About a month ago, Shania Twain was in town for her comeback tour. Now that I’m living in BC, it’s easy for my family to pop down to Vancouver (from the Okanagan), so naturally, they did just that, got tickets and my whole family went to Shania. After all, who doesn’t want to relive their childhood?

We needed a place to go for dinner before the concert, so I made a reservation for us at Heirloom, one of my (previously) favourite restaurants in the city as they do a healthy take on comfort food. We had dinner, and were off to the concert.

About 5 songs in, I started to feel bothered by the lights and the noise, and a little bit nauseous. I realized that I had been ‘glutened,’ my unofficial name for when I accidentally either eat gluten or am cross contaminated from eating out. I tried to stick it out, but could tell it was going to get worse and that I was going to be really sick. I ended up leaving the concert, spending most of the night really ill, and recovering most of that week, as it’s never just a one day event.

How does this have anything to do with my skin? Well, that week, I started to notice red bumps on the back of my arms. I realized I hadn’t had these since I was sick 6 years ago and still an undiagnosed Celiac. It was a huge reminder about the signs that your body might be giving you, via your skin and what to look out for.

Here are 3 common skin conditions with suggestions as to what’s going on and what you can do to improve them:

Red Bumps On The Back Of Your Arms

This is also known as Keratosis Pilaris or chicken skin, and is incredibly common in those with digestive problems, particularly Celiac or gluten intolerant folks. Given that you may not be absorbing your nutrients if your digestion is compromised, these little bumps can be a sign that you are deficient in the following nutrients:

  • Vitamin A
  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin D
  • Zinc
  • Essential Fatty Acids (Omega 3s)

While supplementing with these is an option (and for Omega 3s is a good idea), you may want to first address the root cause of why you aren’t absorbing these nutrients with a Digestive Healing Protocol (you can book a free 10 minute consult with me if you want to learn more about that). From there, you would then reintroduce foods that are high in the above nutrients, and make sure to get about 30 minutes of sunshine to get that Vitamin D back up.

Acne Rosacea

A report published by a group of researchers in Italy showed that acne rosacea is significantly more prevalent among people with a bacterial imbalance in their gut (SIBO – small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). Upon balancing out the gut bacteria, 20 of 28 participants showed significant improvements to their rosacea symptoms. One of the first steps in treating SIBO is to add a high quality probiotic to your daily routine. I like (and personally use) the HMF Intensive, no FOS, which you can get here.

Acne Rosacea is also an inflammatory condition, and therefore can be made significantly worse from stress, inflammatory foods like alcohol, coffee, sugar and starches too.

Eczema

More than 15 million Americans have eczema, and I would guess that Canada is no different (on a smaller scale). Eczema often starts as a baby, and is closely tied to two things: gut health and food intolerances. Interestingly, the majority of those with eczema also have a leaky gut, meaning that the intestinal walls have been damaged, allowing particles that should not pass through the gut to pass, causing inflammation, and auto-immune responses.

To help fix a leaky gut, again, similar to the red bumps on the back of your arms, you would want to do a digestive healing protocol. (Book a free 10 minute consult and I’ll give you the run down) and eliminate any foods that are causing you problems. I italicize you because everyone is different. For me, it’s gluten. For you, it might be pasteurized cow’s dairy, or even just eggs. We would help figure that out together.

To close this post, I came across this quote from Emily Bartlett, another holistic health practitioner and I think it’s a great reminder:

“Using cortizone cream (and other topical medications) to fix eczema is a bit like painting a rickety house that’s about to fall down.”

Mandy King is a Holistic Nutritionist and Gluten Free Guru who shares her expertise with She Does The City. For recipes and nutrition tips, visit her website, HEAL. Follow Mandy on Twitter @mandyking_HEAL. Like Healthy Eating and Living on Facebook here. You can also find Mandy on Pinterest and Instagram.