am not pro or anti anything, but I think it's really important to understand that there are definitely some specific ingredients that are in vaccinations that can be a trigger for skin conditions.Primarily because they're triggering the immune system. So when it comes to myth number one is that skin conditions do not start in the womb. Yes, they do. They start in the womb primarily because of the chemicals that are present in the amniotic fluid.
**Unknown:** So some of the chemicals that are present in the amniotic fluid have to do with everything from pesticides, herbicides, different types of chemicals from personal products like formaldehyde, as well as benzenes, uh, propylene glycol. If you are curious about these different types of chemicals, definitely watch my, uh, webinar that I did. But I talked very specific about the chemicals that are present in these personal products and not just your adult personal products. I'm also talking about the personal products that we are putting on our babies.
**Unknown:** All the lovely Johnson & Johnson products that are geared towards babies that contain things like petroleum, which is a derivative of gasoline. These are hardcore chemicals that you are potentially putting onto your baby. So not only are thing, these things you can put onto the skin that can cause skin problems, but in addition to that, if there were certain chemicals in the amniotic fluid of the woman, um, as she was pregnant, that is going to be literally problem number one. And I think that this is an important disclaimer to make is that this is not about one thing.
**Unknown:** This is really just a compilation of things that happens over time that it's like it gets to the point that it's the straw that broke the camel's back. Okay, so one of, uh, my specific cases was a two-month-old. Uh, a two-month-old presenting with head to toe eczema, and he was also colic. So what that means is that he was crying a lot and really not sleeping.
**Unknown:** So he was crying no matter if he ate or if he didn't eat. He was a very fussy baby and then literally had head to toe eczema. So when he actually came into the practice, uh, we did some preliminary testing on him, and as we did the pr-preliminary testing, uh, one of the primary things that we found was a two-month-old already had compromised lymphatic system. So for those of you that have no freaking clue what a lymphatic system is, that is okay.
**Unknown:** But when you get sick and your glands hurt in here, that's not just your tonsils, that is also your lymph nodes. And you literally have lymph nodes all over your entire body. You have lymph nodes from the top of your head all the way to your toes. So if the baby has been exposed to chemicals, say, through the amniotic fluid, and then the baby was a C-section, and then the baby was also given antibiotics because mom had group B strep or some type of sexually transmitted infection that they found, then that is the perfect storm to actually compromise the immune system and compromise all of the lymph nodes of the body.
**Unknown:** So once the lymph nodes become compromised with toxins, because that is their job, the lymph nodes are there to gobble up the toxins. But if they're so overloaded with toxins, things are gonna start being pushed out through the skin, and the pushing out in the skin can actually cause the eczema rash. So in addition to this specific child, um, the biggest issue that came up was actually due to, um, a global strep infection, and it was also due to mercury, which actually when we tested mom, it all came from mom. But sometimes these kids have eczema, and it's actually only over joints.
**Unknown:** So if the kid is only dealing with eczema over joints, like a lot of people say it starts in the back of the knees, or it starts-- then it spreads to the elbows. So if it's only in the joints, we need to start thinking, is this an infection that has an affinity for the joints? One of the most common infections that has an affinity for the joints is Lyme disease and strep. So I'm not saying this to freak you guys out, but this is a very common occurrence.
**Unknown:** These are kids that usually end up with growing pains, and the growing pains are just thought that they're growing. But really what it is, is that they have an infection in their actual joints. So another way that this plays out later down the line is that these kids end up having a lot of throat issues, and they end up having a lot of ear infections because what happens is that all these toxins or infections that, uh, this baby is exposed to, either in the womb or exposed to because of the antibiotics and the hospital bacteria, then what's gonna happen is that the body is gonna do its best to try to handle it, but it's also then going to cause a lot of these toxins to be drained into the tonsils. So then you're gonna end up with a kid that has chronic tonsillitis, adenoids have to be, uh, removed, tonsils need to be removed, tubes in the ears.
**Unknown:** If your child is dealing with a variety of infections or issues in the throat or even the ears, this is a clear sign that they already have a compromised immune system, but they also have a compromised lymphatic system. So these kids can definitely end up with skin issues down the line, or they can just end up with really just having a compromised immune system overall. So s-what are some of the chemicals that have been found in the amniotic fluid? Cigarette smoke and different chemicals from cigarettes, exhaust, gasoline, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fragrances, preservatives, antibacterials, different types of substances that are added to thicken or color, different types of substrates, lubricants, hair dyes, formaldehyde.
**Unknown:** Literally, the list goes on. These are things, again, you think that you're putting them on your skin and you think that they're not getting absorbed, they are definitely getting absorbed. So how many of the women listening or do you know women that have used bioidentical hormones? There are so many women that swear by their bioidentical hormones.And these are women that sometimes we have a conversation about their personal products, and they kinda don't wanna hear it.
**Unknown:** They're like, "I don't wanna change my makeup. I love my beauty products. I'm obsessed with having beautiful skin, and I don't wanna give any of that up." And then I was like, "Okay." I was like, "So your biogenital hormones, they work for you, right?" And they're like, "Yeah, they work amazing. I love my biogenital hormones." I go, "How do you apply your biogenital hormones?" And they're like, "I apply it through lotion.
**Unknown:** I apply it up to my skin." And I'm like, "And it absorbs into your body, into your blood. It makes you feel better, right?" And they're like, "Yes." So I was like, "So why do you think that the chemicals in your personal products are not doing the same thing?" And that's usually a very eye-opening moment for people, is that they're like, "Oh, wow, I really understand that now, and I realize that everything I put on my skin is getting absorbed." So for those of you that are spraying perfume on you or you're using tons of personal products while you're pregnant, you really need to get the Think Dirty app, and you need to start evaluating what are you putting on your body because that is affecting your baby. So one of the other big things that I wanted to present here is primarily when we are pregnant, one of the primary vaccines that's recommended is the whooping cough and, uh, which is also known as pertussis. So the whooping cough vaccine is something that is recommended, um, within, uh, I think it's the first trimester of the pregnancy.
**Unknown:** So, uh, by the way, they do not give pertussis alone anymore. Pertussis is always gonna be paired with tetanus and diphtheria. It's called the Tdap or DTaP. Um, but when we actually look at the insert on the actual vaccine, there are some ingredients to be aware of.
**Unknown:** Those ingredients contain everything from aluminum to formaldehyde to phenyleth-ethanol, phenoxyethanol. Um, all of these are different chemicals that are toxic. These are neurotoxic specifically. So again, a lot of people just have no idea what is in some of these different, uh, compounds, but if you're someone who has had a variety of miscarriages or you've had a lot of complicated pregnancies, you really need to weigh out the pros and the cons of this because this is introducing toxins into your body if you know it or you don't.
**Unknown:** The other thing too that I found really interesting about this is that when you actually... Like, these are literally the inserts. You can actually type in package insert and type in the name of the vaccine, and it will reveal, um, any of the information about the vaccine according to the manufacturer. And I find this to be very, very fascinating because the DTaP specifically, um, uh, the contraindications are hypersensitivity, which is allergies, encephalopathy, which is neurological inflammation, and also progressive neurological disorders.
**Unknown:** So these are literally going to be the contraindications in the package insert that they are putting you at risk for by giving it to you while you're pregnant. In addition to that, one of the primary warnings and precautions is Guillain-Barré, which is pretty much a motor disease, uh, that causes, um, symptoms actually similar to polio. So this is definitely something to take into consideration as well. Again, this is the package insert.
**Unknown:** This is not my opinion. So myth number two is that skin conditions are not affected by your birth. So again, we talked briefly about this, but for the people that are just hopping on, skin conditions have everything to do with where you had that baby, if you had the baby in the hospital versus a home birth. Hospital, you're going to get tons of hospital bacteria, strep and staph being the two most common bacterias that are in hospitals.
**Unknown:** In addition, if they used forceps or suction, you then open yourself up to even more potential, uh, bacterias as well as even viruses. A lot of that is benign or non-problematic if the baby was born as a natural birth because if the baby is born as a natural birth, it got inoculated with a bunch of amazing, beneficial probiotic bacteria in the birth canal so that even when that nurse or doctor grabs that baby and exposes it to hospital bacteria, they already have good bacteria to fight off the bad. But when the baby is a C-section, that's a different story. So now the baby is getting only hospital bacteria and not being exposed to any of the beneficial bacteria.
**Unknown:** So skin-to-skin contact from emotional and energetic perspectives is so important within the first few minutes of, uh, or after the birth. But in addition to that, that's also about mom inoculating that baby with her good bacteria as well. So there is so many scientific and biological reasons for a birth that is natural as well as skin-to-skin contact. You know, there are women nowadays that are scheduling C-sections based out of convenience, and it's one thing if you're high risk, but doing it out of convenience because you wanna make sure that you're ready for the wedding the next week is definitely something that is literally compromising your child's health.
**Unknown:** So focusing on the skin is key. I think that a lot of us think, "Oh, I have eczema, my baby has eczema," or some other type of skin condition, and we just need to focus on the skin. We need to go to the dermatologist. We need to use hydrocortisone, steroid shots, steroid creams, et cetera, when really anything that's happening on the skin is a reflection of what's happening internally and especially if the eczema follows specific patterns.
**Unknown:** If the eczema is only around the joints, back of the knees, um, front of the elbows, that is a sign that there is something in those joints that shouldn't be there. Most common, Lyme bacteria or strep. Yes, strep gets into the joints. If the eczema is following, it's in the, like, breast area, armpit, neck area, that is a sign that it's following the upper lymphatic chains.
**Unknown:** If you have eczema on the legs, especially the inner or the outer thighs, that is also a lymph pattern. But if there's eczema or skin rashes on the abdomen, that's a sign that there's gut issues. But no matter what, when you're trying to deal with a skin issue, you have to make sure that the immune system and all the detox pathways are working properly. We need to make sure that the lymph is working, the liver is working, the tonsils are working, the gut is working, and the kidneys.If those systems are not working properly, you will still be at risk for your skin condition to persist or even come back.
**Unknown:** So in addition to that, when it comes into the vaccines, again, I am not pro or anti-anything, but ingredients matter. Um, one of the biggest things that comes back to allergies but also comes back to the skin issues is that when they make a vaccine, what they do is they take the virus, and they have to inject it into some type of substrate to allow it to reproduce. So if they take the virus, they inject it into aborted fetal cells, or they inject it into monkey kidneys, or they inject it into a ki-- or a, a chicken embryo. They will put it in a substrate that is ideal for it to replicate, and then they take whatever that tissue is, if it's an aborted fetal cell, if it's a chicken embryo, if it's a monkey kidney, they're gonna take it, grind it up, and that's how they're going to create the vaccine.
**Unknown:** In addition to that, they have to put things in it to make it stable. They have to put in formaldehyde. They put in mercury. They put in aluminum.
**Unknown:** These are all stabilizers. So when it comes to the things that we're being exposed to, in some people, not all, it can trigger an immune response, and that immune response can manifest as a skin reaction. So the hepatitis B is given within the first few hours of life, and it has one of the highest amounts of aluminum hydroxide in it. Again, look up aluminum.
**Unknown:** Aluminum is a neurotoxin. It is also toxic to the immune system. The other thing, too, is hepatitis B also is made on a yeast substrate. Everybody's heard of a yeast infection.
**Unknown:** Athlete's foot is a, is a yeast infection. A ringworm is a fungal infection. All of these things are due to fungus. Fungus and yeast are the same family.
**Unknown:** So you could have a child who has eczema or rashes due to fungal overgrowth, and that fungal overgrowth can come from the substrate that the hepatitis B vaccine was made on. So the other thing, too, that I find actually kind of comical on the hepatitis B, B vaccine is that, uh, pediatric use, safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients on, uh, younger than eighteen has not been established. And here's the reference. Again, it's not my opinion.
**Unknown:** This is literally from the FDA. So we're literally giving this to a child, and we don't even know if it's good for them. Uh, so... But anyway, when it comes to bottle versus breast, I know that there are some women that cannot produce, and obviously we need to rely on bottle if that's the case, or formula.
**Unknown:** But this is, uh, something that actually was a, a pretty recent occurrence. I had a dear friend of mine, her baby was born, and he was spitting up, and at one point he stopped breathing after a feeding. He was actually being bottle-fed through a formula. And she was pretty much just out of the hospital, and I said, "Just bring him in.
**Unknown:** Let's take a look and see what's going on." And the first thing that came up in his testing was condensed milk nutrition as an allergy. Condensed milk nutrition is formula. It's literally cow-based formula. And the best part is, is because he was spitting up so much that they recommended for him to do Gerber Soothe.
**Unknown:** The ingredients of this is actually horrifying. The first ingredient is corn maltodextrin, which is literally genetically modified, laced with Roundup. It is also completely made in a lab and contains artificial preservatives, sugars, and is known to be toxic to the neurological system. In addition to that, the second ingredient is whey protein, which is condensed milk nutrition.
**Unknown:** Then on top of it, we also have palm oil. We have sunflower oil, potassium hydroxide. All of these things might seem like, "Oh, calcium's good. Oh, potassium's good." They're all toxic.
**Unknown:** So we switched him to a goat-based formula, and problem was solved. But we also have to think, what was going on with this baby that he was-- he developed a food allergy fresh out of the womb? And part of this was mom's diet while she was pregnant, and the other part of it was, um, some of the toxins that were in mom's body when she got pregnant as well. So the other thing too for those of you listening moms is that sometimes women think that their baby is intolerant to their breast milk, and sometimes that's because the baby is spitting up or they're getting a lot of bloating gas, things like that.
**Unknown:** So one of the primary reasons that that happens with your baby getting that like indigestion, bloating or reflux from your breast milk is because there is a ton of sugars in your breast milk, which is normal. The sugars are there to feed the good bacteria, to feed the probiotics. But what's happening nowadays is most of these children, especially if they were born in a hospital or born C-section, they have an overgrowth of bad bacteria. So then all the sugars in your beautiful breast milk is feeding some of that bad bacteria and causing them to get bloated, gassy or have weird digestive symptoms.
**Unknown:** You shouldn't stop breastfeeding, but what you might need to do is pump and add a powdered probiotic to your, um, breast milk and administer it through a bottle. So there's a lot of ways that you can go about it, but this could be such a simple fix if you have the right tools and you have the knowledge of it. So another big thing that throws a wrench in all of this is that we deal with the potential of these different exposures from the hospital, or we deal with the early an-antibiotics 'cause mom had group B strep.And then we start to have this imbalance. We start to have lack of the good bacteria, overgrowth of potentially the bad bacteria.
**Unknown:** The other kicker to this is that antibiotics, most of them are made from mold. So penicillin, amoxicillin, and ampicillin are made from penicillium mold. So this is one of the reasons why when women take antibiotics, they always get a yeast infection. So what happens is, is that now you give, you know, y-your kid gets a dose of antibiotics maybe because they were exposed to the group B strep coming through the birth canal, or they got an antibiotic because they had an ear infection or a sinus infection.
**Unknown:** So now what we're doing is we're furthering the imbalance of the good and bad bacteria, and if anything, we're also now in-introducing a fungal issue. Then the fungal issue persists the issues with the tonsils, the adenoids, and the, the ears. So now your kid is getting on antibiotics every few weeks because the ear infection is back, the ear infection is back, the throat issue is back, the throat issue is back. So we really sometimes need to go back to basics and understand that antibiotics should not be used in excess for anyone, let alone infants, because you're completely compromising an im-- a, an immature immune system.
**Unknown:** And we really need to start using other alternatives like natural antimicrobials, or even just trying to crowd out the bad bacteria through good bacteria like probiotics. So there's a lot of ways to go about it, and obviously when you're dealing with a young child, you have to be strategic about how you do it. But this thinking that a-antibiotics over and over for a young child is completely benign and, and no big deal is completely false. 'Cause most of the teenagers and most of the people in their twenties that I'm working with, they're a result of that lifestyle.
**Unknown:** They're the kids that were on tonsi-tons of antibiotics as a kid, and now they have autoimmune conditions. Now they also have Lyme disease and systemic issues, and this is something that definitely spirals out of control. The other thing too is that one of the, the vaccine, the hepatitis B that's given again within the first few hours of birth, one of the primary contraindications or potential, uh, issues is actually upper respiratory tract infections. So really the biggest thing is, is that skin issues don't come from one thing.
**Unknown:** They can come from a variety of different things. And these skin issues are definitely something that we need to stop thinking about what's happening with the skin, what can I put on the skin to deal with it. We need to start thinking about what's happening internally and what's happening internally at such a young age that's potentially gonna set my kid up for a lot of problems down the line. Because it starts somewhere, and then it snowballs into something else.
**Unknown:** It's not just like, "Oh, it just goes away, and everything is great." So we really need to understand that there-- the skin is a sign. It is a sign that there is some type of imbalance, and that if we correct it at an early age, that we can potentially negate so many other issues later down the line. So if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm here to tell you that you don't know what you don't know. It's really, you know, so many of the things we talked about tonight are just deemed normal.
**Unknown:** "Oh, an antibiotic is a group B strep. Oh, no big deal. It's better that we use the antibiotic than take the risk of the strep." I will tell you, all those kids still have strep. The antibiotics didn't kill it or get rid of it.
**Unknown:** Also, in addition to that, yeah, your mom had group B strep in her vaginal tract. There's tons of strep all over the hospital. There's ton-tons of strep on the gloves of the nurses and doctors that touched your baby. So there's so many factors to be considered, and if you have the opportunity, you're not high risk, and you have the opportunity to have a natural birth or try to have a natural birth, do that.
**Unknown:** Don't schedule the C-section out of convenience because this is something that potentially is going to alter your child's immune system for the rest of their life. And skin conditions, eczema, acne, any of these things, this is not bad luck and bad genes. I know that especially when it comes to the acne conversation, you know, these kids are so distraught. It plays a role psychologically, like it affects them socially.
**Unknown:** Um, and even eczema too, especially if it's in places that people can see. Um, you know, people become super distraught, and it really, really affects them emotionally. And it's not just bad genes or bad luck. It has so much to do what's happening internally.
**Unknown:** And unfortunately, the solution for these kids, especially with the acne, is high-dose antibiotics for a year or two years, and the kids still have acne. I-- it's just mind-blowing to me that they're like, "No, it'll eventually kick in. It'll eventually kick in. Ooh, it's been three years.
**Unknown:** It didn't kick in. Let's do Accutane and destroy your liver now." So it's just there's something in the diet. There is something in the skin. There's something in the lymph nodes.
**Unknown:** There might be something in the gut. There is always a root cause, and I will guarantee you it is always internal, and it is not what's actually happening on the skin. So if you haven't figured it out yet, very rarely do things look like the textbook. It's not just eczema.
**Unknown:** There's no reason. It just happens. It's very common in babies, and that's the end of the story. We're all good in the hood.
**Unknown:** Let's just, you know, like, let it run its course. Yeah, it might get better, but there's gonna be some other issue that pops up later. If it's fatigue, if it's joint pain, growing pains, tons of ear infections, sore throats, upper respiratory, like that's just a different manifestation of a compromised immune system. So it's not that they're not connected, they're very much connected.
**Unknown:** So when it comes to reallyHelping people to resolve their eczema, it's not about the textbook lotions, topicals, and creams. It's about what's happening internally that is completely being overlooked. So when it comes to, okay, how do you figure it out? How do you test?
**Unknown:** Like, what does this even look like? You know, I call, honestly... There's conventional medicine, functional medicine, and integrative medicine. I personally think that they're all really different.
**Unknown:** So conventional medicine is your routine, you know, blood work every year for a physical, and it-- most of the time it's like, "Oh, everything looks good." But you sit there and go, "But I feel like crap," or, "I have this eczema all over my body. Why do I have this?" "Oh, I don't know. Your blood looks good. Maybe you're depressed." Functional medicine leverages better testing, so they're looking for, oh, okay, maybe there's infections, maybe there's, you know, a gut issue going on.
**Unknown:** You know, better testing that gives better information. But the tools in functional medicine are all about diet and supplements. So a lot of my patients, been there, done that. They already did the elimination diet.
**Unknown:** They already did a supplement regimen, and they still have the eczema or skin issues. So that is definitely why we've evolved into what we call integrative medicine because I look at the integration of all the systems. Like, how is the gut working with the kidneys and the liver and the skin and all of that? In addition to that is, yes, diet and supplements are part of the regimen, but we might be doing lymphatic drainage.
**Unknown:** We might be doing detox therapies to help to work on the other aspects of why the skin is compromised. So it's really about strategy. It's not just about cut out gluten for the rest of your life, and you're gonna be great, and your skin will clear up. You know, there's definitely a time and a place when it comes to a restricted diet.
**Unknown:** You know, we might use, uh, elimination of certain foods to calm the inflammation as we work on the body, but it's not that you should permanently avoid something for the rest of your life in order to negate symptoms. If those symptoms come back once you eat that food again, the problem is not solved. There is still something else going on. So it's really a matter of what is being missed.
**Unknown:** And when it comes to being able to dig deeper, ask better questions, we need time. As physicians, we need time. Most of you are tired of going to the doctor or just completely avoiding the doctor because you're not getting any time. Nobody's asking better questions.
**Unknown:** Nobody is digging deeper. And really, it's all about serving you as the person and not serving the insurance providers. What kills me is, like, what's medically necessary nowadays is being dictated by some insurance employee behind a desk when they're not a physician. They have no idea what's actually medically necessary for the patient, but, you know, what's medically necessary is what the insurance will cover.
**Unknown:** So I do think that the more that we demand better healthcare, the more things will change. But in this time, it's all about spending time asking better questions and serving you as the patient because we are in a massive epidemic of chronic illness, and it is not getting better. We have more and more cancer, more and more dementia, more and more Alzheimer's, more and more Parkinson's. This is scary.
**Unknown:** It is getting worse, and it is because of the lack of time that physicians are allowed to spend with their patients because insurance doesn't allow for it. So at IWG, it's all about you, and it's all about getting you answers and getting you solutions. And I think that a lot of us forget that that's what healthcare is supposed to be. We settle for, "Your blood work looks good.
**Unknown:** I don't know. Maybe you're depressed. Maybe you're anxious." We also settle for, "Oh, you have an autoimmune condition. Here's your pill.
**Unknown:** Oh, no, there's nothing else you can do about it. There's nothing dietary. There's nothing lifestyle. You just have to just take this pill, and then, you know, we'll just kinda see what happens." We're settling for that.
**Unknown:** We're settling for that being healthcare, and it's not healthcare. It's sick care. It's Band-Aid care. And it's really...
**Unknown:** A lot of us are getting tired. We're getting sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we're demanding more out of our doctors, and we're demanding more out of our healthcare system. And you guys are gonna be the one that helps to shift this the more and more that you demand. So we really take a variety of different tests, and we use them and piece them together because the one thing that you need to understand is that no one test is the gold standard.
**Unknown:** There is no one test that can dictate your health outcomes. There is no way that blood work gives you the definitive of this is exactly what's wrong with you. Blood work is a snapshot in time. Literally, blood work can change week to week, let alone month to month.
**Unknown:** So if you're being diagnosed just based on your blood and you're getting a treatment plan just based on your blood, you're potentially gonna hit into roadblocks or not see any changes at all. But when we look at the body, we're taking information from your diet. We're taking information from your DNA. We're taking information from your meridians.
**Unknown:** We're taking information from your cells. We're taking information from your blood work, and we're taking information from your energetic system. We are literally looking at every single aspect, piecing it together to really see what actually makes sense for why you feel the way you do or why you have the skin conditions that you do. There is, again, no one test that we rely on.
**Unknown:** It's a matter of a compilation of tests that make sense and also make sense to you and your symptoms and what you came in telling us that you're experiencing. So we have shifted our testing tremendously because we learned this. We learned this the hard way. We learned that you hit into limitations when you use certain tests, and you also run into roadblocks when you leverage only one set of testing.So when it comes to what our bioresonance technology, that is actually looking at your DNA.
**Unknown:** Our bioscan technology is looking at chemical allergies, environmental allergies, food allergies. We're looking at heavy metals, minerals, vitamins, and my favorite is actually the autonomic response testing. So this test is what takes all the guessing out of what we do and truly allows us to offer personalized medicine. So we do not guess, we test everything.
**Unknown:** So when we tell you what supplements to take, those were tested against your DNA. When we tell you what types of detox therapies are best for you, those were tested against your DNA. When we tell you what dietary plan is best for you, that was tested against your DNA. Every single aspect of what we recommend and lay out is strategic, and it is personalized to you.
**Unknown:** This is unheard of anywhere else, but it is what allows us to see the results that we do because we're not basing it off of our opinion. We're not basing it off of what we've seen work in the past. And unfortunately, that's what medicine is, guys. It is so unbelievably subjective.
**Unknown:** It's subjective because that doctor followed this research from this researcher, this doctor was presented this research from this pharmaceutical company, or this doctor used this protocol and saw results with three patients. So you look similar, so you'll probably get results too. We could just kinda hope for the best. And the same thing for those of you that have been in the medical model, and maybe you've been recommended a medication for your thyroid.
**Unknown:** How many times was that thyroid medication changed or was the dose tweaked? It's because it's a bunch of trial and error, and you're the guinea pig. So we need to understand that there are specific strategies that we can leverage to get extremely personalized and take the guessing out. So we clearly do a very unique process when we bring on our new patients, and we've customized this onboarding process because one of the things that I personally felt uncomfortable with is that, "Hey, come to see me for my initial exam price at this price.
**Unknown:** But then once you get here, I'm gonna give you a stool analysis and a urine analysis and ten other types of labs that I need you to complete, and those labs are gonna rack up to three, four, five thousand dollars. And then we have to figure out-- hope we can figure out what's going on with you, and then potentially we'll actually have a solution, but then you also have to pay for the solution too." So obviously when it get-- comes to, you know, helping people to get answers and leverage better testing, you know, it comes with a cost, of course. But it's really a matter of trying to keep the testing at as minimal of a cost as possible so that you guys can spend money on what actually matters, which is getting better. So, you know, when it comes to our patients, it's-- it really becomes a question of how long have you been dealing with this?
**Unknown:** How many co-pays have you paid, and how long have you been on the merry-go-round? How long have you had no answers, no solutions, or short-term solutions, hit a roadblock, hit a plateau, and then had to start over again? There is so many people that are literally on the merry-go-round, and unfortunately, some people on the merry-go-round, their health is destroyed in the process because they were the guinea pig with all the trial and error. But sometimes that trial and error was high-dose antibiotics, prednisone, steroids, um, immunosuppressants, chemotherapy drugs, et cetera.
**Unknown:** And all of that trial and error got them to a place that they are beaten down, their bodies are compromised, fragile, their immune systems are not working, and now we have to build from the ground up. So when it comes to really depending on you, depending on your goals, depending on the merry-go-round that you've been on, what you can achieve with leveraging better testing and getting better information is literally priceless. But, uh, I love doing this. It's such an educational experience.
**Unknown:** But I can guarantee you that when you actually figure out what's going on with your own body, that's when this really becomes a breakthrough experience because you don't know what you don't know, number one. And number two is you're able to have that moment that you're like, "Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense, and I finally feel like I know what to do. I finally feel empowered in my own health." So, uh, definitely check out our website if you're looking for any additional information about eczema. We have tons of podcasts on skin conditions, integrativewellnessgroup.com.
**Unknown:** You can also access our application to become a new patient to also get on a call with our client services team. All right, guys, I thank you for being here. We're gonna be talking more about skin conditions next week, so I will see you then. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio.
**Unknown:** If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep.
**Unknown:** 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming. Wide awake, that's okay.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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